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Abstract It is evident that this studyThe significance of this study is demonstrated in the fact that it does not only study heads in ancient Egypt, but it also examines and considers their religious and metaphorical significances in textual and iconographic sources in various monuments as well as funerary, magical, mythical, medical and religious texts. The thesis particularly considers decapitation as a punishment for both the living and the dead. Furthermore, it studies the decapitated deities and the divine decapitators. This thesis considers the use of sources from a wide historical, monumental and textual scope. It studies the head and its significance during the Old Kingdom through iconographic sources represented in scenes on walls of tombs as well as textual sources represented in the Pyramid Texts. It also studies the head during the Middle Kingdom through iconographic sources and textual sources represented in the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Two Ways. Furthermore, it examines the heads during New Kingdom through iconographic sources as well as texts in the books of the afterlife and notably the Amduat, the Book of the Dead, and the Book of Gates. The scenes included in this thesis form patterns in different coherent groups related to each other. All the scenes are presented in the form of documents, which have been arranged in a chronological order. There are no religious scenes of decapitation dating from the Old Kingdom. The religious scenes of decapitation are from the royal and the private tombs. demonstrates the importance of the head and the fear of losing it in the afterlife. The head has four of the human body’s five main senses, namely sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Furthermore, it shares the fifth sense, touch. Therefore, the loss of the head was one of the most feared destinies in the afterlife. Thus, the final consequence of decapitation was a second death. This dissertation present significant conclusions of the study of the head in ancient Egypt. The theme of decapitation is attested in the earliest Egyptian iconography such as the Narmer Palette and, later, it became common for the royal tradition. Private threat-formulae were inscribed on walls of tombs, and they were used in execration magic, as decapitation was executed as a commonly accepted way of dealing with enemies and trespassers. The term Hsq used to denote the act of decapitation originally describe the method of execution intended for the king’s enemies who were usually foreigners. This punishment was probably reserved for people who were deprived of their status for specific serious reasons. During the Old Kingdom, the term Hsq was attested numerous times in the Pyramid Texts. The negative consequences of decapitation and the necessity of preserving the head knotted onto the body were frequently discussed in the books of the afterlife including the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead, the Book of Amduat, etc. The decapitation was regarded as a “Second death” which probably terminated hopes for the afterlife. The way of slaughtering the sacrificial animals did not change throughout the ancient Egyptian history. The slaughterers always begin slaughtering by cutting through the animal’s throat. |