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Key Details
Type
GateMythology
Egyptian Pantheon
Coordinates
25.7°N, 32.6°E
About This Location
Password at hour one
New Kingdom underworld books (Book of Gates, Amduat) divide the night into gates and hours. The first gate is where the sun-barque and the deceased must know names to pass. Tomb walls in the Valley of the Kings draw the doorkeepers. There is no civic cult of "First Gate." It is liturgical architecture for a royal night-journey. Later Book of the Dead spells keep the same anxiety: speak, or be turned back.
Primary Sources
“The first gate of the West: the name of its keeper is spoken, and the barque of Re enters the darkness.”
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