Apepi, Book of Overthrowing of

An Egyptian work that forms a considerable portion of the funerary papyrus of Nesi-Amsu. It deals with the diurnal combat between Ra the Sun-God and Apepi the great serpent and personification of spiritual evil. Several chapters (notably 31, 33, and 35-39) are obviously borrowed from the Book of the Dead, or Papyrus of Ani. Its 15 chapters contain a great deal of repetition and details concerning various methods for the destruction of Apepi, including many magical directions.

It stipulates that the name of Apepi must be written in green on a papyrus and then burnt. Wax figures of his attendant fiends were to be made, mutilated, and burnt, in the hope that, through the agency of sympathetic magic, their prototypes might be injured or destroyed.

Another portion of the work details the creative process and describes how men and women were formed from the tears of the god Khepera. This portion is known as The Book of Knowing the Evolutions of Ra. The work is evidently very ancient, as is shown by the circumstance that many variant readings occur, and only one copy is known. The funeral papyrus in which it is contained was discovered at Thebes in 1860, purchased by the archaeologist A. H. Rhind, and sold to the trustees of the British Museum by David Bremner. The linen on which it is written is of very fine texture, measures 19 feet by 9 inches, and has been translated by Wallis Budge in Archaeologia (Vol. 52, Part 2).