Ab-ta

Overview

Ab-ta is a serpent who is a door.

He guards the pylon of the ninth division of the underworld — the gate the sun must pass through in the ninth hour of the night. Budge names the pylon Aat-shefsheft, and states plainly: "the serpent which guards it is Ab-ta" [budge-1904].

He is also the subject of what may be the bleakest sentence in Egyptian funerary literature, and it is quoted in full below.

Attestation history

The gate. Budge, describing the ninth division: "The pylon of the Ninth Division or Ninth Hour is called Aat-shefsheft; the serpent which guards it is Ab-ta; and the guardians of the corridor are Anhefta and Ermen-ta. The wall is guarded by nine gods in mummied forms" [budge-1904].

Note the structure, because the census gets it wrong (see the Aai): Ab-ta guards the pylon, and two different beings guard the corridor behind it. They are three figures at three posts, not a trio.

The opening, and the closing. The Book of Gates gives the formula. The god Sa addresses him:

Sa saith unto AB-TA, "Open thy gate to Ra, unfold thy portal to KHUTI, so that he may illumine the thick darkness, and may send light into the hidden abode." [budge-1905-gates]

And then, immediately:

This gate closeth after this god hath passed through it, and the souls who are on the other side of it wail when they hear this door closing upon them. [budge-1905-gates]

Budge's illustration of the scene is captioned "The Gate of Ab-ta" [budge-1905-gates].

What the texts say

The light is passing through, not staying. This is the detail that gives the ninth division its character. The sun is not rescuing anyone. It opens the gate, crosses, and the gate shuts — and what the text records is the sound of the door from the far side, and the crying that follows it.

Egyptian funerary literature is usually read as reassurance, and much of it is. This is not. Somebody wrote down what it is like to be left behind, once a night, for ever.

Ab-ta is not hostile. He is not Apophis; nothing suggests he is fought or defeated. He is asked, and he opens. The serpent here is infrastructure — a mechanism with a name, which is the standard Egyptian arrangement for gates, since passing one requires knowing what it is called.

A serpent as a door is not a metaphor. In the Book of Gates the guardian serpent is drawn as part of the gate structure. The door and the animal are one object.

Iconography

A serpent at the pylon of the ninth division [budge-1904], shown in Budge's plate as the gate itself [budge-1905-gates]. No human or composite form is recorded.

Cult and practice

None. Ab-ta exists inside a text; he is known because the text is what a dead person needed in order to get past him.