A name and a job. Nothing else survives — and that is the finding, not a gap in our work. Arrives with the Book of the Dead.
Ari-en-ab-f
a name in Budge's list of the Gods of the Book of the Dead
What is attested, and exactly how much
He is in Budge's compiled list of the Gods of the Book of the Dead (Gods of the Egyptians II, ch. XX), a run of several hundred divine names transcribed in hieroglyphs with no commentary. That is a real attestation — Budge assembled the list from the Book of the Dead, so the name was in a papyrus before it was in his index.
It is also the whole of it. No passage in the eighteen archived sources has been located in which he does, says or receives anything.
Budge indexes him once — "Ari-en-ab-f, ii. 325" — pointing at the name-list itself.
Why this is ○ name-only and not ⚠ audit
The distinction matters and the corpus has been sloppy about it before.
An ⚠ audit entry is for a name that could not be traced to an acceptable source at all, or that turned out to be a door, a tool, a place or a person — see the Epithet Trap.
This is different. The name is in a list of Book of the Dead gods, compiled by an Egyptologist from the text. It is a god; what is missing is everything else. ○ name-only is exactly the grade for that, and the entry stays this length until a passage turns up.
One letter from a different god, in the same index
Four lines above him Budge indexes Ari-em-ab-f, i. 419; ii. 325. That is the thirty-sixth assessor of Maat, who has a roster position, a home town and a sin.
Ari-en-ab-f and Ari-em-ab-f differ by one letter and share an index page. They may be one name miscopied or two names correctly copied, and nothing in the archive decides it. The corpus does not merge them (C336, C379) — but anyone using this entry should know that the far better-attested near-twin exists.
The record
Every claim above traces to a row here. Source, exact place in that source, and what it actually supports.
| Source | Locus | Attests |
|---|---|---|
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* II, "Gods of the Book of the Dead," ch. XX | **Ari-en-ab-f** among the transcribed names |
[budge-1904] | *ibid.*, index | "**Ari-en-ab-f**, ii. 325" |
Sources
[budge-1904]— Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (1904), vol. II. Public domain, archived. The name-list is a transcription, which is where Budge is most dependable — and it carries no context whatsoever.
Open questions
- Read the indexed pages. GotE ii. 325 — which is the name-list itself, so the index points back at the only attestation. A numbered page in an archived book is the cheapest work in this corpus, and it is the only thing that would move this entry.
- Which chapter of the Book of the Dead? Budge's list does not say, and the answer would give the name a text.
- Is he Ari-em-ab-f? The thirty-sixth assessor, one letter away. Compare the hieroglyphs, which Budge prints for both.
Cite this entry
Research grade: ○name-only — A name and a function in a spell list. That is all that survives.
"Ari-en-ab-f", The Egyptian God Corpus,
graded name-only, retrieved 2026-08-10.