The root jꜤr and its determinatives in the royal and private funerary texts of the Old Kingdom: Reflections on the afterlife in Egypt at the end of the Third Millennium

In the Pyramid Texts and private funerary texts of Old Kingdom Egypt, the lexical root jꜤr [ASCEND] occurs mainly in the form of the verbs jꜤ, “rise”, “ascend”, and sjꜤ, “raise”, “cause to ascend”. However, there is an essential difference in the use of these verbs in the royal and private sphere. From a graphic point of view, the determinatives that accompany the phonetic spelling of these words in the Pyramid Texts are signs representing funerary buildings of early dynastic times, while in the private texts the sign of the road N31 and the double staircase O41 are almost always used. Furthermore, the phraseology and the plot contexts are also opposite: rich and diverse in the Pyramid Texts, where an aerial ascent to the sky is described, and strongly stereotyped and formulaic in the private ones, where an earthly ascent to the West is alluded to. Graphic iconicity, textual plots, and archaeological referentiality explain each other allowing for a better understanding of a complex cultural reality. This article addresses this case study in order to reflect on beliefs about the afterlife in Egypt at the end of the Third Millennium. The long-debated issue of the “democratisation” of the afterlife is critically revisited.