![deathspank demon gate to the east deathspank demon gate to the east](https://daemonmaster.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/deathgate01.gif)
The solar boat's travel through such gates can be described as follows. Gates described in the wall paintings of the Valley of the Kings Īccording to the descriptions provided by the wall paintings in regal tombs of the Valley of the Kings, each gate or pylon consisted of three elements: a) a spitfire snake placed in front of the access, b) the gate itself, described both as a true architectural portal and as a goddess, c) and its guardian deities. The guardian-gods too were given names that inspired terror and, above all, evoked their fearful powers: for example "Swallower Of Sinners" and "Existing On Maggots" - even if some texts avoided directly indicating their names, adding these largely unnamed gate deities of the underworld to the group of Egyptian divinities known to scholars, but impossible to inventory. The names of these last accesses - still feminine - are from time to time disturbing as the 14th ("Mistress Of Anger – Dancing On Blood") or harmless as the 3rd ("Mistress Of The Altar").
![deathspank demon gate to the east deathspank demon gate to the east](https://riotpixels.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Demon-of-Deaths-Gate-Magic-2014-700x352-500x251.jpg)
Other funerary texts mention 21 "Secret Portals Of The Mansion Of Osiris In The Field Of Reeds" with their own names and epithets and protected by zoo-anthropomorfic deities often depicted crouched on the ground and holding large, threatening knives. Chapter 144 of the Book of the Dead mentions seven gates, each with its own God, a Doorkeeper and a Herald: for example, the 7th gate is guarded by the god "Sharpest Of Them All", by the doorkeeper "Strident Of Voice" and by the herald "Rejector Of Rebels". The walls of many Pharaonic tombs in the Valley of the Kings are decorated with the texts of the Book of Gates, which describes the twelve gates or pylons of the underworld: in spite of being imagined as architectural barriers to all intents and purposes, the gates were individually named as goddesses. According to a more general view, every gate was guarded by a minor god who allowed access only to the souls capable of pronouncing the secret name of the god himself, as a sort of "password". Sometimes more than 1,000 guardian deities are listed. Īncient funerary texts provide many different descriptions of the afterlife gates. The Egyptians believed that in the netherworld, the Duat, there were various gates, doors and pylons crossed every night by the solar boat ( Atet) of the sun-god Ra and by the souls directed to the world of the dead.