Offering Formula and Ritual

By Marie Parsons
Walk through a cemetery today and take note that on this grave or that, flowers, cards, and
other tokens of memory lie placed by some loving hand. In some places, some graves might
even have food or drink offerings lovingly placed thereon.

If this is our custom, then we are truly akin to the ancient Egyptians. In the pre-mummification
days of the predynastic period, the deceased members of the community were carefully
placed in pits in the hot dry desert sand. The bodies would desiccate but would otherwise be
reasonably preserved. Somehow, in someway, the ancient Egyptians conceived the idea that,
as the body was preserved, so too would be the style of living, and the need for sustenance,
just as in life.
Flinders Petrie discovered such funerary goods. He wrote down his observations: "In the
prehistoric graves there is a full supply for the requirements of the dead. The food offerings
were burnt to ashes at a burning place in the mouth of the cemetery valley; a dozen or
sometimes fifty large jars of the ashes were deposited in the grave. Jars of beer and of water
were also placed, a lesser jar of ointment, cakes of bread and other food. Toilet objects were
providedas a palette for eye paint, a stock of malachite, combs and hairpins. There were
weapons such as large knives, forked flint lances, copper or flint daggers, stone maces and
flaying knives.

The simplest form of offering was found in position at one site: it was a reed mat laid before
the false door of the tomb, with a conical dish on it to hold a pile of flour. The coloring of the
hetep sign in the earliest glyphs at Meidum shows the rush mat and binding strings and pot
exactly like what is found. On the top of a large 6th Dynasty mastaba at Dendera, the pottery
offering dishes and jars were still in place, lying undisturbed after thousands of years."
It should be noted that what Petrie referred to by the hetep hieroglyph is represented as a loaf
of bread placed as an offering on such a mat, and this sign was used in words such as
"offering" or "altar". Even when the simple mat was replaced by more permanent stone altars
at the beginning of the Old Kingdom, the altar often had the offering hieroglyph carved on the
top, or was made in the form of the offering sign. The upper surfaces of the tables were often
carved with images of loaves, trussed ducks, and libation or other vessels required. These
images would then serve as magical substitutes for the real food offerings, backed-up by the
offering formula and lists of specific offerings. Often, there were cups, grooves or channels cut
into the surface so that beer, water or wine could be poured onto the table.
The ancient Egyptians believed early on that to obtain eternal life, the individual must join the
gods after death. Since to ancient Egyptians, death was thus merely a continuation on a
different plane of existence of the life they had known, shelter and material goods were
considered necessary for the deceaseds well-being. A tomb equipped with clothing and
everyday utensils as well as food and drink would supply those needs. Just as offerings were
also presented to the images of gods in order to nourish and sustain them, so also were food
and other offerings made to the deceaseds ka (soul) to nourish and sustain it. The food was
brought into the tomb-chapel, where it was offered to the deceased at the false door, from
which his ka would emerge to partake of the items spiritually.

From predynastic times as Petrie discovered, and probably earlier still, offerings were made
to the gods and to deceased person on small rats of woven reeds. This sustenance might be
supplied for a dead person by the family, generation after generation, or an officiant might be
paid to maintain the necessary daily care. In the latter case, tomb owners and the priesthood
of the local temple contracted to ensure future sustenance be made as offerings to the
deceased individuals ka during the generations to come.
Yet family lines could come to an end, economic and other situations change. To safeguard
against the cessation of sustenance within the tomb, the magical power of the written and
spoken word was also employed, to ensure a continual supply of offerings. So hieroglyphs
and canonical art were used to substitute for the actual offerings by providing a ritual
guarantee of eternal sustenance, texts and images creating directly and perfectly the
necessary food and drink for the dead forever.
Despite the overabundance of offerings, the material offering was not the essential thing. The
act of devotion was more important than the material gift, as was attested by the substitute
offerings. If actual food offerings stopped for any reason, the offering formula would guarantee
an eternal supply of food and enable the deceased to dispense with the assistance of the
funerary priests for his continued sustenance. Reciting the offering formula was an adequate
substitute for the actual offering. Tomb-owners often are depicted in text as addressing
themselves to passers-by demanding that the offering formula be read on their behalf. As the
owners name is read in the formula, the author, the tomb-owner, is made to leave on in the
memory of posterity.

The hetep-di-nisu, or "a gift which the king gives", is the offering formula or prayer asking for
offerings to be given to the deceased. It first appears as the principal inscription on the False
Door stelae of the Early Dynastic period, which formed the focus of food offerings in early
private tombs, but it continued to be used on funerary stelae ad coffins through to the GraecoRoman period. From at least the 4th dynasty, the deceased was often depicted sitting or
standing before an offering table, beside which was an inscription enumerating all that was
offered. Later on, in the 18th Dynasty, the tombs of the Theban necropolis portrayed the
offerings as a banquet scene with guests, servants and entertaining musicians. As shown
below, the offering formula was still used far into the Late Period.
Hetep also means to be pleased, happy, gracious, to be peaceful, to become calm, to satisfy,
to pacify. Hetep had to do with gifts in a perspective of communication between the worlds,
given in gratitude, received in happiness and grace, and leading to contentment,
graciousness, mercy and peace. Because the word hetep could signify the concept of rest,
peace or satisfaction, the sign also appears in the design of jewelry and other small items
made to convey such messages such as "The heart of the gods is satisfied."
One early example of the "gift [or boon] which the king gives" comes from the Old Kingdom
period, specifically an Inscription in the Giza Mastaba of Princess Ni-Sedjer-Kai, early 5th
Dynasty:
"An offering which the king gives and Anubis, lord of the necropolis, first of the gods hall: May
she be buried in the western necropolis at great old age. May she travel on the good ways on
which a revered one travels well. May offerings be given to her on New Years feast, the Thoth
feast, the First of the Year feast, the wag-feast, the Sokar feast, the Great Flame feast, the
Brazier feast, the Procession-of-Min feast, the monthly sadj-feast, the Beginning of the Month
feast, the Beginning of the Half-Month feast, every feast, every day, to the royal daughter, the
royal ornament, priestess of Hathor, priestess of Khufu, Ni-Sedjer-Kai".
So the offering formula employed in the funerary cult and often inscribed on offering tables
usually began with the phrase "Hetep di nisu:" an "offering which the king grants"denoting the
concept of requisite royal license. The formulae then continue to name deities such as Osiris
and Anubis, through whom the kings grant would be administered, and to list choice offerings
such as beer, bread, oxen, fowl, incense and clothing, a list of the various quantities of items
of food and drink that the ka of the deceased requires, which were supplied magically by the
ritual inscription even if not actually present.

Typically the first line of the offering formula asks for the king to make gifts to
the gods Osiris or Anubis. But why is the king named herein? After all, arent the offerings
being made by the family in many cases, as said above? This has to do with the religious
practice and procedure of the Egyptian people. The text of the formula indicates that the
sustenance of the ka of the deceased was not simply the responsibility of the surviving
relatives, but that it was necessary for the king, seen as THE priest or intermediary between
the Gods and the people, to intercede on behalf of the deceased.
Since the king was the main priest, the only actual priest in Egypt, it was only the king who
was evershown making offerings to the gods in the temples. This idea was carried over into
the giving of offerings in the tombs, where the king was also named as the giver. The formula
begins: "An offering that the king gives". The essential role of the king as intermediary
between the gods and mankind required that he should strike a bargain with the gods,
whereby he offered goods to them in exchange for prosperity and harmony in the land, and
also, he would intercede on behalf of the dead to ensure them a prosperous afterlife. The
dead were given offerings on the occasion of the burial, and their offerings were to be
renewed forever, on principle, at certain named festivals such as the New Year festival,
the Thoth festival, the Wag festival, the Sokar festival and others.
The reason for this was that offerings went from the temple to the necropolis. Since the Old
Kingdom, the practice was that offerings presented to the main god of the temple were carried
out of the sanctuary, presented to gods having subsidiary cults in the temple, then to statues
of kings and private persons placed in the temple courts, and finally to the necropolis. The
offerings were then distributed to the priests and all the staff involved in the rituals as a
reward, or salary, for their work.
The Pyramid Texts contain examples of the hetep di nisu as well:
Utterance 172: A boon which the king and Geb grant to this King; there is given to you every
offering and every oblation which you can desire, whereby It will be well with you before the
god for ever and ever.
Utterance 437: A boon which the King grants, a boon which Anubis grants, your thousand of
bread, your thousand of beer, your thousand of t-wr-bread which came forth from the Broad
Hall, your thousand of all sweet things, your thousand of oxen, your thousand of everything
which you eat and on which you set your heart
.
Utterance 599: A boon which the King grants and Geb grants of these choice joints,
invocation offerings for all gods who shall bring into being all good things for the King and who
shall cause to endure this construction and this pyramid of the King, in accordance with what
the King wishes in the matter, for ever and ever. O all you gods who shall cause this pyramid
and this construction of the King to be fair and endure: You shall be effective, you shall be
strong, you shall have your souls, you shall have power, you shall have given to you a boon
which the king grants of bread and beer, oxen and fowl, clothing and alabaster; you shall
receive your gods-offerings, you shall choose for yourselves your choice joints, you shall have
your oblations made to you, you shall take possession of the Wrrt-crown in the midst of the
Two Enneads.

On stelae, the formula phrase is usually accompanied by a depiction of the deceased sitting
in front of an offering table heaped with food. Some tomb paintings also show Horus, son and
heir of Osiris, as the donor, standing with arm upraised in the attitude of invocation before the
shrine, statue or stela of the god, or deceased, and he pronounces the offering formula. The
table was generally physically placed in the tomb chapel or other accessible place so that
physical offerings could be brought in by the funerary priests, if it was a royal mortuary
offering, or by relatives of the deceased.
The earliest examples come from the fourth dynasty at Meidum. These do not mention the
king, but only Anubis. The opening phrases in the Old Kingdom read "An offering which the
king gives and an offering that Osiris gives" introducing the kind and the god as equal donors.
The gifts are not limited to food offerings, but include a good burial, admission to the realm of
the spirits, and even a list of festivals at which the offerings are to be made. The recitation of
the formula is illustrated in tombs by a man with his right arm outstretched, and in fact the
hieroglyph for "to offer" is the outstretched arm with the hand holding out a loaf. Other men
are often also shown offering poured water, burning incense, kneeling at the offering table and
reading the ritual from a scroll.
By the First Intermediate Period the phrase read "An offering that the king gives TO Osiris,
that he may in turn give invocation offerings." An example of this development comes from the
Stela of Sahathor, whose career began under Amenemhat II in the 12th Dynasty. He and his
wife are shown on the funerary stela beside a pile of offerings. Captions on either side of the
statue-niche describe how many expeditions Sahathor undertook for the king, and how he
supervised work on sixteen statues for the royal funerary complex.
The offering formula from this stela is translated thus:
An offering-which-the-king-gives to Osiris, lord of Busiris, the great god, lord of Abydos, an
invocation offering of bread and beer, flesh and fowl, alabaster and linen, incense and
unguent, at the Wag festival, at the festival of Thoth, at the procession of Min(?), at the Burnt
Offerings. O you living who are upon earth, who shall pass by this chapel in the necropolis,
going north, going south, may you say "It is pure! A thousand of bread, a thousand of beer, a
thousand of flesh and fowl, oryx and gazelle, and everything on which a god lives, for the
spirit of the blessed one, the assistant treasurer Sahathor, true of voice."
As time went on, other gods would also be named in the offering formula. An example of the
offering formula from the New Kingdom period comes from Tomb of Paheri at el-Kab:

An offering given by the King to Amun, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, King of eternity,
lord of [Link] Nekhbet, the White one of Nekhenand Osiris Khentamentiu, Lord
of Thinis, great in Abydos, and Hathor, mistress of the [Link] Ptah-Sokar, lord of Shetyt,
Anubis, lord of Rostau, and the Enneads great and small, May they give a thousand of bread,
beer, beef and fowl, a thousand of food-offerings, a thousand of drink-offerings, all the plants
that sprout from earth, a thousand of all things good and pure, that are offered to the eternal
lord.
And from the Late Period comes an example from the Statue Inscription of Harwa:
An offering that the King gives to Montu, lord of Thebes, that he may give provisions of bread,
beer, cakes, oxen, fowl, alabaster and clothing, incense and unguent, all things good and
pure whereon a god lives, which heaven gives, earth produces, and Hapy brings forth, from
the table of the Lord of Eternity, on the monthly feast, the half-monthly feast, on the Thoth
feast, and on every feast, every day, to the ka of the one honored by Montu, Lord of Thebes,
the true, beloved Kings friend, Harwa.

May we today treat our honored dead with at least the same constant memorials that the
Egyptians did.