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However, Unis’s tomb is visited by most tourists to Sakkara because it is the earliest known pyramid to be inscribed with the so-called Pyramid Texts. The white walls of the burial chamber and antechamber are completely covered with incised hieroglyphs painted a pale blue. The ceiling is star inlaid, and the total effect is quite lovely.

The Pyramid Texts are very ancient. The language is archaic, and the religious beliefs which are described are confused and contradictory, suggesting an accumulation of generations of changing dogma. The Egyptians were broad-minded, and the idea of logical exclusiveness never troubled them. In the same body of texts the dead king is described as occupying all of several Afterworlds. He may (rather beautifully) “become one with the imperishable stars,” the pole stars which, in this latitude, never set; he may become a ba, a human-headed bird that flits from tree to tomb; he might journey to the Land of the West or inhabit a lovely paradise called the Fields of Yaru, located in the northeastern heavens, where the grain grew taller than earthly grain and the dreadful ferryman “Turnface” waited to carry the souls of the just to their reward.

In later times these texts, and the magical protection they provided, were taken over, in altered form, by the humbler folk, who had them painted inside their wooden coffins. In this stage they are called the Coffin Texts. During the New Kingdom period the texts were written on papyrus scrolls and were changed even more. Today these later texts are often lumped together under the general name of The Book of the Dead, but in ancient times there were several different collections, such as The Book of Coming Forth by Day, referring to the emergence of the soul from the tomb.

The Pyramid Texts are often described as “religious” in nature, yet their primary function was not the affirmation of a faith or a belief. Like the pyramids, they were designed to serve the end of survival. The pyramid protected the body of the dead king, and the texts assured his soul of continued life—life as a god, as a ruler of gods, or even as a humble rower in the boat of the gods—but life, at any cost and in any role. In the strictest sense, the Pyramid Texts are magical rather than religious. “What I tell you three times is true,” said the Bellman; and, like much of Lewis Carroll, this is more than just a solemn absurdity. It is actually a good expression of one of the basic principles of magic (and those other manipulative activities, advertising and politics), in which the Word, spoken or written, can affect actuality. If saying a thing three times makes it true, then saying it more than three times makes it even truer—neither Madison Avenue nor the necromancer’s textbooks worries about comparative degrees of absolutes. Modern political campaigns have made deliberate, cynical use of this principle, whose success depends to some extent on the gullibility of the hearer.

Repetition is important, but the Word itself has great significance. Primitive peoples know the import of a man’s name, and they guard their own with care lest an enemy learn it and use it against its owner. Incantations and “spells” are elements of most magical formulae. The Egyptians, who were known to later ages as great magicians, used written words to produce the real thing in their mortuary activities. In case the regular offerings made to the dead by their posterity were neglected, lists of food and drink could make good the lack. There is a constant harping on the word living in all the funerary texts; the dead man lives, he is living, he lives forever and ever. By inscribing the texts that describe the future life, or lives, of the soul in the very chamber where the mummy lay, the magical significance of the Word was made stronger and the dead man had further assurance of immortality.

It was logical enough that, while considering other means of ensuring life everlasting, the Egyptians should have paid attention to the preservation of the