The Book of the Dead - A Prayer to the Sun-God Ra

The Book of the Dead is thought to be one of the oldest collections of ancient Egyptian texts. In Chapter 64 a speaker supplicates himself to the sun-god Ra, and in the chapter's devoutness it sounds like a psalm or prayer out of the Old Testament. The many aspirants who were buried with sections of the book hoped for admittance into second head-a-pat, a place also called the Field of Reads. While the pharaohs pictured the afterlife as a high place filled with radiant stars, Egyptians began picturing a more earthly scene when they thought of heaven.