Bakhu and Manu

About Bakhu and Manu

Bakhu and Manu are the twin mountains that the Egyptians placed at the eastern and western edges of the world, the points where the sun rises and sets. Bakhu is the mountain of the east, behind which the sun emerges at dawn; Manu is the mountain of the west, behind which it disappears at dusk to begin its journey through the underworld. Between these two peaks the sun-god Ra travels across the sky each day, and the pair frames the entire visible course of the sun. They belong to the cosmic geography of Egyptian religion, the imagined landscape of the world's edges through which the sun and the dead must pass.

The two mountains are directly connected to the most fundamental of Egyptian cosmic images, the akhet or horizon. The akhet hieroglyph, a sun-disk resting between two peaks, is among the most familiar signs in the Egyptian script, and it depicts precisely this cosmography: the sun in the gap between the mountains at the edge of the world. Bakhu and Manu are the two peaks of this sign, the eastern and western horizons given the form of mountains, and the akhet between them is the liminal zone of sunrise and sunset, the threshold between the visible world and the hidden realm of the night.

The mountains appear in the cosmographic and mortuary literature from the earliest periods. The Pyramid Texts (c. 2400-2300 BCE) name Bakhu and Manu in connection with the sun's course and the king's ascension, and the Coffin Texts (c. 2100-1700 BCE) and the Book of the Dead continue to locate the sun's rising and setting at these peaks. Chapter 108 of the Book of the Dead concerns Bakhu, the mountain of the east, and the great serpent who dwells there. The mountains are not merely scenery but charged locations, guarded by serpents and deities and marking the boundaries across which the most important cosmic transitions occur.

Manu, the western mountain, carried particular importance for the dead. The west was the land of the setting sun and of the deceased, who were called 'westerners,' and the western mountain was the gateway through which the sun and the dead alike passed into the underworld. The Theban necropolis lay beneath a prominent peak on the west bank of the Nile, and the goddess Hathor in her funerary aspect was 'mistress of the western mountain,' the divine protectress who received the dead as they entered her realm. Bakhu and Manu thus stand at the meeting-point of the daily solar cycle and the journey of the dead, the eastern and western thresholds of the Egyptian cosmos. As the eastern and western limits between which the sun makes its daily passage, the twin mountains gave concrete form to the Egyptian conception of a bounded and ordered cosmos with critical edges, and they bound together the daily journey of the sun and the human passage into the afterlife at the same eastern threshold of rebirth and western threshold of death. Through the akhet sign and the cosmographic texts, the twin mountains were woven deeply into the Egyptian imagination of the world's shape, and the real western peak above the Theban necropolis was identified with the mythic Manu, binding the cosmic geography of the horizon to the actual landscape of the dead.

The Story

The cosmic geography of the Egyptians placed the inhabited world, the valley and Delta of the Nile, at the center of a larger structure bounded by the edges of the earth, where the sky met the ground and the sun crossed between the visible world and the hidden realms beyond. At the eastern and western limits of this structure stood the two mountains, Bakhu in the east and Manu in the west, between which the sun made its daily passage. To follow the sun's course is to follow the narrative these mountains frame.

Each dawn, the sun-god rose from behind Bakhu, the eastern mountain. Through the night the sun had traveled through the underworld, the Duat, and at the appointed hour it emerged at the eastern horizon, climbing the sky from behind the eastern peak as the new day began. The moment of sunrise was the moment of the sun's rebirth, its emergence from the realm of night into the realm of light, and Bakhu was the place of this emergence, the eastern threshold through which the reborn sun entered the visible world. In the form of the scarab Khepri, the rising sun came forth at Bakhu to begin its journey across the sky.

Through the day the sun traveled westward across the body of the sky-goddess Nut, arching from the eastern mountain toward the western. The visible course of the sun, from dawn to dusk, was the journey between Bakhu and Manu, and the two mountains marked the beginning and end of the sun's daytime voyage. The sun-god in his day-bark sailed the heavens from one horizon to the other, watched and worshipped by all the world as he made his crossing.

At dusk the sun reached Manu, the western mountain, and passed behind it. The setting of the sun was its entry into the western horizon, the threshold of the underworld, and Manu was the gateway through which the sun-god left the visible world to begin the perilous night-journey through the Duat. The sky-goddess Nut was said to swallow the sun at the western horizon, and the sun descended into the realm of night, into the body of the underworld, to travel its twelve hours of darkness before emerging once more at Bakhu in the east. The western mountain was thus the place of the sun's daily death and disappearance, as the eastern was the place of its rebirth.

The western mountain held a special meaning for human beings, for the west was the land of the dead. The Egyptians called the deceased 'westerners,' those who had gone to the west, and the setting sun was the model for the dead, who like the sun passed into the western horizon in hope of rebirth. The deceased followed the sun through the western mountain into the underworld, and the goddess Hathor, 'mistress of the western mountain,' received them. At Thebes the western necropolis lay beneath a great natural peak on the west bank of the Nile, and this peak was identified with the mythic Manu, the goddess of the western mountain watching over the tombs of the dead.

The mountains were not empty thresholds but inhabited and guarded places. Chapter 108 of the Book of the Dead describes Bakhu, the eastern mountain, as the dwelling of a great serpent, many cubits long, who must be confronted or pacified, and the cosmographic texts populate the horizons with deities, guardians, and powers stationed at these critical boundaries. The akhet, the horizon-zone between the peaks, was a charged and dangerous region, the place of transition where the sun and the dead crossed between worlds, and it required the protection of divine powers and the knowledge of the right names and spells to pass through safely.

The akhet hieroglyph fixed this cosmography in the very writing-system of the Egyptians. The sign of the sun-disk resting in the gap between two peaks is the picture of Bakhu and Manu with the sun between them, and it was used to write the word for 'horizon' and entered the names of places and monuments associated with the sun's rising. The Great Sphinx at Giza, for instance, was connected to the akhet, and the pyramids on the western edge of the valley evoked the mountains of the horizon. Through the akhet sign and the cosmographic texts, the twin mountains of Bakhu and Manu were woven into the Egyptian imagination of the world's shape and the sun's eternal journey between its eastern and western edges. The twin mountains of Bakhu and Manu thus framed both the daily journey of the sun and the human passage into death, the same western threshold receiving the setting sun and the deceased, and the same eastern threshold giving back the reborn sun and offering the hope of resurrection, so that the cosmic geography of the horizon and the destiny of the dead were bound together at the edges of the Egyptian world.

Symbolism

Bakhu and Manu symbolize the boundaries of the cosmos and the thresholds of transition, the points at which the sun and the dead cross between the visible world and the hidden realms. As the eastern and western mountains framing the sun's course, they embody the Egyptian sense of the world as a bounded order with critical edges where the most important passages occur.

The pairing of the two mountains symbolizes the duality and balance that pervade Egyptian thought. East and west, sunrise and sunset, rebirth and death, the two peaks express the fundamental polarity of the solar cycle, the daily alternation of light and darkness, emergence and disappearance. Like the two banks of the Nile or the two crowns of the king, Bakhu and Manu are a complementary pair whose opposition structures the cosmos, and the sun's journey between them is the movement that binds the polarity into a single recurring cycle.

Bakhu, the eastern mountain, symbolizes rebirth, emergence, and the renewal of life. As the place where the sun rises after its night-journey through the underworld, Bakhu is the threshold of resurrection, the point at which the sun comes forth renewed into the world of light. The eastern horizon carries all the hope of the Egyptian afterlife, the promise that what passes into the west will rise again in the east, and Bakhu is the symbol of this return from darkness to light.

Manu, the western mountain, symbolizes death, transition, and entry into the hidden realm. As the place where the sun sets and passes into the underworld, Manu is the threshold of death, the gateway through which the sun and the dead leave the visible world. The west's association with the deceased, who were called 'westerners,' makes Manu the symbol of the journey into death, but a death modeled on the setting sun and therefore charged with the hope of rebirth, since what sets in the west will rise in the east.

The akhet, the horizon-zone between the peaks, symbolizes liminality itself, the in-between condition of transition. Neither fully in the visible world nor fully in the hidden realm, the horizon is the threshold across which the crossing happens, and its symbolism is that of all liminal places: charged, dangerous, and powerful, requiring protection and knowledge to traverse. The akhet is the zone of transformation, where the sun is reborn and where the dead pass from one mode of being to another.

The serpents and guardians of the mountains symbolize the dangers and the powers that attend the great cosmic transitions. The boundaries of the world are not freely crossed; they are guarded, and the serpent of Bakhu and the deities stationed at the horizons express the Egyptian sense that the thresholds between worlds are perilous and must be approached with the proper means. The guardians symbolize the seriousness of the passage, the cosmic importance of the moment when the sun crosses between worlds.

The akhet hieroglyph itself symbolizes the integration of this cosmography into the Egyptian understanding of the world. The sign of the sun between two peaks is the picture of the cosmos at its critical edges, and its use to write 'horizon' and to name solar places and monuments shows how deeply the image of Bakhu and Manu was woven into the Egyptian imagination of the shape of the world and the journey of the sun.

Cultural Context

Bakhu and Manu belong to the cosmic geography of ancient Egypt, the imagined landscape of the world's structure and edges that underlay Egyptian religion. The Egyptians conceived of the inhabited world as bounded by the limits of the earth, where the sky met the ground and the sun crossed between the visible realm and the hidden realms of night and the underworld. At these limits they placed the mountains of sunrise and sunset, fixing the abstract notion of the world's edges in concrete, named features of the cosmic landscape.

The twin mountains are inseparable from the akhet, the horizon, among the most fundamental concepts of Egyptian cosmology. The akhet hieroglyph, a sun-disk between two peaks, depicts the cosmography of Bakhu and Manu directly, and the word akhet, 'horizon,' was among the most important spatial terms in the Egyptian language. The horizon was the place of the sun's rising and setting, the threshold of transformation, and the concept pervaded Egyptian religion, appearing in the names of gods, places, and monuments. Bakhu and Manu are the two peaks that give the horizon its shape, and to understand them is to understand the Egyptian image of the world's edges.

The mountains appear in the cosmographic and mortuary literature across the whole of Egyptian history. The Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom name them in connection with the sun's course and the king's ascension to the sky; the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead continue to locate the sun's rising and setting at the eastern and western peaks. Chapter 108 of the Book of the Dead, concerning Bakhu and its serpent, and related chapters concerning the western mountain, show that the mountains were not merely poetic scenery but charged locations within the cosmography of the afterlife, requiring the knowledge and the spells that the mortuary texts supplied.

The western mountain had a particular cultural resonance because the west was the land of the dead. The deceased were 'westerners,' and the setting sun, passing into the western horizon, was the model for the dead who hoped to rise again as the sun rose. This association gave the western mountain a central place in Egyptian funerary belief, and it was reinforced by the geography of the Nile valley, where the cemeteries lay on the west bank, beneath the western cliffs, toward the setting sun. At Thebes, the western necropolis lay beneath a prominent natural peak, the modern el-Qurn, which was identified with the mythic western mountain and personified as a goddess, often a form of Hathor or the cobra-goddess Meretseger, 'she who loves silence,' mistress of the western peak.

The goddess Hathor in her funerary aspect was 'mistress of the western mountain,' the divine protectress who received the dead as they entered the realm of the west. This identification linked the cosmography of the mountains to the cult of a major goddess and to the practical religion of the necropolis, where the dead were buried and the mortuary cult maintained. The cosmic geography of Bakhu and Manu thus connected the grand scheme of the sun's daily journey to the intimate concerns of death and burial, the eastern and western mountains framing both the solar cycle and the human passage from life to the afterlife. James Allen's studies of Egyptian cosmology and Middle Egyptian provide the standard scholarly framework for understanding these terms and their place in Egyptian thought.

Cross-Tradition Parallels

The twin cosmic mountains of sunrise and sunset are a solution to a problem every cosmology must eventually address: if the universe is ordered, where are its edges, and what happens at them? Egypt's answer — two named mountains framing the sun's course, the eastern one a threshold of rebirth and the western one a gateway into death — is structurally rich because it binds together the solar cycle and the fate of the dead at the same two liminal points. Other traditions solved the same problem differently, and their divergences reveal what each culture most feared about the edges of the world.

Norse — Jötunheimr and Ásgarðr at the World's Edges (Prose Edda, Gylfaginning, c. 1220 CE)

In Norse cosmology the world is bounded by a great ocean surrounding the land of Midgard, beyond which lie the realms of the giants (Jötunheimr) and the cold wastes of Niflheim and Muspellsheim at the extremities. The edges of the world are inhabited by threatening powers — Jörmungandr the world-serpent encircles everything — and they are the source of the forces that will eventually break the world at Ragnarök. Both Egyptian and Norse cosmologies treat the world's edges as inhabited and dangerous rather than empty; both understand the boundaries as places where ordinary order gives way to something more fundamental. But the Norse edges are eschatological — they frame a cosmos heading toward destruction — while Bakhu and Manu are cyclical — they frame a cosmos perpetually renewed. Norse cosmology ends at the edges; Egyptian cosmology turns around at them.

Hindu — Mount Meru at the World's Center (Vishnu Purana, Book 2, c. 300-400 CE)

Hindu cosmology places Mount Meru at the center of the world as the cosmic axis around which the sun, moon, and stars revolve, its summit the seat of Brahma and the gods, its sides encrusted with the cardinal directions as geographic zones. The contrast with Bakhu and Manu is structural: where Hindu cosmology positions the sacred mountain at the center as the pivot of all motion, Egyptian cosmology positions the sacred mountains at the edges as the thresholds of transition. Hindu cosmology asks 'what is the center?' and answers with a mountain; Egyptian cosmology asks 'what are the edges?' and answers with two mountains. These are not equivalent moves — one organizes the cosmos centripetally around a fixed point, the other organizes it as a course between opposing thresholds.

Zoroastrian — Mount Hara Berezaiti at the Cosmic Rim (Avesta, Vendidad; Bundahishn, c. 9th century CE)

Zoroastrian cosmology describes the cosmic mountain Hara Berezaiti (or Alburz, 'High Watchman') as the mountain around which the sun revolves, circling it once each day and rising and setting behind its peaks. The souls of the dead travel to the peak of Hara Berezaiti to cross the Chinvat Bridge to judgment. The parallel with Bakhu and Manu is precise: a mountain at the world's edge serves as both the threshold of solar rising and setting and the gateway through which the dead pass to their afterlife. Where the Egyptian system has two mountains east and west, the Zoroastrian tradition concentrates the function in a single great mountain encircled by the sun. The Egyptian system distributes the solar-funerary threshold across two named edges; the Iranian system centralizes it in one towering peak. Both traditions use the point where the sun passes as the point where the dead are judged — the solar cycle and human death share the same threshold in both cosmologies.

Japanese — Yomi and the Sealed Threshold (Kojiki, compiled 712 CE)

In the Kojiki, Izanagi descends to retrieve Izanami from Yomi and flees back, sealing the boundary with a great boulder. The Egyptian western mountain and the Yomi-entrance share the logic of a threshold at the world's boundary where the dead pass. But Manu is open: the sun crosses it every night and returns every dawn, a permeable threshold of cyclical renewal. The Japanese threshold, once sealed, becomes a one-way door. The Egyptian edge is defined by perpetual crossing; the Japanese edge becomes permanent closure.

Modern Influence

Bakhu and Manu, as specific named mountains, are known chiefly to specialists in Egyptian religion, but the cosmography they represent, the horizon as the threshold of the sun's rising and setting, has had a wide influence through the akhet symbol and through the broader modern fascination with Egyptian ideas of death, the west, and solar rebirth. The akhet hieroglyph, the sun-disk between two peaks, is among the most recognizable of all Egyptian signs, and it has been widely reproduced in modern design, logos, and decorative art drawing on Egyptian themes, often without awareness of the twin mountains it depicts.

The Egyptian association of the west with the land of the dead has been a recurring point of interest in the comparative study of religion and in popular understanding of Egyptian belief. The image of the deceased as 'westerners' who follow the setting sun into the realm of the dead, and the hope of rebirth modeled on the sunrise, has been discussed in studies of how cultures orient death and the afterlife in space, and the Egyptian alignment of cemeteries toward the western horizon is a frequently cited example of cosmic geography shaping the physical organization of burial.

The horizon cosmology underlying Bakhu and Manu has figured in the modern study of Egyptian architecture and its alignment to the sun. The orientation of temples and tombs to the rising or setting sun, and the connection of monuments such as the Great Sphinx and the pyramids to the akhet and the eastern and western horizons, have been investigated by scholars of archaeoastronomy and Egyptian architecture, who have shown how the cosmography of the horizon shaped the placement and design of Egyptian sacred buildings. The very name of the Sphinx's location and of certain royal monuments incorporated the akhet, embedding the horizon cosmology in the built landscape.

The Theban western peak, el-Qurn, identified with the mythic western mountain and personified as the goddess of the necropolis, remains a striking feature of the landscape of the Valley of the Kings, and its pyramidal natural shape, looming over the royal tombs, has been noted by modern visitors and scholars as a possible reason for the choice of the valley as the royal burial-ground. The identification of this real peak with the mythic Manu links the cosmography of the twin mountains to among the most famous archaeological sites in the world.

In the broader reception of Egyptian religion, the theme of the sun's journey between the eastern and western mountains, its daily death in the west and rebirth in the east, has contributed to the enduring popular image of Egypt as a civilization centered on the sun and on the hope of resurrection. The cosmography of Bakhu and Manu, though rarely named, underlies the familiar modern picture of the Egyptian sun-god sailing his bark across the sky and through the underworld, rising and setting at the edges of a bounded and ordered world, an image that continues to shape the way the ancient Egyptian cosmos is imagined in books, museums, and popular media.

Primary Sources

The Pyramid Texts (Old Kingdom, Dynasties 5–6, c. 2350–2180 BCE; ed. Sethe 1908–22; trans. Faulkner 1969; Allen 2005) are the earliest literary sources to name the eastern and western mountains in connection with the sun's course and the king's ascension to the sky. Utterance 366 (Faulkner 1969, p. 119) invokes the horizon (akhet) in the context of the king's celestial ascension, and Utterance 432 (Faulkner 1969, p. 141) similarly places the king's movement in relation to the eastern and western horizons. These passages invoke the akhet concept in the context of the king's afterlife journey, establishing the horizon cosmography within which Bakhu and Manu were later named explicitly in the mortuary tradition, though they do not name the twin mountains directly.

Coffin Texts Spells 159 and 160 (Middle Kingdom, c. 2100–1700 BCE; Faulkner, vol. I, Aris & Phillips, 1973) concern the deceased's movement through the horizons and invoke the eastern and western mountains in the context of the solar journey through the underworld. These spells show the Bakhu-Manu cosmography integrated into the mortuary literature extended to non-royal owners, confirming that the twin-mountain framework was a standard element of Egyptian cosmological thinking by the Middle Kingdom.

Book of the Dead Spell 108 (New Kingdom onward; Faulkner 1985, p. 105; Allen 1974) is the most direct primary source for Bakhu, the eastern mountain, specifically treating it as a named cosmic location inhabited by a great serpent many cubits in length. The spell provides the name Bakhu and identifies the serpent guardian of the eastern mountain as a creature the deceased must know and address. This spell is the clearest ancient attestation of Bakhu by name with its cosmographic content.

Book of the Dead Spell 17 (Faulkner 1985, pp. 44–57; Allen 1974) is a comprehensive cosmological text that situates the deceased within the solar mythology of dawn and dusk, invoking the horizons and the mountains of the east and west in the context of the sun's daily journey. It is among the most important texts for the solar cosmography that underlies the significance of Bakhu and Manu, and its vignettes regularly depict the sun rising and setting at the horizons.

The Books of the Netherworld, particularly the Amduat and the Book of Gates (New Kingdom, c. 1550–1069 BCE; ed. and trans. Erik Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, Cornell University Press, 1999), treat in detail the sun's nightly journey through the twelve hours of the underworld between its setting at the western mountain and its rising at the eastern. The Amduat describes the sun's passage through each of the twelve divisions of the night-realm, and its twelfth hour depicts the emergence of the sun at the eastern horizon, the mountain of dawn. The Book of Gates similarly structures the night-journey between the western entry and the eastern exit, with the guardian serpents and gatekeepers of each hour standing in for the powers stationed at the horizons. These texts are the fullest ancient treatment of the cosmographic function of the twin mountains in the nightly solar itinerary.

Significance

Bakhu and Manu are significant as the concrete expression of the Egyptian conception of the world's edges and the thresholds of cosmic transition. By placing named mountains at the points of sunrise and sunset, the Egyptians gave definite form to the abstract notion of the horizon and fixed in their cosmic geography the critical boundaries across which the sun and the dead must pass. The two mountains are the eastern and western limits of the Egyptian cosmos, and they articulate the structure of the bounded, ordered world that Egyptian religion presupposed.

The mountains are significant for their connection to the akhet, the horizon, among the most fundamental concepts of Egyptian thought. The akhet hieroglyph, the sun between two peaks, depicts Bakhu and Manu directly, and the importance of the horizon in Egyptian cosmology, as the place of solar rebirth, the threshold of transformation, and a recurring element in the names of gods, places, and monuments, gives the twin mountains a central place in the Egyptian imagination of the world and the sun's journey through it.

Bakhu and Manu are significant for binding together the two great cycles of Egyptian religion, the daily journey of the sun and the passage of the dead. The same western mountain through which the sun sets into the underworld is the gateway through which the dead enter the realm of the west, and the same eastern mountain from which the sun rises renewed is the model for the hoped-for rebirth of the deceased. The mountains thus link the cosmic and the human, the solar cycle and the funerary hope, making the sun's death and rebirth at the horizons the pattern for the destiny of the dead.

The western mountain in particular is significant for its role in Egyptian funerary belief and in the organization of the necropolis. The association of the west with the dead, the calling of the deceased 'westerners,' and the identification of the western peak as a goddess who receives the dead shaped both the theology and the geography of Egyptian burial, aligning the cemeteries toward the setting sun and personifying the western mountain as a divine protectress of the tombs. At Thebes this cosmography determined the placement of the royal necropolis beneath the western peak.

Finally, Bakhu and Manu are significant for what they reveal about the integration of Egyptian cosmology, theology, and the lived landscape. The cosmic mountains of the horizon were not only features of the mythic imagination but were identified with real peaks, embedded in the writing-system through the akhet sign, and reflected in the orientation of temples and tombs. The twin mountains show how the Egyptians wove their understanding of the cosmos into their language, their monuments, and their landscape, making the journey of the sun between the eastern and western edges of the world a presence in everyday experience as well as in religious thought.

Connections

Bakhu and Manu are inseparable from the cosmic image of the horizon, and they connect most directly to the journey of the sun-god Ra, who rises from behind the eastern mountain and sets behind the western, making the daily crossing the mountains frame. The whole meaning of the twin peaks derives from the sun's course between them.

The western mountain is the gateway to the Duat, the underworld through which the sun and the dead pass during the night. Manu is the threshold at which the sun enters the Duat at sunset, and Bakhu is the threshold at which it emerges at dawn, so the two mountains frame the entrance and exit of the nightly underworld journey.

The destination of the dead who pass through the western mountain connects Bakhu and Manu to the Field of Reeds, the paradise of the blessed within the underworld, and to the broader geography of the afterlife. The deceased follow the setting sun through Manu into the realm of the west in hope of reaching the blessed afterlife.

The mountains' cosmology connects them to the solar theology of Heliopolis and to the daily rebirth of the sun, the same renewal that the obelisk and the benben commemorate. The rising of the sun at Bakhu each dawn is the daily re-enactment of the first sunrise that Heliopolitan theology placed at creation.

The principal deities of the mountains connect them to the wider pantheon. Hathor, 'mistress of the western mountain,' receives the dead at Manu; the sky-goddess Nut swallows the sun at the western horizon and gives birth to it at the eastern; and Khepri, the scarab of the dawn, comes forth at Bakhu. These figures link the cosmography of the horizons to the gods of the sky and the afterlife.

Finally, Bakhu and Manu connect to the real landscape of the Egyptian necropolis, above all the western peak of Thebes that loomed over the Valley of the Kings and was identified with the mythic western mountain. The cosmic geography of the twin mountains thus connects to the actual burial-grounds of Egypt, where the dead were laid toward the setting sun beneath the western cliffs, following the cosmography that Bakhu and Manu express. The eastern mountain of dawn connects the twin peaks to the solar rebirth celebrated in the cult of Atum and the daily renewal of the sun, the rising at Bakhu re-enacting each morning the first sunrise that Heliopolitan theology placed at the creation of the world.

Further Reading