Cavern deities of the underworld

The caverns and their resident deities appear within Egyptian funerary cosmology and underworld literature rather than as a single origin myth. They are attested in mortuary texts and tomb decoration that enumerate caverns of the Duat and list the beings assigned to each named cavern (for example, the lists found in the papyrus known as the "Spell of the Twelve Caves" — Cairo 24742 — and in Ramesside tomb decoration such as the tomb of Ramesses IV, KV2). These documentary contexts present them as longstanding components of the Duat's topography: place-bound groups of minor deities attached to particular caves and caverns who function as hazards, judges, and, if ritually addressed, helpers to the deceased.

Attestations describe the caverns' occupants as varied minor deities and supernatural creatures. In one repeated schema the first seven caverns each contained triads described as mummiform and anthropomorphic deities: groups of three mummiform and three anthropomorphic figures (with the anthropomorphic triads described as two male and one female in each triad). Beyond those general categories ("mummiform" and "anthropomorphic") the supplied sources note depictions in tomb walls and temple reliefs but do not record consistent, detailed iconography in the excerpts provided.

Primary functions recorded in funerary literature are punitive and ambivalent: they are described as being "charged with punishing the damned souls by beheading and devouring them" and as beings that "would feed on the souls of the wicked." They are also listed among creatures enlisted in the extermination of the enemies of the sun-god Ra and of his daughter Maat. Conversely, funerary prescriptions commonly provide offerings and spells for them, and when pacified they "could facilitate the free movement in the hereafter, providing nourishment and light in the darkness," acting to assist the deceased's passage.