Tuat (Egyptian) Also Tiau, Tiaou. The region of the underworld or of the dead, though it was not situated under the earth, or answer to the popular conception of the Christian hell, even though the Tuat is often described as a place of retribution. One of the post-mortem states described in The Egyptian Book of the Dead as being situated in the region of the moon.
In popular mythology the Tuat was separated from the world by a range of mountains and consisted of a great valley, shut in by mountains, through which ran a river (the counterpart of the Nile, reminding one of the Jordan of the Jews and Christians), the banks of which were the abode of evil spirits and monstrous beasts. As the sun passed through the Tuat great numbers of souls were described as making their way to the boat of the sun, and those that succeeded in clinging to the boat were able to come forth into new life as the sun rose from the eastern end of the valley to usher in another day. Tuat was also depicted as the region where the soul went during night, returning to join the living on earth during the day.
Originally it was described as the abode of the night-sun, through which the sun god Ra passed during the night, only to arise renewed in the morning. "What is the Tiaou? The frequent allusion to it in the 'Book of the Dead' contains a mystery. Tiaou is the path of the Night Sun, the inferior hemisphere, or the infernal region of the Egyptians, placed by them on the concealed side of the moon. The human being, in their exotericism, came out from the moon (a triple mystery -- astronomical, physiological, and psychical at once);
to be continue "
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