Book of the Dead

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Book of Coming Forth by Day
in hieroglyphs
BookOfTheDead.jpg

The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw, is translated as Book of Coming Forth by Day or Book of Emerging Forth into the Light. "Book" is the closest term to describe the loose collection of texts consisting of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife.

The Book of the Dead was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not papyrus. Some of the spells included were drawn from these older works. Other spells were composed later in Egyptian history. A number of the spells which made up the Book continued to be inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi, as had always been the spells from which they originated. The Book of the Dead was placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased.

There was no single or canonical Book of the Dead. The surviving papyri contain a varying selection of religious and magical texts and vary considerably in their illustration. Some people seem to have commissioned their own copies of the Book of the Dead, perhaps choosing the spells they thought most vital in their own progression to the afterlife. The Book of the Dead was most commonly written in hieroglyphic or hieratic script on a papyrus scroll, and often illustrated with vignettes depicting the deceased and their journey into the afterlife.

The Papyrus of Ani

The finest of examples we have of the Egyptian Book of the Dead in antiquity is the Papyrus of Ani, an Egyptian scribe. It is at the British Museum in London, and was discovered by and was taken out of Egypt in 1888 by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, and was brought to the British Museum, where it currently resides.