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For other uses, see Book of the Dead (disambiguation).
This scene, from the Papyrus of Hunefer, shows the Hunefer's heart being weighed against the feather of truth. If his heart is lighter than the feather, he is allowed to pass into the afterlife. Vignettes such as these were a common illustration in Egyptian books of the dead.
This scene, from the Papyrus of Hunefer, shows the Hunefer's heart being weighed against the feather of truth. If his heart is lighter than the feather, he is allowed to pass into the afterlife. Vignettes such as these were a common illustration in Egyptian books of the dead.

'The Book of the Dead' is the common name for the ancient Egyptian funerary text known as 'The Book of Coming '[or 'Going']' Forth By Day'. Ancient Egypt was an Ancient Civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now Funerary texts or funerary literature feature in many belief systems The book of the dead was a description of the ancient Egyptian conception of the afterlife and a collection of hymns, spells, and instructions to allow the deceased to pass through obstacles in the afterlife. In Egyptian mythology, Duat (or Tuat (also called Akert, Amenthes, or Neter-khertet) is the Underworld. The book of the dead was most commonly written on a papyrus scroll and placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased. Papyrus (/pəˈpaɪrəs/ (Rhymes -aɪrəs)is a thick paper-like material produced from the Pith of the papyrus plant Cyperus papyrus [1]

The name "Book of the Dead" was the invention of the German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius, who published a selection of the texts in 1842. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Egyptology (from Egypt and Greek grc -λογία -logia. علم المصريات مصر شناسی is a major field of Archaeology Karl (or Carl) Richard Lepsius ( December 23, 1810 &ndash July 10, 1884) was a pioneering Prussian Year 1842 ( MDCCCXLII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common When it was first discovered, the book of the dead was thought to be an ancient Egyptian Bible. Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin But unlike the Bible, The Book of the Dead does not set forth religious tenets and was not considered by the ancient Egyptians to be the product of divine revelation, which allowed the content of the book of the dead to change over time. The Book of the Dead was thus the product of a long process of evolution from the Pyramid texts of the Old Kingdom to the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom. The Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom. The Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to that period in the 3rd millennium BCE when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement The Coffin Texts are a collection of Ancient Egyptian funerary spells written on coffins beginning in the First Intermediate Period. The Middle Kingdom is the period in the history of Ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Fourteenth Dynasty About one-third of the chapters in The Book of the Dead are derived from the Coffin Texts. [2] The Book of the Dead itself was adapted to The Book of Breathings in the Late Period, but remained popular in its own right until the Roman period.

Contents

Versions

Although during the New Kingdom the book of the dead was not organized or standardized in any meaningful way, versions dating to this period are known as the 'Theban Recension'. The New Kingdom, sometimes referred to as the Egyptian Empire, is the period in Ancient Egyptian history between the 16th century BC and In the Third Intermediate Period leading up to the Saite period, the book of the dead became increasingly standardized and organized, and books of this period are known as the 'Saite Recension'. The Third Intermediate Period refers to the time in Ancient Egypt from the death of Pharaoh Ramesses XI in 1070 BC to the foundation of the

Saite recension

Early versions of the book of the dead were not standardized and were not organized by thematic content; however, this changed by the Saite period :

Production

Books were often prefabricated in funerary workshops, with spaces being left for the name of the deceased to be written in later. They are often the work of several different scribes and artists whose work was literally pasted together. The cost of a typical book might be equivalent to half a year's salary of a laborer, so the purchase would be planned well in advance of the person's death. The blank papyrus used for the scroll often constituted the major cost of the work, so papyrus was often reused. [2]

Images, or vignettes to illustrate the text, were considered mandatory. The images were so important that often the text is truncated to fit the space available under the image. Whereas the quality of the miniatures is usually done at a high level, the quality of the text is often very bad. Scribes often misspelled or omitted words and inserted the wrong text under the images.

Further reading

References

  1. ^ "Feature story: The Book of the Dead" by Caroline Seawright
  2. ^ a b c Goelet, Ogden (1998). A Commentary on the Corpus of Literature and Tradition which constitutes the Book of Going Forth By Day. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 139-170.  

External links

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