The Book of the Dead - Egyptian

The Egyptian Book of the Dead is a collection of papyri wrote between 1550 BC and 50 BC. It was also known as 'rw nw prt m hrw' in Egyptian, or 'book of coming forth by day' and 'book of emerging forth in to the light'. It is a loose collection and not one bound edition. The book is a set of spells to help the soul of the deceased to travel through the afterlife into Duat (Egyptian land of the dead). Usually placed in the grave with the deceased, and sometimes included earlier works from the Pyramid texts and Coffin Texts, dating to the 3rd Millennium BC. Some parts were inscribed on the walls, coffins / sarcophagi. It was wrote using hieroglyphic or hieratic script. The Papyrus of Ani is the most extensive version. It was originally used by the Egyptian nobility before becoming more affordable for the less wealthy to be granted these spells. Many earlier parts and versions exist of the spells in different forms before being standardised during the 25th and 26th Dynasties. Clerics regularly used this book to help with dealing with the dead too, keeping them at rest, raising them to defend religious & burial sites, and dealing with enemy undead too. Sometimes other spellcasters can glean spells from it too for use.

Item type

Book / Document