Egyptian Book of the Dead

Today, the so-called Book of the Dead (BD) is certainly the most prominent corpus of funerary texts from ancient Egypt. Its name as well as the numbering of its c. 200 “spells” or “chapters” were established only in the nineteenth century (in the following “BD xy”), while in Egyptian it was called “(spells of) going out by day.” “Book(s) of the Dead” is also the common designation for funerary papyri inscribed with BD spells. Furthermore, texts and illustrations (“vignettes”) from the BD are also found on other types of objects, such as mummy bandages, walls of tombs and sarcophagi, coffins, and more such that the number of preserved BD sources of all kinds exceeds three thousand. The Book of the Dead is normally said to be a product of the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1700–1550 bce) because the oldest attestations of some BD spells have been identified on objects from that era. But only some generations after the beginning of the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 bce), the custom of equipping the deceased with “Books of the Dead,” that is, papyrus scrolls combining a series of funerary spells and vignettes, became frequent and, with only few and relatively short interruptions, remained popular for almost 1,500 years. About half of the texts normally counted as BD spells stem from older corpora, mostly the so-called coffin texts used during the Middle Kingdom (c. 2050–1700 bce). Therefore, it is generally believed that an “editorial” process consisting of collecting, choosing, reformulating, and adding funerary texts took place, certainly in the upper Egyptian capital of Thebes. This is why the BD of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period (c. 1070–700 bce) is often referred to as “Theban Recension.” From this corpus, spells were chosen—sometimes complemented by others—to compile individual textual programs. From the Late Period (25/26th dynasty) onward, a number of papyri show an almost invariable order of spells, counted today from 1 to 165. This standardized version of the BD is called “Saite” (named after the “Saite,” 26th dynasty) or “Late Recension.” The last funerary papyri that can justly be called “Books of the Dead” are dated to the first century bce. Apart from a better understanding of the content of the spells, questions raised by the enormous variability of the corpus, its complex transmission, and its embedding in diverse forms of funerary, ritual, and social practice are prime goals of BD research.