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Livre des morts(Book of the Dead)
Period of the Middle Kingdom
(1991–1633 BCE)

Courtesy of Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Département des Manuscrits 

 

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Bibliothèque nationale de France
Paris
France

Book of the Dead
Period of the Middle Kingdom
(1991–1633 BCE)

Along with the papers of Jean François Champollion (1790–1832)—the renowned scholar who, through his work on the Rosetta Stone, deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics in 1822—the Bibliothèque nationale de France holds a collection of Egyptian papyrus brought back to France by Egyptologists during the nineteenth century. Among them is this fragment of the Livre des morts (Book of the Dead) which belonged to the Stedna Collection and is now kept in the Oriental Division of the Manuscripts Department of the Library.

The Livre des morts is part of a funeral ritual: it is a collection of sacred formulae which was buried in the tomb with the deceased. These prayers were available for the deceased to pray to the divinities during the passage through the underworld, to comfort and help justify the judgement and the weighing of the soul.

This fragment (the beginning of chapter 17), written in hieroglyphics, is addressed to Ankh-as-an-Isi, the priestess of the god Amon, and dates from the Middle Kingdom period. Later, Egyptians used more cursive writing, called hieratic and demotic. This was derived from hieroglyphics, but the forms of images are no longer recognisable in it.

The papyrus plant is a reed, and was used as long ago as 3000 BCE in Egypt to produce a particularly supple and light writing material. The stem of the plant was cut into narrow strips which were placed side by side to make writing sheets, which were then made into rolls.

Egyptian monuments are still yielding their mysteries today, and the great moments of the Pharaohs' culture and the life of their people continue to emerge as archaeological excavations progress.