Additions to the Egyptian Book of the Dead

Abstract

HE Book of the Dead, at least during the Egyptian Empire and until late times, was not really a book at all. That is, its various copies did not have identical contents. Each copy comprised a collection of spells both selected and arranged on a more or less individualistic basis. Such a collection was usually written on a roll of papyrus which gave it the outward form of an Egyptian book; but instead of being laid with the deceased it might be written on his coffin or on his tomb walls. In fact, the mortuary spells of an earlier period, the Middle-Kingdom Coffin Texts, derive their modern designation from the coffins upon which they were customarily inscribed. Their predecessors in turn, the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom, had been, as our name for them implies, written on the walls of chambers and passages within the pyramids which constituted the tombs of the early pharaohs.