![]() ![]() Vignettes often illustrated key points in the text, as in the example from Spell 125 illustrated above, in which the deceased has his heart weighed in the presence of Osiris. By the New Kingdom, around 1550–1069 BC, scribes started writing Book of the Dead spells on papyrus scrolls. The group that we call the Book of the Dead developed from spells that were first inscribed on scarabs and coffins at the end of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom period, around 1650 BC. Texts could be written either in hieroglyphic Egyptian or in a cursive form of the script called hieratic. Along with Getty’s ongoing provenance research, Scalf is studying the texts and preparing translations and analysis in order to place them within the broader context of the long history of the Book of the Dead.īook of the Dead spells were meant to be spoken aloud, and placing them on items in the tomb allowed the mummy to recite them from within his coffin. Getty’s Book of the Dead manuscripts include seven papyri and 12 linen mummy wrappings that are now undergoing new scholarship spearheaded by Foy Scalf, an Egyptologist who is the head of research archives at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. ![]() Spell 125 (a vignette from which is illustrated below), for example, lists a number of sins they must deny having committed in life when they appear before Osiris. They provided instructions for the various challenges the deceased would face on their journey. Rather, spells were inscribed on objects from mummy wrappings to coffins to figurines meant to accompany the dead in the tomb. There are nearly 200 known spells, but they weren’t collected into books in our current sense of the word. ![]()
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