Background information on the Book of the Dead
- formulae for going out in the day
A group of about two hundred formulae for securing eternal life, from
which a selection is found in manuscripts written for elite burials from the New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC) to the end of the Ptolemaic Period. The same formulae are found on many
other supports, from tomb walls to single objects placed in the tomb or
religious setting.
Why
is it called the Book of the Dead?
This is the name given by Richard Lepsius to the group in his 1843
publication of a Ptolemaic Period manuscript with the longest selection of the
formulae known to him. This was the first modern edition of the formulae. The
name was retained by Edouared Naville for his 1883 publication of New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC)
manuscripts. Lepsius seems to have borrowed the term from contemporary
inhabitants of the Theban cemeteries, who used the Arabic phrase 'books of the
dead' to denote any papyrus roll in a burial; the great majority of such papyrus
book rolls in Theban burials were funerary manuscripts with selections from this
set of two hundred formulae.
What
was the Egyptian name for the Book of the Dead?
Ancient Egyptian manuscripts do not have any title page, but some
compositions were identified by an introductory phrase. Books of the Dead
sometimes begin 'beginning of the formulae for going out in the day'. Some
manuscripts introduce additional formulae with a note 'added to the formulae for
going out in the day'. In the Third Intermediate Period (tenth century BC) and
the late Ptolemaic to early Roman Period (first century BC), burials regularly
included two funerary manuscripts, and in these cases the Book of the Dead
formuale were identified as 'the (book roll with) Going out in the
day'.
How
was a selection of formulae made for a particular manuscript?
We have no explicit written sources for the commissioning of a Book of
the Dead, and it is not known whether personal selection played a part, or even
at what stage in a career a person might commission a funerary manuscript. In
the late Ptolemaic Period to early Roman Period, a couple of manuscripts
indicate that the son commissioned the roll. Our only guide to the process of
selection is the surviving stock of manuscripts. Most are still not
published.
Numbering
the formulae: (1) the Saite Edition
In order to identify a particular formula, Lepsius allotted the numbers
1 to 165 in sequence to the formulae he found in the Ptolemaic Period papyrus
he selected for his 1843 edition, the Book of the Dead of a man named Iufankh,
now preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Turin. Note that in some instances he
gave a number to an illustration ('chapters' 16, 143, 150). More or less the
same sequence and selection is found in most longer manuscripts from the Twenty-sixth
Dynasty to the end of the Ptolemaic Period. Since this sequence is first observed
in manuscripts of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, ruling from Sais, the sequence is
often called the Saite Recension of the Book of the Dead. It is highly standardised
in sequence and in content, almost in the manner of a modern textual edition.
Although this arrangement of the formulae is known as the Saite or Late Period
Recension, it should be noted that very few manuscripts can be dated to the
Twenty-sixth or Saite Dynasty itself; there are perhaps fewer than twenty surviving
Twenty-sixth Dynasty Books of the Dead, in contrast to some four to five hundred
manuscripts dated to the Ptolemaic Period.
Numbering
the formulae: (2) the Theban Edition
In contrast to the later manuscripts, New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC) and Third Intermediate Period Books of the Dead show great variety in sequence and content. These earlier versions are sometimes grouped together under the designation 'Theban Edition' of the Book of the Dead, intended in contrast to the 'Saite Edition', though the place of editing is not known for either. Edouard Naville took up the task of editing these versions for the German academic institutions, and produced his synoptic edition in 1882. Some later compositions do not occur in the earlier manuscripts, and there are also several compositions in the earlier manuscripts that are not found later. For 'new' compositions, Naville added numbers higher than 166, and this series was continued by Wallis Budge, taking the number to 190. A few additional formulae or 'chapters' have been identified since then, and more numbers proposed. Click here for a listing with the chapters in modern numerical order.
Although the
total number of different formulae in all 'Going out by day' manuscripts may
amount to about two hundred, there seem to have been about 150 in circulation
within any one period. The earlier manuscripts are extremely varied, but can
be grouped roughly into (1) New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC) before the Amarna
Period, (2) New Kingdom after the Amarna Period, and (3) Third Intermediate
Period.
What
do we know about the origins of the Book of the Dead
Formulae for going out by day are first found on the coffin of a queen
Mentuhotep of the Seventeenth Dynasty; the coffin was drawn and the lines of
hieratic writing on its interior walls carefully copied by John Gardner Wilkinson
in the early nineteenth century. In part these earliest Book of the Dead formulae
are taken from the early Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts,
in part they are 'new' compositions not previously known in writing. Some of
the 'new' compositions may be copied from rituals that had not previously been
written down, while others may have been composed in the Seventeenth Dynsaty
or shortly before. The formulae are next found in the Valley of the Queens at
Thebes, on shrouds of members of the family of king Ahmose,
first in the Eighteenth Dynasty as founder of the New Kingdom. They do not occur
on papyri before the reign of Thutmose
III with Hatshepsut, when
it became a more regular (though not obligatory) custom to place a scroll with
a selection of the Book of the Dead formulae in elite burials.
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