The Egyptian Book of the Dead
Compiled by Rob Simone
The Book of the Dead is the common name for the ancient Egyptian funerary text known as The Book of Coming Forth By Day.
The book of the dead... More > was a description of the ancient Egyptian conception of the afterlife and a collection of hymns, spells, and instructions to allow the deceased to pass through obstacles in the afterlife.
The book of the dead was most commonly written on a papyrus scroll and placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased.
When it was first discovered, the book of the dead was thought to be an ancient Egyptian bible.
www.RobSimone.com< Less
The Egyptian Book of the Dead
Compiled by Rob Simone
The Book of the Dead is the common name for the ancient Egyptian funerary text known as The Book of Coming Forth By Day.
The book of the dead... More > was a description of the ancient Egyptian conception of the afterlife and a collection of hymns, spells, and instructions to allow the deceased to pass through obstacles in the afterlife.
The book of the dead was most commonly written on a papyrus scroll and placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased.
When it was first discovered, the book of the dead was thought to be an ancient Egyptian bible.
www.RobSimone.com< Less
The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (around 1550 BCE) to around 50 BCE. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw... More > prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of emerging forth into the Light". The text consists of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife.
The Book of the Dead was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not papyrus. Some of the spells included were drawn from these older works and date to the 3rd millennium BCE. Other spells were composed later in Egyptian history, dating to the Third .< Less
“Book of the Dead” is the title now commonly given to the great collection of funerary texts which the ancient Egyptian scribes composed for the benefit of the dead. These consist of... More > spells and incantations, hymns and litanies, magical formulae and names, words of power and prayers, and they are found cut or painted on walls of pyramids and tombs, and painted on coffins and sarcophagi and rolls of papyri. The title “Book of the Dead” is somewhat unsatisfactory and misleading, for the texts neither form a connected work nor belong to one period; they are miscellaneous in character, and tell us nothing about the lives and works of the dead with whom they were buried. Moreover, the Egyptians possessed many funerary works that might rightly be called “Books of the Dead,” but none of them bore a name that could be translated by the title “Book of the Dead.”< Less
