What is the “Book of the Dead” that was found in the Saqqara cemetery in Egypt?

In the Saqqara cemetery, south of Cairo, archaeologists found bodies, relics, treasures, and a book about 4 meters long called the Book of the Dead. So what is this book and what does it contain?

The huge discovery was announced by archaeologist and former Minister of Antiquities Zahi Hawass on January 17, 2021, in which antiquities of 4,200 years and the Sixth Dynasty were found by Egyptian expeditions.

This discovery is a continuation of previous efforts and other discoveries in the region that began in 2010 when a 15-meter-high pyramid was discovered.

Among the announced treasures, the excavators found the seventeenth chapter of the Book of the Dead engraved on a large papyrus, the name of its owner (Bu Haf), while the same name was found on 4 other statues, along with the sarcophagus of the same person.

The coffins were also decorated with paintings of what they call Gods of the Pharaohs at the time and extracts from the Book of the Dead, which were believed to help the deceased navigate in the afterlife.

Hawass told CBS that researchers began excavating the site, which is located next to the pyramid of King Titi, the first ruler of the Sixth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom (2680-2180 BC), in 2010.

According to AFP, experts finally identified the property of the complex – which includes a stone temple and three mud-brick warehouses containing offerings and tools – like the tomb of Titi’s wife, Queen Nert.

What is the Book of the Dead?

The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text written on papyrus and was used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (about 1550 BC) to about 50 BC, according to what was published by the Smithsonian magazine website.

The original Egyptian name of the text has been translated as “Kitab al-Yawm Al Kassem” or “Book of Appearance in the Light.”

The word “book” is the term closest to describing the loose collection of magical spells that they believed helped the dead person on a journey through the underworld to the afterlife written by many priests over 1,000 years.

It was normal to place the Book of the Dead in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased, as part of the tradition of funerary texts that were drawn on unwritten objects on papyrus.

Some spells were extracted in the book, which dates back to the third millennium BC as they mentioned.

Other incantations were also composed later in Egyptian history, dating from the third Intermediate period (11th-7th centuries BC) as the researchers said.

A number of the incantations comprising the book continued to be written, separately, on the walls of tombs and coffins, and there was not a single book or canon of the dead.

The surviving papyri contain a variety of religious and magical texts and vary wide in illustrations from one tomb to another.

This difference has been explained by the fact that some people requested their copy of the Book of the Dead, perhaps choosing spells that they thought were more vital in their passage to the afterlife.

The Book of the Dead was more commonly written in hieroglyphic or hieratic script on a scroll of papyrus and was often depicted with small images depicting the deceased and their journey to the afterlife.

The origins of these customs go back to the ancient Egyptian era, and the first funerary texts were the pyramid texts that were used for the first time in the pyramid of King Unas of the Fifth Dynasty, about 2400 BC as they said.

With the advent of the Fifth Dynasty, a copy of the Book of the Dead was dedicated to the wife of the pharaoh, after it had been preserved only, and later developed throughout history, to be used by priests and dignitaries.

The Magic spells

The Book of the Dead consists of several individual texts and accompanying illustrations. Most subtexts begin with the word “ru”, which can mean “mouth”, “speech”, “spell”, “utterance”, “incantation” or “chapter from a book”.

This ambiguity reflects the similarity of Egyptian thought between ritual speech and magical power.

At present, about 192 known spells have been identified, although there is no single manuscript containing them all. Some of them, according to pharaonic beliefs, aims to give the deceased spiritual knowledge in the afterlife, or perhaps to be recognized by what they call gods.

There are also spells that the pharaohs believed to ensure the preservation of the various elements of the dead person to reunite and collect them and give the dead the ability to control the world around him.

There are also spells to protect the dead from external forces that could harm him, according to the Pharaonic belief.