Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead is a name for an Egyptian text. It is also known as The Book of Coming [or Going]  Forth By Day, or as the papyrus of Ani. It contains a number of texts, and spells. These allow the dead person to safely get to the place of the afterlife.

The book of the dead was most commonly written on a papyrus scroll. It was placed in the coffin of the dead person, or their burial chamber. The book of the dead in its most familiar form was first used in the New Kingdom, but many of the spells had their origins in the funerary texts of the Old and Middle Kingdoms.

The name "Book of the Dead" was the invention of the German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius, who published a selection of the texts in 1842.

Missing sections of the book were found in the Queensland Museum in 2012. Historians are hoping that the missing pieces will give them a copy of the complete book.

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Category:Ancient Egyptian literature
Category:Afterlife
Category:Spiritual books