The Egyptian Book of the Dead: Documents in the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago

Hope for life after death is evidenced even in prehistoric times in Upper Egypt. The first written aids for attaining and supporting life in the hereafter were the Pyramid Texts inscribed within royal tombs toward the end of the Old Kingdom. In the Middle Kingdom, many texts were borrowed from the pyramid chambers and mingled with new spells; this new form, which today we call Coffin Texts, were usually written inside coffins. These eventually gave way to what we now know as the Book of the Dead. The collections of spells were usually written on rolls of papyrus, that is, in the form of an Egyptian book.

Presented here are seventy Book of the Dead documents housed in the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago. These documents, represented in whole or in part—all Eighteenth Dynasty or later—include seven papyri, three coffins, a shroud, a statuette, three stelae or similar, and fifty-five ushabties.