THE BOOK OF THE DEAD MANUSCRIPT

Unattributed hand-written copy of the Book of the Dead, 4 tomes (text in vol. 2, 1-2 and vol. 3, plus atlas), after the1895 or 1913 editions, comprising the text with interlinear transliteration and translation, as well and a running translation on opposite page by Sir Earnest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge, and circa 65 pasted-up illustrations, several on double page, of the vignettes to accompany the text (from the Papyrus of Ani), contemporary calf, marbled endpapers, a little rubbed, 4to & folio, 19^th-20^th century (4)

The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian collection of mortuary texts, probably compiled during the 16th century BCE, made up of magic formulas, placed in tombs and believed to protect the deceased in the hereafter. The collection titled “The Chapters of Coming-Forth-by-Day” (Ptolemaic Period manuscript), received its present name from Karl Richard Lepsius, the German Egyptologist who published the first modern edition of the texts in 1842. The name was retained by Édouard Naville for his 1883 publication of New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC) manuscripts. The Book of the Dead, containing the Papyrus of Ani, was discovered by Sir Earnest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge in an Egyptian government storeroom, and purchased in 1888 for the British Museum, where it remains today. It is the largest and the best illuminated of all the papyri containing copies of the Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead. It holds a very high place among the funerary papyri written between B.C. 1500 and B.C. 1350. Its colour vignettes, hymns, and chapters, make it of unique importance for the study of the Book of the Dead.

Provenance. Private collection, first sold at Christie’s, Fine Antiquities Sale, lot 109 8/6/ 1988.