Archaeologists discovered a new papyrus of Egyptian Book of the Dead

Archaeologists have confirmed that a papyrus scroll discovered last year at the Saqqara Necropolis near Cairo does indeed contain Egyptian text. Book of the Dead— According to Mostafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Egyptian Antiquities, the first complete papyrus in a century has been found. It is currently being translated into Arabic.

1999 movie fan mummy find out you are egyptian Book of the Dead He plays a key role in resurrecting the cursed High Priest Imhotep and terrorizing the living. Naturally, the reality is quite different. Book of the Dead, as depicted in the film. There have been many versions over the centuries, all unique, often choosing spells to suit the specific needs of deceased royals or (later) high-ranking members of Egyptian society.

These “books” were actually a collection of funerary texts and spells to help the deceased travel through the underworld (duat) — not to raise people from the dead — and they are not scriptures like the Bible or the Quran. They were originally painted on objects or written on the walls of burial chambers. Over time, illustrations were added, and spells were also engraved on the interior of the coffin and the linen shroud used to wrap the deceased.

One of the most famous spells is the “Mind Weigh” (designated 125 by scholars), which dates back to around 1475 BC. Book of the Dead It was commonly written on papyrus. Anubis leads the deceased before Osiris, swears that he has not committed any of the 42 “sins”, and weighs their hearts in a pair of scales to determine whether they deserve a place in the afterlife. was weighed against the feather. (the person who saw moon knight You may recall the version of this ritual depicted in one of the later episodes performed by the hippopotamus-headed Egyptian goddess of fertility and fertility, Taweret. In case (30b), the heart begs not to “betray” its owner by “lying before God” during the weigh-in ceremony.

copy of Book of the Dead Scrolls were custom-made by scribes, and the shortest scrolls were 1 meter (3.2 ft) and the longest were 40 meters (about 131 ft). People knew of the existence of such scrolls in the Middle Ages, and thought they had a religious nature from being found in tombs.named by Karl Richard Lepsius Book of the Dead in 1842 after translating one such text. The most famous example to date is the Papyrus of Ani, found in Luxor in 1888 and now in the British Museum. But such discoveries are becoming increasingly rare.

The necropolis of Saqqara serves the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis and boasts numerous pyramids. Among them is the Step Pyramid of King Djoser, whose design and construction is usually attributed to the Pharaoh Imhotep, his vizier of Djoser (later immortalized as a monster). mummy). Saqqara was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in his 1979, but looters broke into warehouses during the Egyptian protests of 2011, causing some damage to the site that year. Over the years, archaeologists have unearthed many tombs, relics, and mummies during excavations at the site. For example, in 2018, a rare golden burial mask and a cache of dozens of mummies were discovered, or in 2020, statues of various deities and a number of fully sealed sarcophagi were discovered. .

In March 2022, archaeologists uncovered five 4,000-year-old tombs and recovered 250 painted wooden sarcophagi containing complete mummies and 150 statuettes of various deities in the site’s ancient animal cemetery. bottom. There were also collections of cosmetics, bronzes and sistrums (percussion instruments). One of the sarcophagi also contained a papyrus scroll about 9 meters (29.5 ft) long, Book of the Dead written in hieroglyphs. It was sent to the Institute of Egyptian Museum in Cairo for further study.

When the papyrus was fully restored, its actual length was 16 meters (about 52.5 feet). And scholars have confirmed that the scroll does indeed contain ancient spells. Book of the DeadWaziri said the papyrus will be on display at the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo this year.