The Book of The Dead in the First Dynasty

The oldest form or edition of the Book of the Dead as we have got it supplies no information some as to the period when it was compiled, but a copy of the conventional text inscribed upon a coffin oi Menthu-hetep, a queen of the 11th dynasty,about B.C. 2500, made by the late Sir J. G. Wilkinson, informs us that the chapter which, reported to the arrangement of Lepsius, bears the number LXIV.,  was broken in the reign of Hesep-ti,the 5th king of the 1st dynasty, about B.C. 4266. On this coffin are two re-create of the chapter, the one instantly following the other. In the rubric to the first the name of the king during whose reign the chapter is said to have been "found" is given as Menthu-hetep, which, as Goodwin first pointed out,is a mistake for Men-kau-Ra, the fourth king of the 4th dynasty, about B.C. 3633, but in the rubric to the second the kings name is given as Hesep-ti. Thus it comes out that in the period of the 11th dynasty it was considered that the chapter might instead be as old as the time of the 1st dynasty. Further, it is given to Hesep-ti in papyri of the 21st dynasty, a period when certain attention was paid to the history of the Book of the Dead; and it thus comes out that the Egyptians of the Middle Empire considered the chapter to date from the more such.

The gloss on the coffin of Queen Menthu-hetep, which imputes the chapter to Hesep-ti, states that "this chapter was found in the foundations beneath the lzennu boat by the foreman of the builders in the time o the king of the North and South, Hesep-ti, triumphant", the Nebseni papyrus says that this chapter wa; discovered in the city of Khemennu (Hermopolis) on a block of ironstone  written in letters of lapis-lazuli, deep the feet of the god"; and the Turin papyrus (26th dynasty or later) adds that the name of the viewfinder was Heru-ta-ta-f, the son of Khufu or Cheops, the second king of the IVth dynasty, about B.C. 3733, who was at the time making a tour of inspection of the temples. Birch and Naville view the chapter one of the oldest in the Book of the Dead; the fonner basing his view on the rubric and the latter upon the prove derived from the messages and character of the text, but Maspero, while taking the great age of the chapter, does not attach any very great importance to the rubric as fixing any take date for its composition. Of Herutataf the finder of the block of stone, we know from later texts that he was taken to be a leamed man, and that his language was only with difficultness to be understood, and we also know the prominent part which he took as a recognized man of letters in bringing back the court of his father Khufu the sage Tetteta. It is then not improbable that Herutatafs character for learning may have advised the connection of his name with the chapter, and perchance as its literary reviser, at all cases as early as the period of the Middle Empire tradition related him with it.


Related Posts:

What is the Book of the Dead?
The History of the Book of The Dead

The History of the Book of The Dead

• The Book of The Dead in the First Dynasty
• The Book of The Dead in the Second Dynasty
• The Book of The Dead in the Fourth Dynasty
• The Book of The Dead in the Fifth Dynasty
• The Book of The Dead in the sixth Dynasty
• The Book of The Dead in the Ptolemy Period

What is the Book of the Dead?

A rough collection of magical spells and conjurations that were normally written on papyrus, sometimes  instanced,  and  popular in Egypt from the New Kingdom (1550-1070 B.C.E.), the master copies were on the walls of the Tonbs in Saqqara. Middle Kingdom (2040-1640 B.C.E.) coffins also taken early versions.

"Book of the Dead" is the title now commonly given to the great accumulation of funerary texts which the ancient Egyptian scribes calm for the do good of the dead. These consist of spells and incantations, hymns and litanies, magical formulae and names, words of power and prayers, and they are determined cut or painted on walls of pyramids and tombs, and black on coffins and sarcophagi and rolls of papyri. The title "Book of the Dead" is pretty unsatisfactory and shoddy, for the texts neither form a related work nor belong to one period; they are various in character, and tell us nothing about the goes and works of the dead with whom they were forgot. Moreover, the Egyptians held many funerary works that might justifiedly be called "Books of the Dead," but none of them bore a name that could be read by the title "Book of the Dead." This title was given to the great collecting of funerary texts in the first quarter of the nineteenth century by the pioneer Egyptologists, who possessed no exact knowledge of their contents. They were familiar with the rolls of papyrus engraved in the hieroglyphic and the hieratic character, for copies of different had been published,1 but the texts in them were short and fragmentary. The publication of the Facsimile2 of the Papyrus of Peta-Amen-neb-nest-taui3 by M. Cadet in 1805 made a long hieroglyph text and legion coloured vignettes open for study, and the French Egyptologists represented it as a copy of the "Rituel Funraire" of the ancient Egyptians. Among these was Champollion le Jeune, but later, on his issue from Egypt, he and others visited it "Le Livre des Morts," "The Book of the Dead," "Das Todtenbuch," etc. These titles are merely versions of the name given by the Egyptian tomb-robbers to all roll of engraved papyrus which they found with mummies, to wit, "Kitb-al-Mayyit," "Book of the dead man," or "Kitb al-Mayyitun," "Book of the dead" (plur.). These men knew nothing of the subjects of such a roll, and all they meant to say was that it was "a dead man's book," and that it was found in his coffin with him.