The last missing pages from the supposedly "magic" "Book of the Dead" by the Egyptian priest Amenhotep were discovered after a century of searching in a museum in Queensland.
The British museum employee, Egyptologist Dr. John Taylor, claims that he found about 100 fragments of an ancient book. This put an end to the archaeological search for ancient scripture around the world that supposedly contains spells that have the power to send spirits to the afterlife.
The Book of the Dead is an Egyptian manuscript up to 20 meters in length containing magical spells written on papyrus, which were used by the servants of the temple, commissioned by the relatives of the dead, to guide their souls into the afterlife.
These parts of papyrus, which were kept all this time in the museum, form the missing part of a very large, according to many historians and archaeologists, historically valuable "Book of the Dead".
Sections of this precious manuscript are scattered all over the world, and now, after a hundred years of searching, the missing parts have been found in the museum.
The Amenhotep manuscript is of particular importance as it is one of the earliest examples of a manuscript that has several unusual functions. In total, only four or five copies of this manuscript have been found.
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It contains images of a five-pointed star and solar disks. Now John Taylor plans to try to collect fragments of the manuscript in electronic form at the Queensland Museum.
In his opinion, the reunification of the manuscript is an incredibly important and painstaking work, and he hopes to glue the fragments together to find out exactly what secrets it holds. It can make a significant contribution to helping the world to better understand one of the most fascinating and complex civilizations of the ancient world.
"The Book of the Dead" is a collection of Egyptian hymns and religious texts, placed in a tomb in order to help the deceased to overcome the dangers of the other world and find well-being in the afterlife.
It is a series of 160-190 (in different variations) unrelated chapters, of varying length, ranging from long poetic hymns to one-line magic formulas.
The name “The Book of the Dead” was given by the Egyptologist R. Lepsius, but it would be more correct to call it “The Book of the Resurrection”, since its Egyptian name - “Rau nu peret em kheru” literally translates as “Chapters on going out into the light of day”.
This work was considered very ancient even during the reign of Semti, Pharaoh of the First Dynasty, and, moreover, it was then so voluminous that it required reduction, was repeatedly rewritten and supplemented from generation to generation for almost 5 thousand years, and any pious Egyptian lived, constantly referring to the teachings of the Book of the Dead; the Egyptians were buried according to her instructions; their hope of eternal life and happiness was based on faith in the efficacy of her hymns, prayers and spells.
Some of the finest examples of the Book of the Dead, written on papyrus scrolls, date back to the heyday of the 18th Dynasty; with its beginning, this work entered a new stage of its development, from the sarcophagi the funerary texts were transferred to papyri.
The largest number of papyri with texts from the Book of the Dead was found in the burials of the city of Thebes; it is for this reason that the version of the Book of the Dead that became widespread during this period is called Thebes.
Most of them were found in the Theban tombs and belonged mainly to the priests and their families. These papyri are richly decorated with the finest drawings depicting scenes of burial, the performance of the funeral ritual, the posthumous trial and other scenes associated with the funeral cult and representations of the afterlife.
Of particular interest to researchers is the 125th chapter, which describes the posthumous trial of Osiris over the deceased. At the trial, the deceased turns to Osiris, and then to each of the 42 gods, justifying himself in mortal sin, which one or another god knew.
The same chapter contains the text of the defense speech:
Glory to you, great God, the lord of mutual truth. I have come to you, my lord. You brought me to contemplate your beauty. I know you, I know your name, I know the names of 42 gods who are with you in the palace of mutual truth, who live in wait for the wicked and feed on their blood on the day of account in the face of the Good.
Here I have come to you, master of truth; I brought the truth, I drove away the lies. I have not done anything unfair to people. I did not do evil. I did not do what is an abomination for the gods. I didn't kill. He did not reduce the loaves of bread in the temples, did not diminish the food of the gods, did not pluck the funeral gifts from the dead.
I did not decrease the measures of grain, did not decrease the measures of length, did not violate the measures of fields, did not increase the weight weights, did not forge the arrows of the scales. I am clean, I am clean, I am clean, I am clean.
There is also the Saite version of the Book of the Dead, which appeared as a result of the activities of the pharaohs of the XXVI dynasty, when there was a general revival of ancient religious and burial traditions.
