© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Peter Harholdt.

ClassificationsAncient Egyptian Art

Fragment of a Book of the Dead

AAT Object Form/FunctionReligious Texts

AAT Object TechniquePapyri (Manuscripts)

Place FoundEgypt, Africa

CultureEgyptian

PeriodPtolemaic Period

Date305-30 BCE

MediumPapyrus, pigment

Credit LineCollected by William A. Shelton, funded by John A. Manget

Dimensions7 15/16 x 11 3/16 in. (20.2 x 28.4 cm)

Object number1921.090.001 A

Label TextThis fragment of papyrus is only a small section of a longer roll containing excerpts from the "Book of the Dead." The spells and illustrations in the "Book of the Dead" were intended to guide the deceased on the perilous journey into the afterlife. An individual typically selected a few of the nearly two hundred spells to be inscribed on papyrus and placed in the tomb close to the body.

In this case, the owner of the papyrus, Paheby, son of Ankhpakhered and Takhebyt, has chosen chapters 1 and 72, along with others now lost. The text is written in a cursive form of hieroglyphic, in vertical columns to be read from right to left. The initial spell associates Paheby with Osiris, requesting that he become like the god and that he receive the same life-giving offerings as the god. The desired result is that like the deity, Paheby will be resurrected. Chapter 72, entitled "Spell for going out into the day and opening up the tomb," guarantees that Paheby will be provided with a tomb and all of the offerings that traditionally sustained the deceased.

Above the text is a description of Paheby's funeral procession en route to the tomb. The central element in the scene is the round-topped chest holding the canopic jars in which Paheby's embalmed viscera rest. A priest drags the chest, followed by a group of female mourners, two of whom raise their palms in characteristic gesture of grief.
Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, May 11, 1993 - April 2000
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2001 - 2006
Published ReferencesC.A. Keller, "A Late Book of the Dead in the Emory University Museum," Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar 6 (1985): 55-67.
Bonna Wescoat and Monique Seefrie, "Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology Reopens," Archaeology 38, no. 3 (1985): 60-63.
Helen C. Smith, "A Walk Through Time," Atlanta Weekly, June 8, 1986.
Michael C. Carlos Museum Handbook (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 1996), 24.
Peter Lacovara and Betsy Teasley Trope, The Realm of Osiris (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2001), 15.

ProvenanceAcquired for Emory University Museum by William Shelton (1875-1959), ca. 1920.

Status

Not on view

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