DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.30604#0017
INTRODUCTION.
THE VERSIONS OF TI-IE BOOK OF THE DEAD.
The history of the great body of religious compositions which form the Book
of the Dead of the ancient Egyptians may conveniently be divided into four1
periods, which are represented by four versions :—
I. The version which was edited by the priests of the college of Annu
(the On of the Bible, and the Heliopolis of the Greeks), and which was
based upon a series of texts now lost, but which there is evidence to
prove had passed through a series of revisions or editions as early as
the period of the Vth dynasty. This version was, so far as we know,
always written in hieroglyphics, and may be called the Heliopolitan
version. It is known from five copies which are inscribed upon the
walls of the chambers and passages in the pyramids 3 of kings of the
Vth and Vlth dynasties at Sakkara;3 and sections of it are found
inscribed upon tombs, sarcophagi, coffins, stelse and papyri from the
Xlth dynasty to about a.d. 200.4
1 See Naville, Todtenbuch (Einleitung), p. 39.
2 Hence known as the “ pyramid texts.”
3 le., Unas, Teta, Pepi I., Mentu-em-sa-f, and Pepi II. Their pyramids were cleared out by
MM. Mariette and Maspero during the years 1880-84, and the hieroglyphic texts were published, with
a French translation, in Recueil de Travaux, t. iii.-xiv., Paris, 1882-93.
4 In the. Xlth, Xllth, and XHIth dynasties many monuments are inscribed with sections of
the Unas text. Thus lines 206-69 are found in hieroglyphics upon the coffin of Amamu (British
Museurn, No. 6634. See Birch, Egyptian Texts of the Earliest Period frorn the Coffin of Amamu,
1886. Plates XVII.-XX.) ; 11. 206-^4 and 268-84 on the coffin of (I □ (I , Apa-ankh, from
Sakkara (see Lepsius, Denkmaler, ii., Bl. 99 b; Maspero, Recueil, t. iii., pp. 200 and 214 ff.); 11. 206-10
b
The four great
versions of the
of the Dead.
THE VERSIONS OF TI-IE BOOK OF THE DEAD.
The history of the great body of religious compositions which form the Book
of the Dead of the ancient Egyptians may conveniently be divided into four1
periods, which are represented by four versions :—
I. The version which was edited by the priests of the college of Annu
(the On of the Bible, and the Heliopolis of the Greeks), and which was
based upon a series of texts now lost, but which there is evidence to
prove had passed through a series of revisions or editions as early as
the period of the Vth dynasty. This version was, so far as we know,
always written in hieroglyphics, and may be called the Heliopolitan
version. It is known from five copies which are inscribed upon the
walls of the chambers and passages in the pyramids 3 of kings of the
Vth and Vlth dynasties at Sakkara;3 and sections of it are found
inscribed upon tombs, sarcophagi, coffins, stelse and papyri from the
Xlth dynasty to about a.d. 200.4
1 See Naville, Todtenbuch (Einleitung), p. 39.
2 Hence known as the “ pyramid texts.”
3 le., Unas, Teta, Pepi I., Mentu-em-sa-f, and Pepi II. Their pyramids were cleared out by
MM. Mariette and Maspero during the years 1880-84, and the hieroglyphic texts were published, with
a French translation, in Recueil de Travaux, t. iii.-xiv., Paris, 1882-93.
4 In the. Xlth, Xllth, and XHIth dynasties many monuments are inscribed with sections of
the Unas text. Thus lines 206-69 are found in hieroglyphics upon the coffin of Amamu (British
Museurn, No. 6634. See Birch, Egyptian Texts of the Earliest Period frorn the Coffin of Amamu,
1886. Plates XVII.-XX.) ; 11. 206-^4 and 268-84 on the coffin of (I □ (I , Apa-ankh, from
Sakkara (see Lepsius, Denkmaler, ii., Bl. 99 b; Maspero, Recueil, t. iii., pp. 200 and 214 ff.); 11. 206-10
b
The four great
versions of the
of the Dead.