The key ideas

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

Ancient Egyptian text, 1550 BC

A heart goes on one pan of the scales and a feather on the other, while a monster with a crocodile's jaws waits nearby. This is how the Egyptians pictured the great final test, and for it they prepared a scroll of spells. This book explains what that scroll really was, why the dead needed to know the names of doors, and what code of honest living was spoken before the gods.

Who it is for

For anyone curious about how people lived, and what they believed, three thousand years ago. And for anyone who wants to know what lies behind the picture of the scales, the feather and the god with a jackal's head.

I gave bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked and a boat to the one who had no boat.

What this book is about

Imagine that a trial awaits you after death. Your heart is placed on one pan of the scales, and a feather on the other. If your heart fails the test, a monster with a crocodile's jaws will eat it. This is how the ancient Egyptians pictured the most important test of all, and they prepared for it in advance.

That test is what the Book of the Dead was for. It is not one book by one author, but a collection of spells the Egyptians used for more than fifteen hundred years, starting around 1550 BC. Its best known version is the papyrus of the scribe Ani from the city of Thebes. The scroll was made around 1250 BC, and in 1895 the British Egyptologist Wallis Budge translated it into English.

Ahead of you: what this book really is, why the dead needed to know the names of doors, what they were afraid to hear from their own heart, and what code of honest living was spoken before the gods. No mysticism, only what people three thousand years ago thought a good life was.

Idea 1. Not a holy scripture, but a guidebook made for one person

The name "Book of the Dead" was not invented by the Egyptians. They called these texts "Spells for Coming Forth by Day". The dead person hoped not to stay forever in the darkness of the tomb, but to go out into the light again.

This is not a fixed canon like the Bible, where everyone has the same text. About two hundred spells are known, and no single scroll holds all of them. Each set was chosen for a particular person, and workshops often made scrolls in advance and left a blank space for the name of the future owner. The finished scroll was laid in the tomb beside the dead person.

The papyrus of Ani is one of the most lavish: it runs to about twenty-four metres and is painted with colour pictures. What this means for you: you are not looking at a secret teaching, but at a practical handbook for the journey, one that shows clearly what people feared and what they hoped for.

Picture a scribes' workshop in Thebes. A scribe copies prayers, the trial scene and the fields of the afterlife onto a long scroll, and where a name should go, he leaves gaps. Later the dead man's family arrives, pays in silver, and the gaps are filled in: Ani, royal scribe.

The scroll was not a book to read but personal insurance for the journey. That is why it shows so clearly what an Egyptian feared most.

Read in Livria

About the author

These texts have no single author: Egyptian priests and scribes compiled and copied them over centuries. The best known version is the papyrus of the scribe Ani, translated in 1895 by the British Egyptologist Wallis Budge.

All books by this author: Ancient Egyptian text

Terms from the book

  • Scarab
  • Osiris
  • Papyrus
  • Ani: An Egyptian scribe from Thebes, for whom one of the most lavish scrolls of the Book of the Dead was made around 1250 BC.
  • Thebes: A large city in the south of ancient Egypt, on the banks of the Nile. Luxor stands on its site today.
  • Budge: Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, a British Egyptologist and keeper of Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum. He acquired the papyrus of Ani in 1888 and published his translation of it in 1895.
  • Duat: The underworld in Egyptian belief. The sun was thought to sail through it every night, and the path of the dead ran through it too.
  • Hall of Two Truths: The place where the dead are judged in the Book of the Dead. Their heart is weighed there, and there they answer before forty-two judges.
  • Anubis: The jackal-headed Egyptian god of embalming and protector of the dead. At the trial he watches over the scales.
  • Maat: A goddess and an idea at the same time: truth, justice and the order of the world. Her symbol is the feather placed on the scales against the heart.
  • Thoth: The Egyptian god of wisdom and writing, shown with the head of an ibis. At the trial he records the result of the weighing.
  • Ammit: The monster called the Devourer in the trial scene of the Book of the Dead: a crocodile in front, a lion in the middle and a hippopotamus behind. She eats the heart of anyone who fails the test.
  • Mummification: A way of preserving the body of the dead: it was dried, treated and wrapped in linen. The Egyptians believed a person still needed their body after death.
  • Negative Confession: The name Egyptologists gave to the part of the Book of the Dead where the dead person tells the judges which sins they did not commit.
  • Field of Reeds: The fields of the afterlife where those acquitted at the trial went: fertile land with canals, wheat and barley.
  • Shabti: Small servant figures placed in the tomb. When a spell was spoken, they were meant to work the fields of the afterlife in place of the dead.

All terms

Similar books