The Getty Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead developed from spells that were first inscribed on beetle-shaped amulets (scarabs) and coffins at the end of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom period, around 1650 BC.

By the New Kingdom (ca. 1450 BC), scribes started writing Book of the Dead spells on papyrus scrolls, where the text was often accompanied by drawn vignettes. During the New Kingdom era, a cultural flourishing fired the imaginations of those who designed early versions of the Book of the Dead, resulting in new funerary literature guiding the deceased to the beyond. 

Book of the Dead papyri were primarily written in hieroglyphic Egyptian, but Webennesre's example is written using hieratic, essentially a cursive version of hieroglyphs. Only scribal students who showed promising talent were chosen to learn how to write hieroglyphs, which was not the domain of writers but of artists.
 

Webennesre's manuscript records Spell 149, in which the deceased encounters 14 mounds. The mounds represent places in the afterlife, each with its own inhabitants. 

The L-shaped mound, for example, is home to a knife-throwing snake. Spells like this one inform the deceased about dangerous places and communicate secret passwords to open doors that would otherwise be closed or too dangerous to pass through. 

This papyrus belonged to Ankhesenaset (“may she live for (the goddess) Isis”). Her name is written here in the lower right corner (from right to left in black ink), though it is partially obscured by damage. The text contains Spells 23 and 28, in reverse order. Spell 23 reminds the deceased that her mouth has been opened so she can defend herself against the enemies of the underworld by activating helping gods: 

“As for any magical spell or any word which I have said, the gods will stand up for it, with their ennead [9 gods] united and my ennead [9 gods] united.” 

Spell 28 helps to avoid the destruction of the heart during its removal in the embalming process. Only the dead whose body parts remained completely intact could enter the netherworld.    

Ancient Egyptian texts do not make use of spacing between words or conventional signs. For modern readers, the lack of punctuation makes hieroglyphic texts somewhat challenging to understand at first glance. 

At the bottom, Pasherashaikhet and his wife receive offerings of incense and a libation (water offering) under a roof-like structure symbolizing his tomb. 

The middle section shows four baboons and two ba-birds (human-headed birds that embodied the deceased’s spirit) praising the morning sun. 

In the top register, the rising sun’s rays fall between a woman (left) and a man (right).

This vignette from Spell 125 of the Book of the Dead is probably the best known. It shows the deceased at the court of the god Osiris, who sits underneath a baldachin (ornamental canopy), surrounded by 26 divine judges. They watch the weighing of Pasherashaikhet’s heart against the feather of justice. 

Ammit, a monster with the head of a hippopotamus and the body of a lion, waits in anticipation. She sits on top of the tomb ready to gobble down any heart that fails the test. No examples are recorded, however, of anyone meeting this fate. 

The deceased is accompanied by his wife when ordered to appear before Osiris, along with four entities with human heads that embody fate, birth, and upbringing (seen here as two seated figures followed by two sphinx-like figures, facing left). According to ancient Egyptian belief, these qualities form a person’s character, and they make sure that during an individual’s lifetime they do not deviate from the path of rightfulness.

Some vignettes include direct speech, like speech bubbles in a comic book or manga. When Pasherashaikhet’s heart passes the test, Thoth, the god of writing, communicates the result to Osiris on the left, saying “His heart is sound. The lack of truthfulness cannot be found.”

As on the papyrus of Pasherashaikhet, the mummy wrappings of Petosiris show the vignette that accompanies Spell 15, associated with sun hymns. Both examples date to the Ptolemaic Period and show how the Book of the Dead was used on different materials. 

A second set of mummy wrappings in the Getty's collection belonged to another man also named Petosiris, whose mother was Nanesbastet. This wrapping records Spell 158, which identifies an elaborately beaded collar (the wesekh collar) as an important accessory to the deceased’s newly gained status. 

Petosiris stands to the right of an offering table, holding the collar in his hands. At left, the goddess Isis shakes a ritual rattle known as a sistrum.

The third set of mummy wrappings belong to an individual named Ni-nef-Bastet. These wrappings have vignettes that appear rather schematic and the artistic expression is somewhat stifled. 

The repertoire depicted includes repetitive offering scenes, libations, and burning of incense.

Three hundred and thirty six ushabtis, including this one, were buried with a man named Neferibresaneith in a tomb in Saqqara, Egypt, which was excavated from 1928 to 1929.

Neferibresaneith (whose name appears in the top line of the hieroglyphic inscription on the figure’s body) held the titles of wab-priest, Royal Chancellor of Lower Egypt, and Administrator of the Palace during the reign of Pharaoh Ahmose II (ca. 570–526 BC).