The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Book of the Dead
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Title: The Book of the Dead
Author: Sir E. A. Wallis Budge
Release date: December 1, 2004 [eBook #7145]
Most recently updated: December 30, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7145
Credits: Produced by Jeroen Hellingman
Produced by Jeroen Hellingman
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD.
by E. A. Wallis Budge.
CHAPTER I
The Title.
"Book of the Dead" is the title now commonly given to the great collection of funerary texts which the ancient Egyptian scribes composed for the benefit of the dead. These consist of spells and incantations, hymns and litanies, magical formulae and names, words of power and prayers, and they are found cut or painted on walls of pyramids and tombs, and painted on coffins and sarcophagi and rolls of papyri. The title "Book of the Dead" is somewhat unsatisfactory and misleading, for the texts neither form a connected work nor belo…