Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

The Theban
Recension of
the Book of
the Dead.
Naville's
edition of the
Book of the
Dead.
Birch's
proposed
concordance
to the
funerary
papyri.
xlvi Introduction.
in hand a task which he had contemplated for many years, namely,
the compilation of a detailed description of the Egyptian hiero-
glyphic and hieratic funerary papyri. The English translation
of the Saite Recension of the Book of the Dead according to the
Turin Papyrus, 1 which he published in 1867, - had aroused universal
interest, and he was urged to supplement it with a version of the
older Theban Recension translated from the rich collection of
XVIIIth dynasty papyri in the British Museum. The smaller
papyri had been cut up into sections and mounted under sheets
of glass, and were at that time arranged in drawers in the Table-
Cases in the public rooms. The longer papyri, i.e., those which
measured from 5 to 30 feet in length, had been mounted in black
the walls of the North-West
glazed wooden frames and hung upon
Staircase. But as in this position it was well-nigh impossible to
consult them, and as it was feared that they might suffer injury
through damp, they were taken down and, where possible, were
cut up into sections, mounted under sheets of glass and stored
with the shorter papyri. During the general rearrangement of
the papyri which followed these alterations Birch seized the
opportunity of re-examining and describing with minute care the
papyri which Professor Naville had selected as authorities for the
text of his edition of the Theban Recension of the Book of the
Dead, and he directed me to assist him in this work. He was
chiefly anxious to collect variant readings, and unusual forms of
words, and new words, and to make lists of the papyri in which
particular Chapters appeared. The work was long and difficult,
chiefly because we possessed no concordance of the words of the
Theban Recensions, and therefore could not easily identify the
Chapters in which they occurred in mutilated papyri. So long
as we were dealing with papyri containing the Saite Recension
we found Lieblein's little " Index " 3
very useful, but for identifying
Chapters and passages in the Theban Recension it afforded no
help. Having grouped the funerary papyri chronologically, i.e.,
according to dynasties, Birch began to write his descriptions of
the papyri, and he directed me to make a concordance to them,
and intended to incorporate the slips that I wrote with those which
he was heaping up as material for the new edition of his "
Dictionary
1 For the Egyptian text see Lepsius, Das Todtenbuch. Leipzig, 1842.
* In the fifth volume of Egypt's Place in Universal History. London, 1867,
pp. 161-326.
5
Lieblein, J., Index Alphabetique de tous les Mots contends dans le Livre des
Marts public par R. Lepsius d'apres le Papyrus de Turin. Lithographed. Paris,
1875.
8vo.