the Book of the Dead ( PDF )

The Versions Of The Book Of The Dead.
king of this dynasty, about B.C. 3766, encouraged men to incur greater expense, and to build larger and
better abodes for the dead, and to celebrate the full ritual at the prescribed festivals. In this dynasty the
royal dead were honoured with sepulchral monuments of a greater size and magnificence than had ever
before been contemplated, and the chapels attached to the pyramids were served by courses of priests
whose sole duties consisted in celebrating the services. The fashion of building a pyramid instead of the
rectangular flat-roofed mastaba for a royal tomb was revived by Seneferu,[2] who called his pyramid
Kha; and his example was followed by his immediate successors, Khufu (Cheops), Khaf-Ra (Chephren),
Men-kau-Ra (Mycerinus), and others.
Revision of certain chapters in the IVth dynasty.
In the reign of Mycerinus some important work seems to have been under taken in connection with
certain sections of the text of the Book of the Dead, for the rubrics of Chapters XXXB. and CXLVIII.[3]
state that these compositions were found inscribed upon "a block of iron(?) of the south in letters of real
lapis-lazuli under the feet of the majesty of the god in the time of the King it of the North and South
Men-kau-Ra, by the royal son Herutataf, triumphant." That a new impulse should be given to religious
observances, and that the revision of existing religious texts should take place in the reign of Mycerinus,
was only to be expected if Greek tradition may be believed, for both Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus
represent him as a just king, and one who was anxious to efface from the minds of the people the
memory of the alleged cruelty of his
[1. He conquered the peoples in the Sinaitic peninsula, and according to a text of a later date he built a wall to keep out the
Aamu from Egypt. In the story of Saneha a "pool of Seneferu" is mentioned, which shows that his name was well known
on the frontiers of Egypt. See Golénischeff, Aeg. Zeitschrift, p. 110; Maspero, Mélanges d'Archéologie, t. iii., Paris, 1876,
p. 71, 1. 2; Lepsius, Denkmäler, ii., 2a.
2 The building of the pyramid of Mêdûm has usually been attributed to Seneferu, but the excavations made there in 1882
did nothing to clear up the uncertainty which exists on this point; for recent excavations see Petrie, Medum, London, 1892,
40.
3 For the text see Naville, Todtenbuch, Bd. II., Bl. 99; Bd. I., Bl. 167.]
predecessor by re-opening the temples and by letting every man celebrate his own sacrifices and
discharge his own religious duties.[1] His pyramid is the one now known as the "third pyramid of
Gizeh," under which he was buried in a chamber vertically below the apex and 60 feet below the level of
the ground. Whether the pyramid was finished or not[2] when the king died, his body was certainly laid
in it, and notwithstanding all the attempts made by the Muhammadan rulers of Egypt[3] to destroy it at
the end of the 12th century of our era, it has survived to yield up important facts for the history of the
Book of the Dead.
Evidence of the Inscription on the coffin of Mycerinus.
In 1837 Colonel Howard Vyse succeeded in forcing the entrance. On the 29th of July he commenced
operations, and on the 1st of August he made his way into the sepulchral chamber, where, however,
nothing was found but a rectangular stone sarcophagous[4] without the lid. The large stone slabs of the
floor and the linings of the wall had been in many instances removed by thieves in search of treasure. In
a lower chamber, connected by a passage with the sepulchral chamber, was found the greater part of the
lid of the sarcophagus,[5] together with portions of a wooden coffin, and part of the body of a man,
consisting of ribs and vertebrae and the bones of the legs and feet, enveloped
[1. Herodotus, ii., 129, 1; Diodorus, i., 64, 9.
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