the Book of the Dead ( PDF )

The Versions Of The Book Of The Dead.
dynasty.]
{p. xxii}
Evidence of the texts of the pyramid of Unas.
celebration of funeral rites; but a text forming the Book of the Dead as a whole does not occur until the
reign of Unas (B.C. 3333), the last king of the dynasty, who according to the Turin papyrus reigned thirty
years. This monarch built on the plain of Sakkâra a stone pyramid about sixty-two feet high, each side
measuring about two hundred feet at the base. In the time of Perring and Vyse it was surrounded by
heaps of broken stone and rubbish, the result of repeated attempts to open it, and with the casing stones,
which consisted of compact limestone from the quarries of Tura.[1] In February, 1881, M. Maspero
began to clear the pyramid, and soon after he succeeded in making an entrance into the innermost
chambers, the walls of which were covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, arranged in perpendicular
lines and painted in green.[2] The condition of the interior showed that at some time or other thieves had
already succeeded in making an entrance, for the cover of the black basalt sarcophagus of Unas had been
wrenched off and moved near the door of the sarcophagus chamber; the paving stones had been pulled up
in the vain attempt to find buried treasure; the mummy had been broken to pieces, and nothing remained
of it except the right arm, a tibia, and some fragments of the skull and body. The inscriptions which
covered certain walls and corridors in the tomb were afterwards published by M. Maspero.[3] The
appearance of the text of Unas[4] marks an era in the history of the Book of the Dead, and its translation
must be regarded as one of the greatest triumphs of Egyptological decipherment, for the want of
determinatives in many places in the text, and the archaic spelling of many of the words and passages
presented difficulties which were not easily overcome.[6] Here, for the first time, it was shown that the
Book of the Dead was no compilation of a comparatively late period in the history of Egyptian
civilization, but a work belonging to a very remote antiquity; and it followed naturally that texts which
were then known, and which were thought to be themselves original ancient texts, proved to be only
versions which had passed through two or more successive revisions.
[1. Vyse, Pyramids of Gizeh, p. 51
2. Maspero, Recueil de Travaux, t. iii., p. 78.
3. See Recueil de Travaux, t. iii., pp. 177-224; t. iv., pp. 41-78.
4. In 1881 Dr. Brugsch described two pyramids of the VIth dynasty inscribed with religious texts similar to those found in
the pyramid of Unas, and translated certain passages (Aeg. Zeitschrift, Bd., xix., pp. 1-15); see also Birch in Trans. Son
Bibl. Arch., 1881, p. iii ff.
5 The pyramid which bore among the Arabs the name of Mastabat el-Far'ûn, or "Pharaoh's Bench," was excavated by
Mariette in 1858, and, because he found the name of Unas painted on certain blocks of stone, he concluded that it was the
tomb of Unas. M. Maspero's excavations have, as Dr. Lepsius observes (Aeg. Zeitschrift, Bd. XIX., p. 15), set the matter
right.]
{p. xxiii}
The Book of the Dead in the VIth dynasty
Evidence of the text of the pyramid of Teta;
Continuing his excavations at Sakkâra, M. Maspero opened the pyramid Of Teta,[1] king of Egypt about
B.C. 3300, which Vyse thought[2] had never been entered, and of which, in his day, the masonry on one
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