Dead

Dead, BOOK OF THE, the great funerary work of the ancient Egyptians, who themselves entitled it Per-em-Hru, 'to go forth from (or by) day.' It is 'a collection of prayers and exorcisms composed at various periods for the benefit of the pilgrim-soul in his journey through Amenti (the Egyptian Hades); and it was in order to provide him with a safe-conduct through the perils of that terrible valley that copies of the work, or portions of it, were buried with the mummy in his tomb.' Such copies, hieroglyphic or hieratic according to the age when they were executed, and made some to order, others for sale, constitute fully one-half of the thousands of extant papyri. They are mostly corrupt and faulty; but as the fruit of ten years' toil, a pure text at last has been published by Edouard Naville in Das Aegyptische Todtenbuch der XVIII. bis XX. Dynastie (Berlin, 1886), whose folio supplement contains 212 plates of texts, vignettes, and variants of vignettes. Dr Birch's English translation (Egypt's Place in Universal History, vol. v. 1867) is based on Lepsius' imperfect Turin text (1842), as also is Pierret's French translation (1882). See the articles EGYPT, HIEROGLYPHICS, and AMENTHES; two works by E. A. Wallis Budge (1895 and 1897); and a masterly article on M. Naville's work by Miss A. B. Edwards in the Academy for 10th September 1887.