The Egyptian Book of the Dead
trans. E. A. Wallis Budge · 1895
5.0 · 7 ratings
About the book
Not a book so much as a kit: the spells, passwords and maps an Egyptian dead man needed to get through the night and out the other side. Budge's translation of the Papyrus of Ani is dated scholarship, and the version that shaped the West's whole picture of Egypt.
Try the short course
Part 1 · What this book actually is. The first six slides, free.
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Open Budge's volume and the title page carries a second name under the famous one: The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day. The first chapter of the roll opens the same way, announcing that here begin the chapters of coming forth by day.
That is the Egyptians' own label, and it says two things at once. It is a set of chapters, plural, not one book. And it is named for what it does - getting the dead man out - rather than for the people who used it.
“Book of the Dead” is a modern name. It stuck after Richard Lepsius published a late papyrus from Turin in 1842 as Das Todtenbuch der Aegypter, and it has coloured every reading since: one gloomy volume about death. The thing itself was neither one volume nor, in its own eyes, about death.
Inside the course
20 parts- What the «Book of the Dead» actually is — and is notFree above
- Ani and his papyrus: whose burial kit this was
- The recensions: how the text changed over three thousand years
- The legend of Osiris, and why every dead man became him
Questions
Is The Egyptian Book of the Dead free to read in Astra Trainer?
Yes. The full book opens free in the app’s reader, in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian.
What is the short course?
20 short parts that walk through the book’s key ideas in slides, each with a quick quiz. The first six slides are free to try on this page.
Where do I get the app?
Astra Trainer is free on the App Store and Google Play. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is waiting in the app’s library.
