Author Description

The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (around 1550 BCE) to around 50 BCE. This Reading & Answer Book is for the student of hieroglyphs who wishes to extend their translation skills using real ancient Egyptian texts. The pages contain the hieroglyphic text, phonetic transltion, literal and full translations and should be used with the accompanying Student Work Book which contains only the hieroglyphic text and phonetic translation. Most of the text is taken from the Papyrus of Any: The papyrus of Anwy (Any) was found at Thebes and was purchased by the British Museum in 1888. It measures 78 feet by 1 foot 3 inches and is the longest papyrus of the Theban Period. It is made up of 6 indivual parts. It contains a number of chapters of the Book of the Dead, mostly accompanied by illustrations. The titles of the chapters in the papyrus are written in red. In the following texts a phonetic (grey) translation of the hieroglyphs is provided to aid word identification in the Student Work Book and in the Reading & Answer Book, an English transliteration and a full literal translation is given for reading and study. This work is taken from the Papyrus of Anwy and other sources to complete the utterances of the Book of the Dead.