Author Description

Volume 7 was originally planned to be single book, but the great size of the planned publication has required that Volume 7 be split into two parts, where Volume 7, Part 1 pertains to BD Spells 110 to 119, and Volume 7, Part 2 pertains to BD Spells 120 to 124 and 126 to 128, with three additional chapters for several individual documents. Part 1 starts with BD Spell 110 that has the most complex of all illustrations in the Book of the Dead because the main portion of this illustration consists of two parts, with multiple scenes on three or four registers. The spell actually consists of four parts, where the first and fourth parts have text and some documents include a separate illustration with each of these two parts. The main portion of the illustration consists of two parts that depict various activities, locations, and deities that the deceased may encounter in the Field of Offerings of the netherworld. The naming of these parts was first established by Richard Lepsius in 1842, based on the presentation in papyrus Turin 1971, but he misnamed one part, and the arrangement in P. Turin 1791 does not represent the presentation in any other Saite through Ptolemaic documents. To further complicate matters, many documents omit the first and fourth parts. Yet another issue is that scholars have continued to use the Lepsius naming convention, even though it does not reflect the arrangement found in the vast majority of documents. This raises the question of whether to continue to use the Lepsius naming or to revise the naming to reflect the actual sequential arrangement found in most documents. Based on the examination of over 100 documents for this current study, it seems best to use a new naming convention that reflect the vast majority of documents. BD Spells 111 to 116 continue the series of spells of knowing the various gods of different locations, and BD Spells 117 to 119 pertain to obtaining a path to the great cemetery of Rosetau, of arriving there, and o