The scroll is 16 meters long and appeared near the Saqqara necropolis (Cairo) a few months ago. Once restored in the laboratory of the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, archaeologists have discovered that this document, nicknamed the 'Waziri Papyrus', contains texts from the famous Book of the Dead.
The secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, explained that this is the first time in a century that a complete papyrus has been found. The text is now being translated into Arabic in order to discover all the secrets it hides.
The Book of the Dead (whose original name was rw nw prt m hrw) was not a single copy. Various versions existed throughout the centuries, adapting to the specific needs of each deceased pharaoh and also to high-ranking members of Egyptian society. It was used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (circa 1540 BC) until Rome conquered Egypt in the 1st century BC.
The document contained a series of magical spells intended to help the deceased overcome Osiris's judgment, assist them in their journey through the Duat (the underworld) and travel to Aaru, in the afterlife. Some chapters were written on tomb walls and sarcophagi.
Until now 192 incantations were known, although no known manuscript contains them all at once. Some give mystical knowledge of the afterlife and others speak of the different gods. It also explains how to preserve the body parts of the deceased or give the dead control over the world around them.
One of its most famous passages is the "Weighing of the heart", which would have been defined around the year 1475 BC. C., at which time copies of the Book of the Dead were commonly written on papyrus. Anubis would take the deceased before Osiris, where they would swear that they had not committed any of the 42 "sins" listed, and his heart would be weighed on a scale against a feather to determine if they were worthy of a place in the afterlife.
There are several spells that served to protect against damage or loss of the heart, and in one case the heart is even implored not to "betray" its owner during the most important weighing ritual "telling lies in the presence of the god" Egyptian pantheon, in charge of the resurrection, fertility and regeneration of the Nile.
Scribes made copies of the Book of the Dead to order, and the scrolls could be as short as one meter or as long as 40 meters. People knew of the existence of such scrolls in the Middle Ages and assumed that they were religious in nature because they were found in tombs.
It was the German linguist and Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius who coined the name 'Book of the Dead' in 1842 after translating one of those Ptolematic-era manuscripts. The best known example to date is the Ani Papyrus, discovered in Luxor in 1888 and now in the British Museum.
Most of the owners of these works were members of the elite, although initially they were reserved only for the royal family. Creating this type of papyri, a job done by scribes, was not cheap for the price of papyrus. That is why on many occasions everyday documents were reused, creating palimpsests (a manuscript that preserves traces of another previous text).
The document studied now was found in March 2022. Archaeologists discovered five tombs about 4,000 years old, from which they were able to recover up to 250 painted wooden sarcophagi containing complete mummies. There was also a collection of cosmetics, bronze vessels, and a sistrum (percussion musical instrument).
One of the sarcophagi contained a scroll with hieroglyphic writing that was initially believed to be about 9 meters long. Once studied and restored at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, experts saw that it actually measured 16 meters. According to Mostaza Waziri, the work will be presented at the museum sometime this year.
