我的小天地

The Book of the Dead

The book of the dead is the name given by Egyptologists to a collection of chapters made up of groups of spells,incantations,and mummification of the techniques.This book was designed to help the deceased live s happy afterlife in heaven.The book was suppoesd to be read by the deceased during their journy into the Underworld.It is a New Kingdom text,which is similar to many texts found in the pyramids.The texts found in pyramids are classified as the Old Kingdoms texts and texts found in Egyptian coffins are classified as the middle kingdoms text.Both texts outline the ceremony performed at a funeral of an important person.The movies have led us to believe that we should not read from the book of the dead.But in fact,the book needed to be read by ancient Egyptians interested in the afterlife.To put it into the modern terms,think about how modern religous rituals are run.You go to the your place of worship and rituals and holy texts are read out to you from a book.In Ancient Egypt,these burial riturals weren't immediately from a book.At first,they were read directly off the walls of inner chambers of a pyramid.And later we were read directly off the sides of the coffins.The book of the dead was read off of papyrus sheets much as religious riturals today are read out of books.Like some modern day holy books,the book of the dead was meant to be relatively cheap to purchase,unlike buying a pyramid or a coffin.This would ensured that any fairly well-off person could buy a hand-written copy of the book and use it on a loved one.If you are an Egyptian with a fair bit of money in the New Kingdom you would buy a copy of the book that would have blanks where the name of the loved one should be placed.Then all you have to do was hire someone called scribe write the name in allthe blank spots.