Ancient text
The Book of the Dead
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An introduction to the Egyptian spells meant to carry the dead through the underworld, with extracts translated. Budge explains the weighing of the heart and the forty-two judges.
Public domain copy
Where this comes from
This is a public-domain copy. The line below says where the file comes from and why we may host it.
Why we can share it: Project Gutenberg record: 'Copyright Status: Public domain in the USA.' Author Budge (1857-1934); the text's closing note is dated April 15, 1920, i.e. published before 1931.
Read the story behind it
TextPyramid TextsThe great pyramids at Giza are silent inside, with no inscriptions at all; the oldest religious writing in Egypt appears only later, carved on the walls of burial chambers to send a dead king up to the stars. One spell, the Cannibal Hymn, has him hunt the gods, cook them and eat their magic. What did these spells promise him?GodThothMillions of mummified ibis birds were buried in catacombs as offerings to Thoth, the ibis-headed Egyptian god of writing and the moon. Stories give him hidden writings too, including a Book of Thoth locked in nested boxes at the bottom of the Nile; reading it brought disaster on the man who took it. What did it say?GodAtumIn the Book of the Dead, Egypt's creator god calmly tells Osiris that he will one day destroy everything he made and survive it as a serpent, while the earth returns to the waters. He had risen self-made from those waters; some texts say he sneezed out the first gods. What does he mean by an ending?
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