The mystery of the Great pyramid : traditions concerning it and its connection with the Egyptian Book of the dead : with numerous illustrations

“THE BOOK OF THE DEAD”

Of the various chapters (in the sequence of which there was probably some traditional order) used as pyramid texts or written on papyri at different times, there have been three principal revisions or recensions :—

(1) The Heliopolitan Recension of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, the most complete copies of which are found inscribed in hieroglyphics on the walls and chambers of the pyramids at Sakkara, followed by another version written on coffins of the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties.

(2) The Theban Recension (Eighteenth-Twenty-second Dynasties) ; and (3) the Sazte Recension (Twenty-sixth Dynasty), to which is due the great papyrus now preserved at Turin, and during which the order of the chapters is supposed to have been arranged for the first time. The order selected, however, is not the relative antiquity of the chapters, for that which claims to be the oldest comes one hundred and thirtieth, while the most remarkable chapter of all—the sixty-fourth, which may be regarded as an epitome of the whole Ritual, is assigned by one tradition to the First and by another to the Fourth Dynasty, and bears the title “Coming Forth by Day in a Single Chapter”, as though it had at one time been the only chapter in use.

Concerning this sixty-fourth chapter, the following from Sir Wallis Budge’s Introduction (p. xxxvi) is of interest. After describing the two versons of this particular chapter and their history, he says: ‘‘ There remains another point to notice about the sixty-fourth chapter. The version of it to which the name of Semti (First Dynasty) is attached is entitled ‘ The Chapter of knowing the Chapters of Coming Forth [by Day] in a single Chapter’. Now .. . the Egyptians called the chapters of the Book of the Dead the ‘ chapters of Coming Forth by Day ’, and judging from the title it would seem that, as early as Semti’s times, these

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