The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Ancient Wisdom Library)

The Egyptian Book of the Dead is the modern name given to collections of funerary spells intended to help the deceased navigate the dangers and transformations of the afterlife. Developed from a long Egyptian tradition of mortuary texts, these writings preserve prayers, declarations and ritual knowledge concerned with judgement, protection, rebirth and the continuing existence of the dead.

This illustrated Ancient Wisdom Library edition presents E. A. Wallis Budge’s historic translation alongside full-colour imagery from the celebrated Papyrus of Ani, one of the best-preserved and most extensively illustrated surviving examples of the Book of the Dead tradition. Budge’s translation reflects an earlier era of Egyptology and has been superseded in many respects by modern scholarship, but it remains historically influential and widely read. The volume is especially suited to readers interested in the text’s reception history and the visual world of Egyptian funerary belief.