Das Todtenbuch der Ägypter nach dem hieroglyphischen Papyrus in Turin

Lepsius, Karl Richard (1810-84). Das Todtenbuch der Ägypter nach dem hieroglyphischen Papyrus in Turin. 24pp. 79 full-page lithograph plates printed in black and red (3 folding), by Max Weidenbach. Leipzig: Georg Wigand, 1842. 325 x 269 mm. 19th century half cloth, marbled boards, light edgewear, back cover a bit scuffed, a few small areas of loss in the marbled paper covering the boards. Minor foxing but fine otherwise.

First Edition. The Egyptian "Book of the Dead," a loose collection of ancient religious / magical funerary texts intended to assist a dead person's journey into the afterlife, was first given that name by Prussian archeologist Karl Richard Lepsius, one of the founders of modern scientific Egyptology. Lepsius's Todtenbuch der Ägypter represents the first printed edition of a Book of the Dead; it reproduces the Ptolemaic text known as "papyrus Turin 1791." The work introduced Lepsius's numbering system for the Book's texts or "spells," which is still in use today.

There is no canonical version of the Book of the Dead. The Book's spells derive from the hieroglyphic funerary texts carved on the walls of royal tombs and later written on coffins; the earliest identifiable spells from the Book, found on the coffin of Queen Menthuhotep, date from about 1600 B.C.E. Around 1550 B.C.E. papyrus copies of Books of the Dead, written in cursive hieroglyphic script, began to be substituted for wall carvings or coffin inscriptions. These were often prefabricated in funerary workshops, with spaces left for the name of the deceased to be filled in later; the Book of the Dead is thus one of the earliest literary works to be commercially produced.