Archaeologists have reported discovering an intact ancient Egyptian papyrus containing texts of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Archeologists in Egypt have discovered an intact ancient Egyptian Papyrus Scroll at the sacred Necropolis of Saqqara, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, has reported. The find is the first of its kind in more than one hundred years. The ancient Egyptian text has already been translated and contains phrases from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. The Book of the Dead is a collection of funerary texts containing a series of spells and magic formulas.
It was usually placed inside the tomb id the deceased. Its presence was believed to protect and help the deceased in the afterlife. The ancient texts’ origins can be traced back to the 16th century BC. The collection included the so-called Coffin Texts from around 2,000 BC and the Pyramid texts from around 2,400 BC.
The Secretary-General of the ancient Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, explained that this is the first time such an ancient document has been translated in more than a century. The ancient text will be displayed in an Egyptian Museum for the world to see. The papyrus scroll was sent to the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, where it was restored In the laboratory. The scroll has been dubbed the Waziri Papyrus, as reported by Egypt Independent.
Waziri presented the discovery during the celebration of the Egyptian day of the Archaeologist. The Ministry of Antiquities celebrates this day on January 14th. The date commemorates the anniversary of the first Egyptian head of Antiquities in 1953, Mr. Mostafa Amer. The Waziri Papyrus measures sixteen meters in length.
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