The Book of the Dead | Page 2

dead body, and they adopted every means known to them to prevent its
dismemberment and decay. They cleansed it and embalmed it with
drugs, spices and balsams; they anointed it with aromatic oils and
preservative fluids; they swathed it in hundreds of yards of linen
bandages; and then they sealed it up in a coffin or sarcophagus, which
they laid in a chamber hewn in the bowels of the mountain. All these
things were done to protect the physical body against damp, dry rot and
decay, and against the attacks of moth, beetles, worms and wild
animals. But these were not the only enemies of the dead against which
precautions had to be taken, for both the mummified body and the
spiritual elements which had inhabited it upon earth had to be protected
from a multitude of devils and fiends, and from the powers of darkness
generally. These powers of evil had hideous and terrifying shapes and
forms, and their haunts were well known, for they infested the region
through which the road of the dead lay when passing from this world to
the Kingdom of Osiris. The "great gods" were afraid of them, and were
obliged to protect themselves by the use of spells and magical names,
and words of power, which were composed and written down by Thoth.
In fact it was believed in very early times in Egypt that Ra the Sun-god
owed his continued existence to the possession of a secret name with
which Thoth had provided him. And each morning the rising sun was
menaced by a fearful monster called Aapep, which lay hidden under the
place of sunrise waiting to swallow up the solar disk. It was impossible,
even for the Sun-god, to destroy this "Great Devil," but by reciting each
morning the powerful spell with which Thoth had provided him he was
able to paralyse all Aapep's limbs and to rise upon this world. Since
then the "great gods," even though benevolently disposed towards them,
were not able to deliver the dead from the devils that lived upon the
"bodies, souls, spirits, shadows and hearts of the dead," the Egyptians
decided to invoke the aid of Thoth on behalf of their dead and to place
them under the protection of his almighty spells. Inspired by Thoth the

theologians of ancient Egypt composed a large number of funerary
texts which were certainly in general use under the IVth dynasty (about
3700 B.C.), and were probably well known under the Ist dynasty, and
throughout the whole period of dynastic history Thoth was regarded as
the author of the "Book of the Dead."

CHAPTER III
The Book Per-t em hru, or [The Chapters of] Coming forth by (or, into)
the Day, commonly called the "Book of the Dead."
The spells and other texts which were written by Thoth for the benefit
of the dead, and are directly connected with him, were called,
according to documents written under the XIth and XVIIIth dynasties,
"Chapters of the Coming Forth by (or, into) the Day." One rubric in the
Papyrus of Nu (Brit. Mus. No. 10477) states that the text of the work
called "PER-T EM HRU," i.e., "Coming Forth (or, into) the Day," was
discovered by a high official in the foundations of a shrine of the god
Hennu during the reign of Semti, or Hesepti, a king of the Ist dynasty.
Another rubric in the same papyrus says that the text was cut upon the
alabaster plinth of a statue of Menkaura (Mycerinus), a king of the IVth
dynasty, and that the letters were inlaid with lapis lazuli. The plinth was
found by Prince Herutataf, a son of King Khufu (Cheops), who carried
it off to his king and exhibited it as a "most wonderful" thing. This
composition was greatly reverenced, for it "would make a man
victorious upon earth and in the Other World; it would ensure him a
safe and free passage through the Tuat (Under World); it would allow
him to go in and to go out, and to take at any time any form he pleased;
it would make his soul to flourish, and would prevent him from dying
the [second] death." For the deceased to receive the full benefit of this
text it had to be recited by a man "who was ceremonially pure, and who
had not eaten fish or meat, and had not consorted with women." On
coffins of the XIth dynasty and on papyri of the XVIIIth dynasty we
find two versions of the PER-T EM HRU, one long and one short. As
the title of the shorter version states that it is the "Chapters of the

PER-T EM HRU in a single chapter," it is clear that this work, even
under the IVth dynasty, contained many "Chapters," and that