The Pharaoh’s Treasure

The Undertaker’s Special and the World’s First Bestseller

The darkish colored, elongated object lying there between the legs of the corpse had become a thing of fascination to more than one early explorer of ancient Egypt. And it wasn’t the obvious mummified body part. Sometimes shellacked or varnished with resin or bitumen, this mysterious object might resemble a foot-long stick of charred firewood, but upon unfolding or unrolling, it is revealed to be a scroll. Nevertheless, it could still be extremely difficult to open and read. If discovered in a tomb or elsewhere, it would hardly be anything to write home about (let alone jump around and shout about); in fact, such things were often left behind by tomb robbers in their frantic search for obvious bounty like precious stones, jewelry, and works of art.

It was only in the eighteenth century when European tourists began showing an interest in these scrolls that they started showing up on the market as curiosities. Sadly, if coated with a flammable lacquer, resin, or bitumen, funerary scrolls not only resembled up-market briquettes, but they could also serve that purpose as well, and were scented, no less. In 1778 an unknown European dealer in antiquities, while haggling over the cost of a papyrus scroll dated 191 A.D., was horrified to see Egyptian peasants set alight some fifty scrolls just for the sake of the aromatic scent of the smoke.¹

images — Mummified corpse, Book of the Dead and coffin with feathers on lid (after Mariette and Maspero, 1872 and Wikipedia).

It seems that papyrus has a natural compound in the stem that is akin to incense—Pliny the elder referred to it as “the aromatic weed.” Today in Ethiopia papyrus rhizomes are still dried, cut into fragments, and incorporated into the incense mixture used in Orthodox Church services. Burning scrolls produces the same effect. I worked extensively with papyrus plants in Africa in the seventies, and did a great number of chemical analyses for which the dried plant had to be ground up. The scent from the grinding process was distinct and real; my lab reeked of it for months. It is not as noticeable in the upper parts of the stem, flower, or roots, but it increases dramatically in the base of the stem and into the rhizome (the sprout from which the stems grow). A resined, shellacked or tarred scroll would give off an even stronger scent of pine, acacia gum, or bitumen. Whether dealing with fresh material or tightly sealed scrolls, the natural scent of papyrus is distinct. It is missing in ancient sheets or fragments of papyrus dried in the desert air over centuries, since by then it has lost its essence.

Regardless of how interesting it would be to burn such a thing, when you see it lying there entangled in the mummy wrappings, or tucked away under the arm of a corpse, or between its thighs or legs, the first impression is that the owner was desperately afraid of losing it. And who can blame him; his Book of the Dead (for that is what the majority of funerary scrolls are) is a guarantee of safe passage on that final journey to the stars. Think of it as the tag that is draped around the neck of the unaccompanied child or elderly person that perhaps you’ve seen at an airport being led smartly by an airline attendant from one terminal to another, destination guaranteed.

In ancient Egypt, a funerary scroll could take several forms, depending on what you could afford. It might be a brief summary of personal good deeds recorded on a small bit of papyrus paper rolled tightly into an amulet. Or it could be a ready-made or single page scroll with blank spaces left to fill in a name—the first fill-in-the-form document. Or it could be a scroll from 1 to 158 feet in length with as much of the text of the Book of the Dead on it as a personal scribe could fit, or one could pay for, along with paeans describing how good a person had been in life and instructions to those along the way about how to help reach the final place among the blessed dead.

In addition to a papyrus passport, it was also important to have legions of helpers in the afterlife, often in the form of clay or wooden models, and a papyrus canoe or boat or model thereof, to transport your body to its final resting ground and your soul to paradise, otherwise you would have to hitch a ride, which might delay your arrival. In any case, only a papyrus hull would do as a means of transport, for only papyrus held the sacred charm to repel crocodiles in the swamps of the netherworld.

Thus, many of us still have a chance if we were to elect to follow the ancient rites of passage. We all have a place in heaven waiting for us, if we remember to clutch a bit of papyrus to our chest as we expire.

“But,” you say, “so-and-so is a Christian!” or of other persuasion. Indeed, according to Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, mummification came to a close within a hundred years of the preaching of Christianity in Alexandria by Saint Mark. By 220 A.D., thousands of people in Egypt had become Christians. The resurrection of the body of Christ made them hope that the same would happen to them; thus they gradually abandoned mummification and were content to be placed in the ground in their natural state, there to await revivication on the last day. Still, it was difficult to eradicate traces of the old beliefs. Ethiopian and Egyptian Coptic Christians, for example, wrapped their dead in strips of linen or parchment on which were written the secret names of God. Meant to ensure protection in the next world, these wrappings were nothing more than succinct forms of the scrolls of papyrus paper that constituted the Egyptian Book of the Dead. They had simply switched Christ for Osiris and cloth for papyrus.

Still, sacredness was a quality among media that was unique to papyrus; it was not shared by pulp or rag paper, linen or parchment in later centuries. So, however much emotion the reader or owner of the prestigious library might feel when they take up a well-loved book, or pass their hand over a rare collection of first editions, the essence of history might be there, but the product of a chemically treated pulp of pinewood, rags, and who knows what is no substitute in the eyes of the gods for the real thing.

Today the Bible placed in the coffin, or the medal depicting Saint Christopher pressed into the cold hands of the corpse, or the recitation of the departed’s past and final good deeds at the memorial service in church, temple, or mosque, are all meant to serve in place of the papyrus paper “good conduct pass” used by the Egyptians and early Christians. The Egyptian’s papyrus also acted as a sort of AAA guidebook to the unknown, you couldn’t go wrong if you followed it. Well, almost . . .

What exactly is the Book of the Dead? It is a book most often in scroll fashion that was designed in consultation with priests to ensure that the deceased came alive after death. For the well-off ancient Egyptian, whose life was easy and complete, the afterlife offered a way of continuing this good life forever. For the poor and wretched, it offered relief and a chance to begin again. So, no matter what your station in life was, it was important to prepare for what was to come. Even if someone had to scrimp and save, and live cheaply during earthly life, all available funds could be diverted toward that preparation. A tomb, if one could be afforded, was basic. It was here a soul could come back together with its body in death, and there that individual would regain all functions and go on to enjoy a life eternal.

The way to achieve all this was written in the Book of the Dead, along with a map to guide, and the user codes and passwords that would unlock the gates and smooth the way. It was possible to go ahead and die anyway and not bother with the preparations, but according to religious tradition, the number of evil gods, spirits, and pitfalls that stood in the way to paradise was such that only the very poor or very foolish went to their grave without a Book or at least the most important chapters or verses. The impression had been created and encouraged by the temple priests that they had the secret solutions, they knew how to pass even the most horrific monsters, traps, and terrors. “Think of your worst fear,” they probably said, “then multiply that image by a hundredfold and you’ll have a small idea of what is in store for you.” Which meant that for people like myself, for example, who hate snakes, we would definitely buy into the concept of having a copy of Verse 39, which is a “Spell to Repel Reptiles and Snakes.” Once arrived in the afterlife, a guiding spirit could read out the spell that begins, “Get Back! Crawl Away! Get away from me or you shall be decapitated with a knife!”

Another handy spell to have at the ready would be Verse 179 which allows one to “leave yesterday and come into today,” during which time a person could reassemble themselves and get all members in proper order, definitely an important procedure to complete before reaching the Hall of Judgment, where one has to look their best.

Lastly, a caution was outlined in Verse 125 that prepares for any surprises, especially those passing the numerous gates on the way to the Hall of Judgment. It is important to be ready with the correct answers to questions that will be called out. Mostly these questions will be posed by the gatekeepers demanding to know their given names, but such demands could also come from door panels, door posts, door bolts, and even the floor itself! All of which will cry out for a correct response. Pity the one not prepared with papyrus scroll in hand for such things.

In time, all personal belongings, amulets, sacrificial foods, and a personal copy of the Book of the Dead would be assembled and placed either in the coffin or in some convenient place inside the tomb. In the more spacious tombs or larger coffins, the funerary scrolls were concealed in niches in the wall or cavities inside statues or in nearby boxes.

All of this illustrated the old adage, “be prepared.” In modern terms this would mean perhaps an early visit to a mortuary in order to secure the best cemetery plot and a top-of-the-line casket. Thus, when the time arrived to use such things, the trappings of the grave would reflect the deceased’s station in life and tell people something about where they stood in society. A hole in the ground and a cheap pine coffin is one thing; a silver casket, marble mausoleum and carefully landscaped plot in Forest Hills is another. Location also provided the most obvious degree of protection, and perhaps the accouterments and trappings seen in King Tutankhamen’s tomb provided protection by indicating that the tomb owner was obviously a person of consequence. Tampering with remains or funerary goods could cause eternal damnation. Scrolls of a hundred feet or more in length perhaps also served notice that you were important and thus not to be disturbed under penalty of death.

Once all was in readiness, it remained only to die, after which came the interesting part. The act of embalming would go forward and within seventy days, there would be a well-wrapped, perfumed, and ready body. Only one problem: during the process the deceased would have lost all facility of movement, drinking, reading, speech, and so on. It was imperative therefore to have rituals performed that would reverse all that.

One important ritual happened immediately before the moment of judgment. This ritual, the Declaration of the Heart, was straightforward. In most Books nothing is mentioned of any transgression and the heart of the deceased unfailingly proves cooperative, probably because the priests provide the correct spell, which is:

Spell For Not Letting my Heart Create Opposition Against me In The Realm Of The Dead: Oh my heart which I had from my mother, Oh my heart which I had upon earth, do not rise up against me as a witness in the presence of the Lord of Things; do not speak against me concerning what I have done, do not bring up anything against me in the presence of the Great God, Lord of the West.

(Raymond Faulkner, “Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.”)

We perhaps wonder if it was ever not so. Was there ever a case when the heart did open up and reveal all to the embarrassment of the owner? Certainly, there must have been those standing by in the Hall of Judgment, former neighbors or old friends, who had to bite their tongues at this moment, proving that there really was a reason why Hank Williams’s song “Your Cheatin’ Heart” remained one of the all-time hits of country and pop music. He said, when he wrote it in 1953, he was thinking of his first wife as the words came rolling out, “Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you.” That caught the sentiment just right, a sentiment that apparently has been with us since ancient times. The truth is conceivably more like what Ogden Goelet of New York University offers in explanation, “It is unclear why the heart would wish to sabotage the dead, yet the afterworld was a place where the irrational was a commonplace occurrence. And it is, after all, our irrational subconscious that leads us to blurt out hidden feelings in slips of the tongue.”²

This influence of papyrus beyond the grave is still with us, as for example, when a papyrus fragment from a funerary scroll called the Book of Breathing was the basis for a translation and revision by Mormon founder, John Smith. He called his translation The Book of Abraham and published it as such in 1842. Though Smith’s translation has been challenged, it did become a part of A Pearl of Great Price, which for many years was revered as one of the sacred texts in the Church of the Latter-day Saints.

There is even a connection between papyrus and the modern-day funeral bouquet. The first such bouquet was made from the flowering heads of papyrus, the finely divided strands that made up the umbel that capped the top of every stem, woven into wreaths and embellished with other flowers to be left in the Egyptian tombs as a final touch.

We see then that man could not do without papyrus for four thousand years. It also seems that this plant is still with us symbolically even in our final resting place.

And what of the corpse left lying there with his book between his legs? If we think instead of an old friend laid out at a wake with a gilt-edged Bible resting the same way, which of us, on arriving at the viewing spot, instead of glancing kindly at that old familiar face and perhaps brushing away a tear in memory of Old Tom or Dear Aunt Mary, would scandalize the gathering by suddenly reaching down and snatching their book?

Well, that’s what the French artist Vivant Denon did in 1799. While visiting an Egyptian tomb in a temple on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor, he was shown a mummy that had been dragged out of its resting place by his Arab guide.³ At first he hesitated, then he “turned pale with anxiety.” He tells us his dander was up and he was going to express his indignation at those who had violated the integrity of this ancient corpse!

He had just finished sketching a relief in that very temple showing a scribe writing when he realized in a flash that “Egyptians must have possessed books!”

So, when he saw the scroll lying in the mummy’s hand, he set aside his scruples and seized the scroll, “this sacred manuscript, the oldest of all books in the known world.” He then blessed the avarice of the Arabs, “and my good fortune, which had put me in possession of such a treasure . . . I could not restrain a feeling of self-satisfaction in thinking that I was the first to make so important a discovery.” Until that date, he tells us that there had been no indication that the Egyptians had had such things.

I suppose we can’t blame Denon for this small bit of self-promotion, as he was much more sympathetic to local culture than anyone in the French Army unit that he traveled with: troopers who raped, plundered, and burned given the least provocation. And he had journeyed to Egypt at great expense to himself and his benefactor, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Once he had taken possession of the book he wondered what was written in it, “Was it the history of this personage, the remarkable events of his life? . . . or did this precious roll contain maxims, prayers, or the history of some discovery?” Or, he wondered, was it perhaps “a compendium of Egyptian literature?”⁴

We now know that it was most likely nothing more than another of the myriad copies, or variants of the Book of the Dead, the first bestseller of history. As to the exact details of the text, that had to wait, even though the story contained in the Book of the Dead had been staring visitors in the face when it had been chiseled or drawn out on the walls of tombs and on the sides and lids of coffins. After 1550 B.C., the text began showing up on papyrus paper scrolls that were rolled up and left with the corpse. The problem was that the Arab occupiers of Egypt and their descendants in the time of Denon had no knowledge of the language. They had been looking at it for hundreds of years, yet they had never understood a single word until 1822 when one of Denon’s fellow countrymen, Jean-François Champollion, deciphered the puzzle of hieroglyphics.

Harking back to the moment in question, even if Denon had been able to open the funerary scroll, it would have been incomprehensible to him.

The transition from a sacred message carved on the walls of a tomb deep inside a pyramid to papyrus paper is an important milestone, partly because of the nature of the message.

Much of what was carved on such a wall was instructional, relating how to reanimate and protect the pharaoh during his ascent to the heavens, as well as overcoming the hazards of his nightly journey in order that he might join the gods in his new life when he was reborn.⁵ In contrast to this celestial realm emphasized in these Pyramid Texts, another set of instructions to guide the royal passage was written out on the lids and sides of Pharaoh’s coffin.

The Coffin Texts and Pyramid Texts dealt with subterranean elements of the afterlife, places filled with traps and snares, including a judgment of the royal heart, which was to become a pivotal moment later in the Book of the Dead.

The next point in the transition from such scenes on the walls to paper came about in the New Kingdom and it happened in a way that I like to think of as a marketing effort, the sort of thing a used car dealer might come up with, an offer that is so good you can’t refuse and you wind up with a new, streamlined Honda Accord in preference to an old-fashioned model.

The original wooden Egyptian coffins, rectangular boxes with flat lids and sides, provided surfaces that were very handy and offered plenty of space to write out coffin texts in hieroglyphs. However, these utilitarian, old-fashioned corpse carriers were no match for the new coffins that arrived around 1650 B.C. The new models were “undertakers specials”—sleek, brightly painted, lacquered to a high gloss, and anthropoid in shape (carved or molded to the outline of the mummy’s body). They were also decorated with the face and wig of the deceased. The priests who introduced these new models probably had an easy time selling them to the general public.

First of all, they were being used by the royals—a great recommendation. Then came an irresistible selling point: they were copies of the mummy’s form, so they could also serve as substitute bodies in the afterlife in case the actual body was lost or destroyed. Still undecided? Then think about the fact that in the old-fashioned boxy coffins, a body was placed on its left side, so its face would be directly lined up with the painted eyes on the coffin’s side. But, in the new model, the body is laid out on its back, so that it is looking straight into the face of Osiris when he lifts the lid once the body safely arrives in paradise. The deceased was also often portrayed wearing the Nemes black-striped gold headdress (as shown in photos of the more elaborate coffins) that covered the whole crown, back of the head, and nape of the neck. Two large flaps hung down behind the ears and in front of both shoulders, creating a terrific effect. It was a headdress previously reserved for royalty.

The clincher was the outside of the coffin, which was decorated in a special pattern that wrapped the mummy in wings and clothed it in feathers from shoulders to feet, representing the birdlike nature of Isis and Nephthys.⁶ In fact, they were called “rishi coffins” from risha, Arabic for “feather.” The concept was irresistible that after death you would simply take flight and soar into a heavenly new world.

How popular was the idea? We can gain some indication from the fact that during the New Kingdom, coffins and mummy cases could be purchased ready-made. In place of expensive models carved from sycamore wood, cheap versions were created by molding the container from a papier-mâché-like material formed around disposable cores of mud and straw.

But, this shift in design and the concentration on feathers meant there was no space left for the text and drawings of spells, a problem that was solved by writing out the necessary information and illustrations on a papyrus roll, which was then placed inside the coffin.⁷ Once the Book of the Dead was thus transcribed as a scroll, the priests and scribes were free of constraint. They could use any and all verses from the old Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, along with an expanded description of paradise, expansive and glowing biographic details of the deceased, and any of the spells, which now numbered in the hundreds.

How many bought a Book of the Dead or its variants from 1550 B.C. until the time of Christ? John Taylor of the British Museum estimated that it cost about 1 unit, called a deben, of silver (approximately half a year’s wages for a laborer). Given the fact that the majority could not afford either mummification or the book,⁸ he guessed that less than 10 percent would have owned the world’s first bestseller in one form or another. The number of copies of the Book of the Dead produced over 1,700 years must have reached over 5 million copies. Not surprisingly, thousands of copies have survived in one form or another because they were sequestered in tombs, which were safe places on purpose.

By comparison, another classic document of the seventeenth century B.C. that should have been a bestseller, as it had wide importance and application, was Hammurabi’s Code of Law. It did not fare as well. Written by the Babylonian ruler Hammurabi to establish a series of laws that would ensure that “the mighty not wrong the weak,” it never reached the level of distribution that it should have and it barely survived the ages.

Unlike the Book of the Dead, the Code affected virtually every aspect of life and society. It even set the cost for surgery; the surgeon was told exactly what he should charge for a minor operation and a major one with different prices for a rich gentleman, a poor laborer, and a slave—all thousands of years before Medicare!

Why did it not reach a wider public? Mostly because unlike the Book of the Dead, which was handwritten on paper, Hammurabi’s masterpiece was engraved onto a seven-foot basalt stone column, which was placed on public display where its 282 laws could be read. Though written by scribes in Akkadian, the daily language of Babylon, it could then be read only by literate persons in the city, which were limited to males of wealthy families.⁹

Meanwhile, its message was sent out to the country in cumbersome sets of a dozen clay tablets. As important as the message was, its distribution and production was limited by the media employed to publish it. As to survival, only a few tablets are known to exist today along with the original column that sits in the Louvre. Unlike the Book of the Dead, it was not left in tombs where its chances of preservation were greater.