The Transmission of the Book of the Dead in New Kingdom Tombs at Saqqara (Bloomsbury Egyptology)

Texts and images from the Book of the Dead were widely used to decorate the walls of tombs during Egypt’s New Kingdom (c. 1550-1077 BCE). Prior research has tended to focus on either individual tombs, or on the contents of papyrus copies of the Book of the Dead.This book focusses on the adaptation of parts of this funerary corpus in individual tombs from the New Kingdom necropolis at Saqqara, with the aim of showing how each tomb’s decoration was tailored to the ends of their builders.In doing so, it builds up a picture of the ways in which these developments changed over time, and captures the dynamic and shifting ways in which ancient Egyptians interacted with their funerary texts.This contrasts with the popular image of Egyptian religion as centrally administered and directed, and essentially unchanging over millennia.In fact, choices and forms of texts and images used in tombs changed even within a single generation.Some forms remained popular over long periods, being constantly re