One of the greatest aspects of the Brooklyn Museumβs Egyptian collection is The Book of the Dead for a man named Sobekmose, who had the title βGoldworker of Amun.β Sobekmose was buried in Memphis π ππ€πππ΄π and that is where this papyrus π πππ was found. This Book of the Dead dates to the 18th Dynasty (early New Kingdom 1500-1480 B.C.E.). It is displayed as one complete papyrus π πππ!
The Book of the Dead is interesting because it doesn’t follow a particular story. The spells ππππ¦ do seem to be grouped by theme, and sometimes pictures ππ ±ππ¦ can be representative of the spells ππππ¦ as well.
In this image ππ ±π, you can see some of the Hieratic script that the Book of the Dead is written in – don’t ask me to translate, because I can’t read Hieratic! I can only read hieroglyphs πΉππͺ! I would love to learn Hieratic though! The text is read from top to bottom, right to left.
Some of the Hieratic is in black ππ ink while some of it is in red π§πππ . The red π§πππ ink seems to symbolize either the beginning or the end πΌππππ of a spell πππ, or it could highlight a word for a noun that was considered “bad” in Egyptian culture. However, sometimes even “offering table πππ ‘πΏπ” could have been written/drawn in red π§πππ and offering tables πππ ‘πΏπ were not bad at all! So, some of the red π§πππ ink seems kinda random.