<P> By the 17th dynasty, the Book of the Dead had become widespread not only for members of the royal family, but courtiers and other officials as well . At this stage, the spells were typically inscribed on linen shrouds wrapped around the dead, though occasionally they are found written on coffins or on papyrus . </P> <P> The New Kingdom saw the Book of the Dead develop and spread further . The famous Spell 125, the' Weighing of the Heart', is first known from the reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, c. 1475 BCE . From this period onward the Book of the Dead was typically written on a papyrus scroll, and the text illustrated with vignettes . During the 19th dynasty in particular, the vignettes tended to be lavish, sometimes at the expense of the surrounding text . </P> <P> In the Third Intermediate Period, the Book of the Dead started to appear in hieratic script, as well as in the traditional hieroglyphics . The hieratic scrolls were a cheaper version, lacking illustration apart from a single vignette at the beginning, and were produced on smaller papyri . At the same time, many burials used additional funerary texts, for instance the Amduat . </P> <P> During the 25th and 26th dynasties, the Book of the Dead was updated, revised and standardised . Spells were consistently ordered and numbered for the first time . This standardised version is known today as the' Saite recension', after the Saite (26th) dynasty . In the Late period and Ptolemaic period, the Book of the Dead remained based on the Saite recension, though increasingly abbreviated towards the end of the Ptolemaic period . New funerary texts appeared, including the Book of Breathing and Book of Traversing Eternity . The last use of the Book of the Dead was in the 1st century BCE, though some artistic motifs drawn from it were still in use in Roman times . </P>

Where was the book of the dead written