<Tr> <Th> Book of Coming Forth by Day in hieroglyphs </Th> </Tr> <P> The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (around 1550 BCE) to around 50 BCE . The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as Book of Coming Forth by Day . Another translation would be Book of Emerging Forth into the Light . "Book" is the closest term to describe the loose collection of texts consisting of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife and written by many priests over a period of about 1000 years . </P> <P> The Book of the Dead was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not papyrus . Some of the spells included were drawn from these older works and date to the 3rd millennium BCE . Other spells were composed later in Egyptian history, dating to the Third Intermediate Period (11th to 7th centuries BCE). A number of the spells which made up the Book continued to be inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi, as had always been the spells from which they originated . The Book of the Dead was placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased . </P> <P> There was no single or canonical Book of the Dead . The surviving papyri contain a varying selection of religious and magical texts and vary considerably in their illustration . Some people seem to have commissioned their own copies of the Book of the Dead, perhaps choosing the spells they thought most vital in their own progression to the afterlife . The Book of the Dead was most commonly written in hieroglyphic or hieratic script on a papyrus scroll, and often illustrated with vignettes depicting the deceased and their journey into the afterlife . </P>

Egyptian book of the dead weighing the heart