The Papyrus of Ani (Book of the Dead)

In 1888, a papyrus scroll emerged from the ancient necropolis of Luxor that would become one of the most celebrated artifacts of Egyptian civilization. The Papyrus of Ani, commissioned around 1250 BCE for a royal scribe named Ani, represents the finest surviving example of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. This richly illustrated manuscript, now housed in the British Museum, offers an extraordinary window into ancient Egyptian beliefs about death, judgment, and the journey to eternal life.

The Papyrus of Ani was created from the pith of the Cyperus papyrus plant, a sedge that once grew abundantly along the Nile Delta marshes. To produce the writing surface, craftsmen harvested triangular stems, sliced them into thin strips about one to two centimeters wide, and arranged them in two perpendicular layers. The horizontal strips ran parallel to the scroll's length, while vertical strips crossed underneath. These layers were then pressed or hammered together, with the natural sap from the reed itself acting as an adhesive to bind the fibers.

When fully unrolled, the scroll measures approximately 78 feet in length and 15 inches in width, making it the longest known papyrus from the Theban period. The manuscript comprises six distinct sections joined end to end with overlapping seams secured by starch paste. The stalks used for this papyrus measured roughly 4 inches in diameter, indicating high-quality material selected specifically for this important commission.

The scribes employed reed brushes and ink made from charcoal mixed with water for the black text, while red ink derived from ochre highlighted rubrics and section headings. The vignettes were painted using traditional New Kingdom pigments: orpiment for yellows, Egyptian blue for blues, and carbon-based blacks. These colors have retained their vibrancy over three millennia, a testament to both the quality of materials and the dry climate that preserved them.

 Form and Features

The manuscript opens with a two-color border of red and yellow framing the top and bottom edges. The text itself appears in cursive hieroglyphs, a flowing script form more efficient than the formal hieroglyphs carved on monuments. Nearly every chapter includes an accompanying vignette, creating a visual narrative that guides the deceased through the afterlife.

The most famous illustration appears on sheet three: the Weighing of the Heart ceremony. This scene depicts Ani and his wife Tutu entering the Hall of Judgment, where Ani's heart sits on one pan of a balance scale while a feather representing Maat, the goddess of truth and justice, rests on the other. Anubis, the jackal-headed god of embalming, kneels beside the scales as guardian, steadying the plumb bob. Thoth, shown as an ibis-headed man, stands ready with his scribe's palette to record the verdict. Above, twelve great gods sit in judgment on their thrones, while below, the monster Ammit crouches on a reed mat, prepared to devour Ani's heart should he fail the test.

The papyrus contains portions of various chapters from the larger corpus of Book of the Dead texts. Not all sections were originally written specifically for Ani. In several places, his name appears in different handwriting from the main text, sometimes misspelled or omitted entirely, suggesting that some portions were prefabricated copies where spaces were left for the purchaser's name to be inserted later.

 Function and Use

The Book of the Dead served as a practical guide for navigating the dangers of the afterlife. Unlike a canonical religious text, it was not meant for reading during life but for accompanying the deceased into the tomb. The spells provided passwords to gates, protection from hostile demons, and instructions for transforming into various sacred creatures like the benu bird or golden falcon.

The Papyrus of Ani functioned on multiple levels. It gave Ani the words to speak before the 42 divine assessors during his negative confession, where he would declare his innocence of crimes ranging from murder and theft to making others weep or revealing secrets. It provided Spell 30B, addressed directly to his heart, asking it not to testify against him during the weighing ceremony. It contained transformation spells allowing his soul to take different forms and move freely between the world of the living and the realm of the dead.

The physical placement of the papyrus in the tomb was crucial. Stored near the mummified body, often in custom containers, it remained accessible to the ba, the aspect of the soul depicted as a bird with a human head that could move between worlds. The heart itself, unlike other organs removed during mummification, was deliberately left inside the body or carefully reinserted, as Egyptians believed it contained memory, emotion, and the record of all deeds.

 Cultural Context

The creation of the Papyrus of Ani occurred during the Nineteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom, specifically during the reign of Ramesses II, one of Egypt's most powerful pharaohs. This was a period when Book of the Dead manuscripts reached their artistic peak, commissioned by elite individuals who could afford the considerable expense of custom-made funerary texts.

Ani held the titles of Royal Scribe of Thebes, Overseer of the Granaries of the Lords of Abydos, and Scribe of the Offerings of the Lord of Thebes. These positions placed him among the literate elite, a tiny fraction of Egyptian society. Literacy was restricted largely to the scribal class, making Ani both the subject and likely one of the creators of such texts.

The weighing of the heart ceremony at the papyrus's center reveals fundamental Egyptian values. The heart was considered the seat of thought, emotion, and character, superior even to the brain, which Egyptians viewed as unimportant. The concept of Maat represented not merely justice but cosmic order, balance, and rightness. Living in accordance with Maat during life determined one's fate after death. A heart heavy with wrongdoing would tip the scales, condemning the deceased to be devoured by Ammit and suffering the second death, permanent obliteration with no possibility of an afterlife.

Those who passed judgment entered the Field of Reeds, a paradise envisioned as an idealized version of Egypt itself, where the blessed spirit could farm eternal fields, reunite with loved ones, and accompany the sun god Ra on his daily journey across the sky.

 Discovery and Preservation

The Papyrus of Ani was discovered in 1888 in Luxor by Egyptians dealing in illegal antiquities. E. A. Wallis Budge, then purchasing agent for the British Museum, heard rumors of the find and tracked down the scroll. He described it as the largest roll of papyrus he had ever seen, tied with a thick papyrus band and in perfect preservation.

Shortly after Budge negotiated its purchase, Egyptian police arrested several antiquities dealers and sealed their houses, one of which contained the papyrus. In an episode Budge himself later recounted, he distracted the guards with a meal while local accomplices tunneled under the house walls to retrieve the objects. The papyrus and other items were packed into custom tin boxes and smuggled out of Egypt to the British Museum. Budge received a gratuity of 150 pounds from the British Treasury for acquiring the manuscript, though by modern archaeological and ethical standards, the acquisition involved deception and violation of Egyptian patrimony laws.

Before shipping the scroll to England, Budge made a controversial decision that would permanently alter the artifact. He cut the 78-foot scroll into 37 sheets of nearly equal size to make it easier to handle and display. This division damaged the manuscript's integrity and disrupted the flow of text and images. In 1890, the British Museum published a large folio color facsimile, and in 1895, Budge released his translation with hieroglyphic text, transliteration, and commentary.

Modern scholarship has revealed inaccuracies in Budge's translations, and more recent editions by Raymond Faulkner and others have superseded his work. Nevertheless, Budge's publications made the Papyrus of Ani widely known and sparked public fascination with ancient Egyptian religion.

The papyrus has remained in the British Museum's collection since 1888, where it is catalogued as EA 10470. Climate-controlled storage has prevented further deterioration, though the scroll did darken somewhat after initial unrolling and certain sections shrank. Today, it can be viewed in the museum's Egyptian galleries and examined in digital form online.

 Why It Matters

The Papyrus of Ani stands as more than an artifact of personal devotion. It represents three millennia of evolving funerary traditions, beginning with Pyramid Texts carved for pharaohs in the Fifth Dynasty around 2400 BCE, continuing through Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom, and culminating in the personalized Books of the Dead of the New Kingdom.

This manuscript demonstrates how ancient Egyptians conceived of death not as an ending but as a transformation requiring careful preparation. The spells and illustrations reveal a worldview where the cosmos operated according to divine principles, where moral conduct mattered beyond earthly life, and where knowledge and proper ritual could secure immortality.

The imagery has profoundly influenced modern perceptions of ancient Egypt. The weighing of the heart scene appears in countless museum exhibitions, textbooks, and popular culture representations. It has become the defining image of Egyptian afterlife beliefs, encapsulating complex theological concepts in a single, visually striking composition.

For scholars, the Papyrus of Ani provides invaluable insights into religious practices, artistic conventions, and scribal traditions of the Nineteenth Dynasty. The mix of custom and prefabricated sections reveals the economics of funerary manuscript production. The spelling variations, textual corruptions, and orthographic peculiarities offer evidence of how these texts were compiled, copied, and transmitted across generations.

The papyrus also raises ongoing questions about museum collections and cultural heritage. Its acquisition through questionable means reflects a broader history of Western institutions obtaining Egyptian artifacts during the colonial period. These circumstances have sparked legitimate debates about repatriation and the ethics of displaying objects removed from their original contexts.

Ultimately, the Papyrus of Ani endures because it speaks to universal human concerns about mortality, judgment, and the hope for continued existence beyond death. Its 3,250-year-old spells address fears and aspirations that remain recognizable today, making it not merely a relic of an ancient civilization but a testament to the enduring human quest for meaning in the face of mortality.