Restored Egyptian Book of the Dead on display at the Brooklyn Museum
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Following a three-year-long conservation project, the final section of the rare, thirty-five-centuries-old Egyptian Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose will go on long-term view on September 28. The papyrus is about twenty five feet long. In an unusual feature, it is inscribed on both sides.
The Book of the Dead of Sobekmose, created during the Eighteenth Dynasty, probably during the reign of Thutmose III or Amunhotep II (circa 1479–1400 b.c.), contains nearly one hundred “chapters,” almost half of the total known group of Book of the Dead texts. Several of the chapters are close in content to those found in the Coffin Texts, the collection of funeral texts used in the previous historical period.
The texts on the front are written in approximately 530 columns of hieroglyphs reading down and from right to left. English translations are provided in the gallery for certain key passages.
The final third of the Book of the Dead of Sobekmose will join the previously completed sections, which have been on view in the Mummy Chamber installation in the Egyptian galleries since May 2010.
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- The Mummy Chamber: New installation at the Brooklyn Museum planned for May 2010
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