The Egyptian Book of the Dead Was a Guide to Surviving the Afterlife

Beginning in the New Kingdom, Egyptians placed collections of funerary spells with the deceased, often written and illustrated on papyrus. Modern scholars call these texts the Book of the Dead, although they were never one fixed book. Roughly two hundred compositions are known, and individual manuscripts contained different selections depending upon period, tradition and presumably how elaborate a funerary package someone could obtain.

Their purpose was remarkably practical.

After Death, the difficult part began.

What Was the Dead Person Supposed to Do?

The afterlife was not imagined as a single doorway opening automatically onto paradise.

The deceased could encounter gates, guardians, hostile beings and supernatural dangers. The spells supplied knowledge and protection that allowed them to move through this landscape, retain their identity and ultimately join the blessed dead. The tradition developed from much older Egyptian funerary literature, including the Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts.

Some spells protected the body. Others allowed movement, transformation or access to particular regions of the next world. Spell 6 even dealt with an eternal administrative nuisance: work.

Small funerary figures called shabtis could be commanded to perform agricultural labour on behalf of the deceased if such duties were demanded in the afterlife. Apparently even paradise required someone to irrigate the fields.

Then Your Heart Went on Trial

The most famous scene comes from Spell 125.

The deceased appears before divine judgment while their heart is weighed against Ma’at, the principle of truth, justice and cosmic order, commonly represented by a feather. Anubis attends the balance while Thoth records the result. Nearby waits Ammit, a hybrid creature associated with the destruction of those who fail judgment.

This explains another peculiar Egyptian funerary object: the heart scarab.

Egyptians regarded the heart as central to the person and normally left it inside the body during mummification. Spell 30B asks the heart not to testify against its owner during judgment, and versions of the spell could be placed on scarab amulets over the mummy's chest.

Imagine preparing for divine judgment and discovering that the principal witness for the prosecution is one of your own organs.

What Happened If You Passed?

The destination could be wonderfully familiar.

Spell 110 depicts the Fields of Iaru, often called the Field of Reeds. Surviving images show the deceased farming, harvesting grain and living within an abundant landscape resembling an idealised Egypt. A famous scene from the tomb of Sennedjem shows him and his wife sowing, harvesting and pulling flax there.

Eternal life was therefore not necessarily escape from the world.

It could be the world restored: fertile land, food, family, divine order and existence without the catastrophe of dying again.

And that may explain why the so-called Book of the Dead feels unexpectedly alive. Its spells are concerned with movement, memory, transformation, food, protection, work, justice and returning once more into daylight.

The Egyptians buried their dead with instructions because they believed existence continued somewhere beyond the tomb.

If they thought the next world had roads, gates, dangers and rules that could actually be learned, what did they believe their dead were travelling through?