Inventory number

General description

This hieratic papyrus belongs to the Book of the Dead tradition and contains an abbreviated version of Chapter 78, written in carefully ruled vertical columns in retrograde orientation. The manuscript was made for Khonsumes, a wab-priest and chief of weighers in the temple of Amun, and is characterized by its neat calligraphy and the presence of protective sheets at the beginning and end. The text ends abruptly in the middle of the chapter with the phrase “Horus is upon his seat,” indicating that it preserves a shortened recension of the composition.

Affixed to the beginning of the roll is a separate papyrus strip inscribed with a hieratic title in Late Egyptian: “The Great Book of What Is in the Netherworld.” The title was likely written during the Third Intermediate Period and used as a label or tie-band for the roll, facilitating its identification without unrolling it. Its addition suggests that the papyrus was appropriated and reused in a later funerary assemblage, possibly after being cut from a longer original manuscript.