Back in 2012 , archaeologists crack up opened a burial spear in the Middle Egyptian graveyard of Dayr al - Barsha . While much of its contents were looted or eaten away by kingdom Fungi , they unwrap that one of the coffins was inscribed with text fromThe Book of Two Ways , a mysterious illustrated “ guidebook ” to the Hades .
report inThe Journal of Egyptian Archaeology , a new discipline look at this text suggests it could even be the earliest known copy ofThe Book of Two Ways .
The transcript dates back to at least 4,000 years ago . The investigator know this because the tomb contains inscriptions that mention Djehutinakht I , an ancient nomarch from around the 21st to twentieth hundred BCE . Although it was previously assumed the casket once hold the body of Djehutinakht I , this study highlights that it actually belong to an obscure elite woman called Ankh .
The tomb seem to have been repeatedly visited by raring grave robbers who had scatter much of its contents across the bedroom and withdraw some of the valuables . However , archaeologist did manage to retrieve two wooden panels , gross with some lines of hieroglyphic text . Remarkably , these fragments of school text were found to be small sections ofThe Book of Two Ways .
A handful of versions of the leger have been antecedently discovered by researchers , but this reading is believe to be the earliest example found so far . Written for Middle Kingdom official and their subordinate , copy of the antediluvian text have also been set up on tomb wall , papyri , mummy mask , and in other coffins .
The text ’s name advert to the two road via which the deadened can sail to the Hades , seek tribute from supernatural beings , and enter the kingdom of Osiris , the Egyptian god of the infernal region and jurist of the stagnant .
The book of account is part of a magnanimous body of work known asThe Coffin Texts , which includes 1,185 spells , incantations , and religious writings on the hereafter . The Coffin Textsare also one of the bodies of study that make upThe Book of the Dead , the ancient Egyptian collection of mortuary texts made up of spells have-to doe with to the hereafter .
However , not much is fully understood about the text edition , specificallyThe Book of Two Ways , and its history . There is also the risk of making cultural assumption about an ancient idea with our 21st - hundred mindset . For model , just because it looks a bit like a mod - day road map does not stand for the ancient Egyptians necessarily used it as a map .
Regardless of its precise interpretation , The Book of Two Waysserves as another strong reminder of how death and the afterlife have long played an important part in the cultural imaginings of humans .
