Archaeologists have confirmed the discovery of the oldest illustrated book in the world during excavations in an Egyptian burial ground. The work is said to be a copy of the Book of the Two Ways, a guide allowing the deceased to find their way in the afterworld, which is considered as a precursor to the Book of the Dead. The writings precede the already known versions by around forty years.
Unlike modern books, these ancient texts were not inscribed on bound pages, but directly on the walls of the sarcophagi. Thus, they helped the dead to embark on the perilous journey to hell, where demons and fire awaited them. With the right spells, the book claims that the deceased could escape unscathed and achieve immortality.
The discovery was first mentioned in September 2019 by Harco Willems, professor at the University of Louvain in Belgium, in The Journal of Egyptian Archeology. Since 2001, Willems has supervised the excavations of the funeral complex of Deir el-Bahri, located on the left bank of the Nile facing the city of Luxor and the temples of Karnak. The site was used as a cemetery during the period of the Middle Empire, from about 2055 to 1650 BC. The fragile state of the discovered artefacts in the tombs, which had been repeatedly ransacked by looters, prevented their analysis until now.
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… the way you will survive in hell is expressed only in male terms.
Though the inscriptions discovered on the plate of the sarcophagus refer to an Egyptian governor named Djehutynakht, Willems' research revealed that the coffin actually contained the remains of a woman named Ankh, designated in the text of the book by the pronoun "he”. This statement is consistent with Egyptian mythology, where rebirth was the responsibility of male deities, and deceased women adopted male pronouns to be closer to Osiris, the god of death.
"For me, the funny thing is that the way you will survive in hell is expressed only in male terms," Willems told the New York Times.
The wooden boards bear carved and inked inscriptions intended to ensure a successful passage to Rostau, the kingdom of Osiris. The text is called the Book of Two Ways because it contains instructions for travelling by land or sea. The pigments, however, have greatly faded over time, and the pale marks are only visible through high resolution imagery provided by software.
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Each book was written differently, depending on the wealth and status of the deceased, Willems told the New York Times. "The latter begins with a text surrounded by a red circle, designated as the ring of fire," he said. "The text describes the sun god (Ra) passing through this protective ring to reach Osiris."
There are only 24 copies of the Book of Two Ways in the world, and experts say that this one, 4,000 years old, is now the oldest.
