Book of the Dead of the Nehem-es-Rataui

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General view of the preserved papyrus.
Judgment of the dead

The Nehem-es-Rataui Book of the Dead is the most important papyrus from the collection of the August Kestner Museum in Hanover , along with the Brocklehurst papyrus . It is one of the many versions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead , which differs from comparable papyri mainly in the way it depicts the judgment of the dead in the center .

The Nehem-es-Rataui Book of the Dead comes from Thebes and is published in Ptolemaic times - probably around 200 BC. BC - dated. The papyrus was part of the burial equipment of the Amun singer Nehem-es-Rataui. The papyrus was written in hieratic script with black ink throughout . Originally, the 21 centimeter high document was 715 centimeters long, which corresponds to 15 sheets. Due to losses in the Second World War , when the Hanoverian city center and the Kestner Museum were seriously damaged in air raids , only three fragments with a length of 1.64 meters have survived. The central line drawing was retained. In the drawing, the unusually close grouping of important Egyptian deities is striking. Osiris presides over the court, Anubis and Horus weigh the heart of the deceased, Thoth notes the result and the monster Am'am waits to devour the deceased's ba if the result is negative . Four children of Horus stand on a lotus flower between Osiris and Thoth. On the right edge is the deceased, led by two goddesses. In other places, too, the text is loosened up with smaller pictures, mostly of Horus falcons. To the left of the main picture there is another larger picture, which is divided into four smaller pictures.

The papyrus comes from the August Kestner collection and is now in the August Kestner Museum in Hanover (inventory number 3454), where it is shown in room 2 of the Egyptological collection with other artefacts from the cult of the dead, from additions and grave decorations.

literature

  • Günter Burkard, Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert : Egyptian manuscripts. Vol. 4 (= Directory of Oriental Manuscripts in Germany Vol. 19, 4). Steiner, Stuttgart 1994, p. 214 No. 316.
  • Hans-Georg Dettmer: "... awaken the sense of the beautiful ...". Guide through the Kestner Museum Hannover. Kestner Museum Hannover, Hannover 1998, ISBN 3-924029-28-8 , pp. 63–65.
  • Christian E. Loeben : The Egypt Collection of the Museum August Kestner and their (war) losses. Leidorf, Rahden 2011, ISBN 978-3-86757-454-9 , p. 181.

Web links

Commons : Book of the Dead of the Nehem-es-Rataui  - Collection of images, videos and audio files