This manuscript, inscribed with spells from the Book of the Dead, was made for a woman named Tayuhenutmut; her name translates to “their mistress is [the goddess] Mut.” The illustration shows her with her hands raised in adoration of Osiris. She wears a white, pleated gown with a robe whose edges are trimmed in blue, and a wide, beaded collar.^[1] Her hair (or wig) has curls or braids that fall to the middle of her chest. Her coiffeur is topped with a white-and-red cone with a lotus bud (see cat. 99 for more on this type of cone).1

Osiris, the god of the afterlife, is shown seated on a block throne with red fabric thrown over its back. He is enveloped in white mummy wrappings, he holds a crook and flail, and he wears the tall, plumed, atef crown. His skin is dark green, an allusion to fertility. Between him and Tayuhenutmut is an offering stand, on top of which is the blossom of a large lotus (or lily) that the Egyptians associated with eternal regeneration and rebirth because it opened in the morning sun and closed at night, a cycle they likened to the rising (birth) and setting (death) of the sun. To the left is a fluffy, green head of lettuce, a symbol of fertility because of its milky, semenlike sap.2

The block of text between the figures (fig. 1) refers to the god Osiris and the deceased Tayuhenutmut. The hieroglyphs in the two vertical columns of text farthest to the left face the same direction as the god (most easily observed in the signs of animals and seated humans) and thus pertain to him. In contrast, the five remaining columns of text are reversed to match the orientation of Tayuhenutmut. The text for the god reads: “Words said by Osiris, Foremost of the West, Lord of Abydos, Wennefer, Lord of Eternity.” It continues in the third column: “That he [Osiris] may give offerings [of] vegetables and provisions, to the Osiris, the Lady of the House, the Singer of Amun-Re, King of the Gods, Tayuhenutmut, true of voice, daughter of the Scribe of the Double Treasury, Nespaherentahat, true of voice.” The use of hieroglyphs here, in contrast to the cursive hieratic script used for the main text, is related to the tradition of using images and hieroglyphs together.3

The administrative titles allow us to identify the status or role of these individuals in Theban society. Tayuhenutmut’s title indicates that she was part of a choir of elite women who sang, or perhaps chanted, in the temple. Her father’s title suggests that he had a prestigious position in the temple administration, perhaps as an upper-level bureaucrat.4

The Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead, known as Going Forth by Day in Egyptian, is a collection of spells that were believed to transform the deceased into gods, thereby ensuring them eternal existence. Nearly two hundred spells are known. Normally, a papyrus might be inscribed with a dozen or more spells, but in the Third Intermediate Period, to which this manuscript dates, they commonly bore only a few. Until Dynasty 26, few manuscripts of the Book of the Dead had the same group of spells, because most were customized by the owner or the scribe, although groups of spells were often presented together. From Dynasty 26 onward, many Books of the Dead from Thebes have the same selection and order of spells.5

This example has extracts from Spells 23 to 26, and 28, a grouping that is seen on other New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period papyri. The spells, which refer to the Opening of the Mouth ritual (see cat. 10 for a description of this ceremony), are entitled “Opening a Man’s Mouth for Him,” “Bringing a Man’s Magic to Him,” “Causing a Man to Remember His Name,” “Giving a Man’s Heart to Him,” and “Not Letting the Heart Be Taken from the Deceased.” On this papyrus, the heading for the first spell (beginning at the upper right of the hieratic text) is written in black, while the titles for the texts that follow are in red ink. Generally, it was customary to use red for the heading.
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Additional Views of Cat. 44

Artists, Scribes, and the Book of the Dead

It is probable that two different individuals worked on this papyrus: a scribe, with a palette of red and black pigments, who wrote the texts; and an artist, with a full palette of colors, who painted the vignette. Usually, the texts were written before the vignettes were added. Some papyri have notations indicating where the drawings should be inserted; on others, pigment from the illustrations can be seen on top of the black ink of the text.7

Some of these papyri were commissioned especially for an individual, while others, as indicated by the awkward insertion of a personal name into the text or blank spaces where the name was supposed to be entered, were made in anticipation of being sold. This example seems to have been made expressly for Tayuhenutmut because her name appears in hieratic script in the margin above the first column of text and also in the hieroglyphic text in the vignette, where the signs of her long name are not crowded into a predetermined space.^[2] However, in the spells she is referred to by masculine pronouns, probably because the text was copied from a papyrus that was made for a man.8

This manuscript is made of several joined sheets of papyrus which were intended to be read from right to left, unrolled in segments the width of the four columns of hieratic text. Rolled-up papyri Books of the Dead were placed in elite burials. Depending upon the period, they could be stored inside a wood figurine (see cat. 36) or in the coffin, often on or between the legs of the mummy.
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Possibly Related Material

A statuette (probably a shabti) belonging to a man with the same name as Tayuhenutmut’s father Nespaherentahat, as written on her papyrus, was recovered in 1891 from the Second Royal Cache of royal and elite burials at Deir el-Bahri in Thebes, so one might assume that he and his daughter were buried there.^[3] However, because his name was fairly common, it is speculative to suggest that the owner of that object is the father of the Tayuhenutmut of the papyrus. Indeed, the 1891 tomb was discovered intact and was inventoried, and there is no record of any objects belonging to Tayuhenutmut, so the location of her burial is not known.^[4] The coffins, shabtis, and papyri from the Second Royal Cache are in collections throughout the world.^[5]10

Provenance

The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in Egypt, 1894.11

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 10–11n1; 156, 157 (ill.), 158–59.12

Thomas George Allen, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: Documents in the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1960), 3, 12–13, 60–61, 67, 289, pls. 1–4 (as OIM 18039).13

Madeleine Bellion, Égypte ancienne: Catalogue des manuscrits hiéroglyphiques et hiératiques et des dessins, sur papyrus, cuir ou tissu, publiés ou signalés (Paris: M. Bellion, 1987), 129 (as T.Chicago OIM 18039).14

Andrzej Niwiński, Studies on the Illustrated Theban Funerary Papyri of the 11th and 10th Centuries B.C. (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1989), 304 (as Chicago 3, Oriental Institute 18039).15

Karl Jansen-Winkeln, Text und Sprache in der 3. Zwischenzeit: Vorarbeiten zu einer spätmittelägyptischen Grammatik, Ägypten und Altes Testament 26 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1994), 265, no. A/1.1.32 (as pChicago OIM 18039 [= 94.180]).16

Ursula Verhoeven, Untersuchungen zur späthieratischen Buchschrift, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 99 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 66, 102–225, 250, 283, 294, 323 (as Chicago, OIM Papyrus 18039).17

Giuseppina Lenzo Marchese, “Quelques manuscrits hiératiques du Livre des Morts de la Troisième Période intermédiaire du musée égyptien de Turin,” Bulletin de l’Intitut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 102 (2002): 270 (as P. Chicago OIM 18039).18

Lisa Swart, “A Stylistic Comparison of Selected Visual Representations on Egyptian Funerary Papyri of the 21st Dynasty and Wooden Funerary Stelae of the 22nd Dynasty (c. 1069–715 B.C.E.)” (PhD diss., University of Stellenbosch, 2004), 114, 116, 196–7, 288, 300, pl. 142 (as pOIM 18039).19

Emily Teeter and Janet H. Johnson, eds. The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt, exh. cat. (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2009), 19, fig. 8.20

Emily Cole, “Language and Script in the Book of the Dead,” in The Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt, ed. Foy Scalf, exh. cat. (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2017), 43, fig. 3.3.21

Holger Kockelmann, “How a Book of the Dead Manuscript was Produced,” in The Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt, ed. Foy Scalf, exh. cat. (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2017), 72, fig. 5.8.
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