Page:Books on Egypt and Chaldaea, Vol. 32--Legends of the Gods.pdf/46

  and translations. In 1910 I edited for the Trustees of the British Museum the complete hieratic text with a revised translation.

The papyrus is about 16 ft. 8 in. in length, and is 91 in. in width. It contains 21 columns of hieratic text which are written in short lines and are poetical in character, and 12 columns or pages of text written in long lines; the total number of lines is between 930 and 940. The text is written in a small, very black, but neat hand, and may be assigned to a time between the XXVIth Dynasty and the Ptolemaïc Period. The titles, catch-words, rubrics, names of Āpep and his fiends, and a few other words, are written in red ink. There are two colophons; in the one we have a date, namely, the "first day of the fourth month of the twelfth year of Pharaoh Alexander, the son of Alexander," i.e., 311, and in the other the name of the priest who either had the papyrus written, or appropriated it, namely, Nes-Menu, or Nes-Ȧmsu,.

The Legend of the Creation is found in the third work which is given in the papyrus, and which is called the "Book of overthrowing Āpep, the Enemy of Rā, the Enemy of Un-Nefer" (i.e., Osiris). This work contained a series of spells which were recited during the performance of certain prescribed ceremonies, 