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 mentioned as intended to be recited during the burial. Although the prayers are as a rule put into the mouth of the departed, they were certainly recited for him by those present. On the first vignette of the book, a priest is seen reading the formulary out of a book which he holds in his hands. And rubrics at the end of several chapters attach important advantages in the next world to the accomplishment of what has been prescribed in the foregoing text.

It is not only in papyrus rolls that the Book of the Dead has been preserved. Many of the chapters are inscribed upon coffins, mummies, sepulchral wrappings, statues and the walls of tombs. Tombs of the time of the twenty-sixth dynasty, like those of Bekenrenef or Petamonemapt, may be said to contain entire recensions of the book. The chambers of the latter of these tombs occupy together nearly an acre and a quarter of ground excavated in the rock, and every square inch of their high walls is covered with beautifully sculptured inscriptions from the Book of the Dead and other religious texts.

The Egyptian title of the work is, "Book of the peri em hru," three very simple words, perfectly unambiguous when taken singly, but by no means easy of explanation when taken together without a context. Peri signifies "coming forth," hru is day, and em is the preposition signifying "from," but susceptible, like the same preposition in many other languages, of