Books of Breathing are several ancient Egyptian funerary texts, intended to enable deceased people to continue existing in the afterlife. The earliest known copy dates to circa 350 BC. Other copies come from the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Roman Egypt, as late as the 2nd century AD. It is a simplified form of the Book of the Dead

They were originally named “The Letter for Breathing Which Isis Made for Her Brother Osiris, The First Letter for Breathing” and “The Second Letter for Breathing” and have appeared in many varying copies, often leading scholars to confuse them with each other. Their titles use the word “breathing” as a metaphorical term for all of the aspects of life that the deceased hoped to experience again in the afterlife. The texts exhort various Egyptian gods to accept the deceased into their company

Source Wikipedia 06-2024

NB. This papyrus had been published as “unidentified” on this site until June 2024. Thanks to Cyprian Fong, a PhD Candidate at the University of Basel, I was able to add the correct information

Mr. Cyprian Fong also pointed out to me that although Golenischeff mentions that this is the Second Book of breathing, this papyrus is ultimately a combination of the First Book and the Second. He wrote to me “In this manuscript, excerpts of the First Document of Breathing are written on pages 1-2 and those of the Second Document of Breathing are written on pages 3-5.”

See Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire Nos 58001-58036 : Papyrus hiératiques, Cairo, 1927, pp. 23-35, pls 5-7