Nestanebetisheru papyrus – BM EA10554
Nestanebetisheru – ns-tA-nbt-iSrw – Royal Cache
Also known as Nesitanebashru, Nestanebtashru, Estanebasher
Ranke I, pg. 179, 15
The name means ‘She who belongs to the Lady of Isheru’
According to Wallis Budge, the princess had the following titles: Great lady-in-chief of the secluded women (harem) of Amen-Ra, the king of the gods, Priestess of Amen-Ra, lord of Aaru, Priestess of Nekhebet, the goddess of Nekhen the White (Nekhen was called Eileithyiaspolis by the Greeks, and it was the capital of the Third Nome of Upper Egypt), Priestess of Anher-Shu, son of Ra, Priestess of Pekhthut, the great goddess, lady of Set (a district near Beni Hasan), Priestess of Osiris, lord of Abydos, Priestess of Menu, Horus, and Isis, Priestess of Tcheba (?), the lord of the Nome Antaeopolites, Servant of the books of Amen-Ra, the king of the gods, Singer, of the district of Mut, the great goddess, the lady of Asher (a quarter of Thebes which contained the temple of Mut), President (Chief) of the noble ladies
Daughter of Pinedjem II and Nesykhonsu. She probably married Djedptahiufankh
The last half of the Papyrus of Nesitanebtashru contains a large selection of Hymns, Litanies, etc., which are not known to exist in any other papyrus, and it is not unreasonable to conclude that she was the bakd, i.e., ” worker,” or ” author,” of them. We may assume, also, that a great many of the sections of the liturgies which she sang at dawn, at sunrise, and at sunset, and the Hymns which she sang monthly on the day of the new moon, and during the great festivals at Karnak, were composed by herself.”
Source of the data above: The Greenfield Papyrus, E.A. Wallis Budge, 1912
Book of the Dead papyrus for Nestanebetisheru
Book of the Dead papyrus for Nestanebetisheru, length 37 metres, height 47-49 cm
BD EA 10554, British Museum, London 61, Type BD.III.2, Niwinski
Photos British Museum © The Trustees of the British Museum
Panorama view VB 2022 (composed of 96 frames)
Good photos of almost all of the frames are available on the BM’s website, the ones that are missing I took from Wallis Budge’s book (1912). For study and research I recommend using the zoomable pictures from the BM because they have a higher resolution than in the slider. Use the slider for the overview
Click here to view the 37 metres long papyrus
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The papyrus of Nestanebetisheru before unrolling
The papyrus is 37 metres long and 46,5 cm high. It contains 2.066 lines of text, hieratic chiefly, arranged in 172 columns. The material is composed of three layers of papyrus, supplied by plants which measured in the stalks about 10 cm inches in diameter
The papyrus is the longest of all the Theban codices of the Book of
the Dead and with the exception of the great Harris Papyrus, which measures 40,5 metres by 42 cm, is the longest papyrus known.
