Papyrus Sobekmose – 37.1777E – Brooklyn Museum
Period: 18th Dynasty, ca. 1500–1480 BC
Also known as Sobekmes
Goldworker of Amen
This is one of the most important religious texts of the New Kingdom, in part because it is an early version, revealing the development of all later Books of the Dead. The papyrus is about twenty-five feet long and inscribed on both sides (a rare feature). The manuscript contains nearly one hundred “chapters,” almost half of the total known group of Book of the Dead texts. Several of the chapters are closer to those found in the Coffin Texts, the collection of funerary literature used in the previous period.
The texts on the recto (front side) are written in approximately 530 columns of hieroglyphs reading from top to bottom, right to left.
A full translation of this Book of the Dead was published in 2016 by Paul F. O’Rourke titled An Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Sobekmose.
Source: The above text is displayed near the papyrus in the museum
BD 37.1777E, Brooklyn Museum NY
On the right, the front of the original papyrus, on the left wall a projection of a photo of the back of the papyrus.
Book of the Dead papyrus Sobekmose
Book of the Dead, length 744.2 cm, height 35.6 cm
BD – Inv.no. 37.1777E, Brooklyn Museum, New York
Provenance probably from Memphis, Egypt; by 1852, acquired in Egypt by Henry Abbott
Photo and panorama view VB 2023/2024 (quality remarks)
The (unusually) described back of the papyrus, taken from a photographic print on the wall at the museum. Looking at the damage, this appears to be a different papyrus. But it is not. The front of the papyrus has been very cleverly restored and on it many holes have been filled with original pieces of the papyrus. This is easy to see when browsing through the photo archive of this papyrus
To compare how the front and back sides face each other, I have put them side by side. Because of merging, there is a slight discrepancy in them, but you can see where the text of the back is relative to the front
