Mistress of the House

Totenbuchprojekt Bonn, TM 57600

The Book of the Dead of Tasheritenkhonsu is a richly illustrated funerary papyrus from the Ptolemaic period, probably produced in Thebes for a woman of the local elite. Written in hieratic with coloured vignettes, it combines 32 chapters of the Book of the Dead with an extensive visual programme, including the funeral procession, the Opening of the Mouth ritual, scenes of adoration before various deities, the Fields of Iaru and a full judgement scene with the weighing of the heart before a tribunal of 42 gods.

The selection of spells, notably chapters 110 and 162, emphasises moral justification, agricultural abundance in the afterlife and the protection and rejuvenation of the body, creating a coherent theological dossier tailored to Tasheritenkhonsu’s posthumous transformation

See for panorama in high resolution Museo Egizio