Belief in the immortality of the soul was fundamental to Egyptian religion.
Throughout their long history, the Ancient Egyptians inscribed upon the walls of tombs and sarcophagi, coffins and funeral stelae, papyri and amulets, various hymns and religious texts to ensure the well-being of the dead in the world beyond the grave.
The Book of the Dead was intended to give the deceased immortality, to provide everything required in the other world to ensure victory over enemies, to procure the friendship of those who could help him, to enable him to go wherever he wished, whenever he wanted to, and finally to enable his soul to reach the kingdom of Osiris.
This translation by E.A. Wallis Budge, from the Theban Recension, contains 22 plates and 420 vignettes. David Lorimer has written a short introduction explaining the significance of The Book of the Dead.
Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East. He made numerous trips to Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan on behalf of the British Museum to buy antiquities, and helped it build its collection of cuneiform tablets, manuscripts, and papyri. He published many books on Egyptology, helping to bring the findings to larger audiences. In 1920, he was knighted for his service to Egyptology and the British Museum.
