Egypt
British Museum (John Taylor)
- Further Investigations Into The Norwich Shroud
British Museum (Janet Ambers) The British Museum's fascinating ongoing investigation of the Norwich Shroud, with photos. With the shroud unfolded for the first time (although still in need of much conservation attention) David Saunders, Keeper of...
- Translating Hieroglyphs On The Norwich Shroud
British Museum (John Taylor) With photographs. Shrouds of this type date mainly to the early phase of the Book of the Dead (17th and early 18th Dynasty, about 1570-1450 BC) before the spells began to be written on rolls of papyrus. They are quite rare....
- Opening Up The Norwich Shroud
British Museum (Deborah Phipps) Deborah Phipps is conservator, Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service (NMAS). Another fascinating installment, with some more great photos. This is the latest in a series of posts about the unfolding of the Norwich shroud,...
- Egyptian Textile At Norwich Museum Investigated
British Museum Blog (Faye Kalloniatis) The rather unprepossessing museum storage box with its crumpled heap of ancient linen, had sat in the Norwich Castle stores for nearly a century. I became aware of it in 1999 when the Castle Museum was being refurbished...
- 3400 Year Old Book Of The Dead
The British Museum's curator Dr John Taylor has located pieces of a New Kingdom book of the dead that once belonged to a high priest of Amun in around 1420 bc. The fragments are kept in the Queensland Museum but there are other pieces in various...
Egypt
More on the Norwich Shroud - Ancient Egyptian spells for a high-ranking lady
British Museum (John Taylor)
In the last few weeks the shroud of Ipu has given up more – but not all – of its secrets. A close comparison of the piece belonging to Norwich Castle Museum with a photograph of the portions in the Cairo Museum has shown that the torn edges certainly join. The Cairo fragments have parts of spells from the Book of the Dead, some of the missing words of which are supplied by the piece belonging to Norwich.
All of the texts on the Cairo pieces have been published by Irmtraut Munro, and I have now identified those on the Norwich section. So we can now say that the shroud contained the words of at least 23 spells, and it is possible that others were originally present, which are now lost.
The texts on the Cairo portion include spells to allow the dead person freedom of movement, air to breathe and the ability to control one’s heart. There is also a self-contained group known as the ‘Transformation Spells’, which enabled the dead to assume different forms, including those of a falcon, a heron, a swallow and the god Ptah.
- Further Investigations Into The Norwich Shroud
British Museum (Janet Ambers) The British Museum's fascinating ongoing investigation of the Norwich Shroud, with photos. With the shroud unfolded for the first time (although still in need of much conservation attention) David Saunders, Keeper of...
- Translating Hieroglyphs On The Norwich Shroud
British Museum (John Taylor) With photographs. Shrouds of this type date mainly to the early phase of the Book of the Dead (17th and early 18th Dynasty, about 1570-1450 BC) before the spells began to be written on rolls of papyrus. They are quite rare....
- Opening Up The Norwich Shroud
British Museum (Deborah Phipps) Deborah Phipps is conservator, Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service (NMAS). Another fascinating installment, with some more great photos. This is the latest in a series of posts about the unfolding of the Norwich shroud,...
- Egyptian Textile At Norwich Museum Investigated
British Museum Blog (Faye Kalloniatis) The rather unprepossessing museum storage box with its crumpled heap of ancient linen, had sat in the Norwich Castle stores for nearly a century. I became aware of it in 1999 when the Castle Museum was being refurbished...
- 3400 Year Old Book Of The Dead
The British Museum's curator Dr John Taylor has located pieces of a New Kingdom book of the dead that once belonged to a high priest of Amun in around 1420 bc. The fragments are kept in the Queensland Museum but there are other pieces in various...