Huge Megalithic 7,000-Year-Old Site Dolmen Of Guadalperal Emerges From Dry Lake In Spain
This summer’s hot weather has been extremely troublesome in many European countries. Spain suffered the worst drought in decades. An unexpected side-effect of the warm weather has been discovering unknown archaeological sites.
One of them is a mysterious megalithic monument that emerged from the parched lake bed of the Valdecañas reservoir in western Spain.
Nicknamed the Spanish Stonehenge, the site is officially known as the Dolmen of Guadalperal.
Dolmen of Guadalperal.
Constructed around 5,000 B.C., the circular monument was likely enclosed. Consisting of a large domed boulder supported by hundreds of vertically-placed rocks, known as menhir, the site offers valuable knowledge into the history of Spain’s megalithic builders.
German archaeologist Hugo Obermaier first discovered Dolmen of Guadalperal in 1926, but the area was flooded in 1963 in a rural development project under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.
Since then, it has only become fully visible four times. “It currently sits fully exposed in one corner of the Valdecanas reservoir, in the central province of Caceres, where authorities say the water level has dropped to 28% of capacity,” Reuters reported.
“It’s a surprise, it’s a rare opportunity to be able to access it,” said archaeologist Enrique Cedillo from Madrid’s Complutense University, one of the experts racing to study the circle before it gets submerged again.
Although there are many dolmens in Europe, historians and archaeologists still struggle to learn more about the monuments’ builders.
As reported by AncientPages.com just a few days ago, scientists in Spain came across a huge megalithic complex of 500 stones. Archaeologists say the prehistoric site could be one of the largest of its kind in Europe.
The remarkable ancient site is located in the Huelva province in Southern Spain on the border with Portugal, near the Guadiana River.
Spanning some 600 hectares (1,500 acres), the land had been earmarked for an avocado plantation. Who built the Huelva megalithic complex remains undetermined at the moment.
Another intriguing megalithic site in Spain is Dolmen de Soto, a unique millennia-old underground structure that remains a puzzling enigma.
The recent megalithic site will be secured remains an open question, but it’s possible the Guadalperal stones may be moved to a museum or elsewhere on dry land.
As reported by Reuters, “their presence is also good news for Ruben Argentas, who owns a small boat tours business. “The dolmen emerges, and the dolmen tourism begins,” he told Reuters after a busy day spent shuttling tourists to the site and back.
But there is no silver lining for local farmers.
“There hasn’t been enough rain since the spring… There is no water for the livestock and we have to transport it in,” said Jose Manuel Comendador. Another, Rufino Guinea, said his sweet pepper crop had been ravaged.
Climate change has left the Iberian peninsula at its driest in 1,200 years, and winter rains are expected to diminish further, a study published by the Nature Geoscience journal showed.”
Scientists have discovered three bodies on an Indonesian island which provide an insight into the movements of early humans, thousands of years ago.
Dr Samper Carro from ANU with bones found at Alor Island, Indonesia.
The bodies, found across three burial sites, form part of the excavation and analysis of 50,000 bones unearthed along the south coast of Indonesia’s Alor Island, which is north of Timor Leste.
The various remains found beneath rock shelters in an area named Tron Bon Lei near Lerabain are between 7,500 and 13,000 years old.
But it’s the way they were buried which provides unique insights into how early humans moved across Southeast Asia during the Pleistocene and Holocene periods.
Studies are beginning to understand the genetic diversity of peoples within the region, which lead researcher Dr Samper Carro says can be further informed by the discovery of these bodies.
“The three quite unusual and interesting burials show different mortuary practices,” Carro says.
“They might relate to recent discoveries of multiple migratory routes through the islands of Wallacea from thousands of years ago.
“It shows how burial practices can complement data on genetic diversity from one of the current research hotspots in Southeast Asia.”
Burial practices and the talking dead
The discovery of human remains in the region began in 2014, when teams from ANU and Indonesia’s Gadjah Mada University, found a 12,000-year-old human skull buried along with several fish hooks.
More bodies were found when the team returned to the site four years later. Carro then spent several COVID-interrupted years studying the remains, with the results now published in PLOS One.
It’s the positioning of the bodies beneath the surface which provides archaeologists with insights into the different cultures that migrate through the region.
One of the bodies had its extremities intentionally removed before being buried.
Another was placed in a ‘seated’ position, while the third was lying on its side.
“Burials are a unique cultural manifestation to investigate waves of migration,” Carro explains.
Burial practices can provide scientists with insights into migratory patterns carried out by ancient cultures.
Equally, these practices may have developed locally, which is why Carro says further research to characterise mortuary practices in the region will help provide greater accuracy to her findings.
“Further research in aspects such as biomolecular anthropology, diet practices, or the types of tools used in burial rites will allow us to gather more data,” she says.
“These future efforts will provide us deeper insights to interpret the lifeways of these communities.”
The arrowhead from the Viking Age melted out of the ice in a new site in the Jotunheimen mountains which was recently surveyed by a team of glacial archaeologists.
“Oh, look at this little beauty”, the team of archaeologists enthusiastically exclaim in their Facebook update, which includes a video of the three-bladed arrowhead.
“The last person who touched it was a Viking,” the post reads.
The team of glacial archaeologists from Innlandet county’s Secrets of the Ice and the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo are currently doing their annual field work up in the Norwegian mountains, where melting ice keeps on revealing lost items from our past.
The unique arrowhead is from a new site in the Jotunheimen Mountains, where the team were just doing an initial exploratory survey. Finds like this Viking Age arrowhead means they will most certainly be returning.
Was it made for hunting or war?
The arrowhead is made of iron. Its shape indicates that it is typical for the Viking Age, Lars Pilø writes in an email to sciencenorway.no.
“This type of arrowhead is known, but it is rare,” he writes.
Four such arrowheads were found in a burial mound in Sparbu in Trøndelag, and one such arrowhead has also appeared in Leirtjønnkollen in Oppdal – another glacial archaeological site.
“We haven’t tested this, obviously, but it is not unlikely that this sort of arrowhead would have had greater penetration than the arrowheads we normally find. It looks more like a war arrowhead than one made for hunting,” he writes – adding that this of course is pure speculation.
Several of the people who have commented on Facebook suggest the same. Three blades would increase blood loss and stop a wound from potentially closing up. “Either way it’s military/war-related,” one reader comments.
“Yes, that is what we are thinking as well. However, it was found at a reindeer hunting site. Perhaps they just grabbed the arrows they had when they went out hunting,” Secrets of the Ice respond.
The arrowhead with scale.
Broader than your usual combat arrow
Vegard Vike is the Head Engineer of Archaeological Conservation at the Museum of cultural history in Oslo. He is an expert in among other things weapons of the Viking Age.
Vike comments that the arrow is incredibly well preserved.
“Three-bladed arrowheads from the Viking Age are not so common in Norway, they are more commonly found in Sweden,” he writes in an email to sciencenorway.no.
These are however usually slimmer, more like arrowheads made for combat. Some of these combat arrowheads from Sweden and Denmark are decorated and fastened with noble metals.
“The one which is found here I would think is rather made for hunting, as it is so broad,” Vike concludes and explains:
“The reason why dedicated combat arrows are slim and do not have broad blades is that they needed to penetrate chain mails. More broad-bladed arrows are on the other hand perfect for hunting as they create larger wounds, which means that the animal bleeds out faster. They would however be stopped by a chain mail.”
Massive Roman Phallus Relief Carving Uncovered in Spain
A large Roman-era relief carving of a phallus was uncovered by archaeologists excavating in Nueva Carteya, Córdoba, Spain, earlier this month, according to an announcement by the area’s local history museum.
Ancient Roman phallus relief carving found in Nueva Carteya, Córdoba, Spain, 2022.
At more than one-and-a-half feet long, it could be the largest preserved Roman phallus carving, according to archaeologists.
The phallic carving was found at the base of a building within a fortified enclosure at the archaeological site El Higuerón. The site was originally an Iberian settlement occupied in the 4th century BCE until 206 BCE, when the Romans conquered the region.
El Higuerón was initially excavated in 1966 and again in 1968 and is considered one of the benchmarks of Iberian culture in the Córdoba province. Current excavations are overseen by the Museo Histórico Local de Nueva Carteya, which announced the finding of the phallic relief.
In ancient Roman culture, the fascinus was a depiction of the divine phallus used to invoke masculine generative power. Ancient Romans believed that it provided good fortune and protection.
Phallic depictions can be found among Roman sculptures, mosaics, frescoes, and pendants. The ancient Roman city Pompeii, for example, is loaded with graffiti and carvings of phallic imagery.
One of the largest concentrations of phallic symbols, however, is at Hadrian’s Wall in England. There, along the wall corridor and at military installations, are 59 identified penis etchings.
Additionally, during this season the team discovered the base of an Iberian-era wall in the western part of the site. It contained a Roman limestone floor and structural remains from the Roman and medieval periods.
Ancient Hidden City Discovered Under Lake Titicaca
Five minutes away from the town of Tiquina, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, archaeologists found the remains of an ancient civilization under the waters of the lake.
The find was made 10 years ago, by Christophe Delaere, an archaeologist from the Free University of Belgium, by following information provided by the locals. 24 submerged archaeological sites have been identified under the lake, according to the BBC.
The most significant of these sites is Santiago de Ojjelaya, and the Bolivian government has recently agreed to build a museum there to preserve both the underwater structures and those which are on land.
Lake Titicaca.
The project is supposed to be finished in 2020 and will cost an estimated $10 million. The Bolivian government is funding the project with help from UNESCO and is backed by the Belgian development cooperation agency.
The proposed building will have two parts and cover an area of about 2.3 acres (9,360 square meters). One part of the museum will be on the shore, and it will display artefacts that have been raised from the lake bottom. The second part will be partially submerged, with enormous glass walls that will look out under the lake, allowing visitors to see the “hidden city” below.
Old pottery from Tiwanaku at the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin-Dahlem.
According to the Bolivia Travel Channel, the museum will facilitate the beginning of an archaeological tourism enterprise, which “will be a resort and archaeology research centre, geology and biology, characteristics that typified it unique in the world [sic],” according to Wilma Alanoca Mamani, holder of the portfolio of the Plurinational State.
Christophe Delaere said that the building’s design incorporates elements of architecture used by the Andean cultures who inhabited the area.
Jose Luis Paz, who is the director of heritage for Bolivia’s Ministry of Culture, says that two types of underwater ruins will be visible when the building is complete: religious/spiritual offering sites, primarily underwater, and places where people lived and worked, which were primarily on the shoreline. He went on to say that the spiritual sites were likely flooded much later than the settlements.
Chullpas from Tiwanaku epoch.
A team of archaeological divers and Bolivian and Belgian experts have located thousands of items in the underwater sites. Some of these pieces will be brought up, but the majority will remain underwater as they are quite well-preserved.
Wilma Mamani said that more than 10,000 items have been found including gold and ceramic pieces and various kinds of bowls and other vessels.
The items are of pre-Inca Tiwanaku civilizations. Some of the artefacts have been estimated to be 2,000 years old, and others have been dated back to when the Tiwanaku empire was one of the primary Andean civilizations.
Gateway of the Sun, Tiwanaku, drawn by Ephraim Squier in 1877.
Tiwanaku was a major civilization in Bolivia, with the main city built around 13,000 feet above sea level, near Lake Titicaca, which made it one of the highest urban centres ever built.
The city reached its zenith between 500 AD and 1000 AD, and, at its height, was home to about 10,000 people. It’s unclear exactly when the civilization took hold, but it is known that people started settling around Lake Titicaca about 2,000 BC.
The Gateway of the Sun from the Tiwanaku civilization in Bolivia.
According to Live Science, the city’s ancient name is unknown, since they never developed a written language, but archaeological evidence suggests that Tiwanaku cultural influence reached across the southern Andes, into Argentina, Peru, and Chile, as well as Bolivia.
Tiwanaku began to decline around 1,000 AD, and the city was eventually abandoned. Even when it fell out of use, it stayed an important place in the mythology of the Andean people, who viewed it as a religious site.
Besides the obvious benefits of being able to study and share the artefacts of ancient civilizations, the project has another benefit as well. Most of the people who currently live in the area make they’re living in agriculture or fishing.
This project brings the possibility of new jobs for local residents, which can keep people from leaving the area due to a lack of opportunities, helping revitalize local communities.
Untouched and Unlooted 4,400-yr-old Tomb of Egyptian High Priest Discovered
Archaeologists in Egypt have made a new tomb discovery — the final resting place of a high priest, untouched for 4,400 years, decorated with hieroglyphics. The secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, described the find as “one of a kind in the last decades.”
The tomb was found buried in a ridge at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara.
It was untouched and unlooted. Officials say they expect more discoveries when archaeologists further excavate the site in the months to come.
The well-preserved tomb is decorated with scenes showing the royal priest alongside his mother, wife and other members of his family, the ministry said in a statement.
The high priest was devoted to his mother, evidence shows. “He mentions the name of his mother almost everywhere here,” said Waziri in an interview, pointing to the dozens of hieroglyphics, statues, and drawings.
“The colour is almost intact even though the tomb is almost 4,400 years old,” he added.
The high priest “Wahtye” served during the Fifth Dynasty reign of King Neferirkare (between 2500-2300 BC), at the Saqqara necropolis in Egypt. In addition to the name of the deceased, hieroglyphs carved into the stone above the tomb’s door reveal his multiple titles.
Saqqara pyramid of Djoser in Egypt.
The grave’s rectangular gallery is said to be covered in painted reliefs, sculptures, and inscriptions, all in excellent shape considering how much time has passed.
The reliefs depict Wahtye himself, his wife Weret Ptah, and his mother Merit Meen, as well as everyday activities that include hunting and sailing and manufacturing goods such as pottery, according to National Geographic.
The team of Egyptian archaeologists found five shafts in the tombs. They had removed a last layer of debris from the tomb on December 13, 2018, and found five shafts inside, Waziri said.
Pyramid of Djoser (Stepped pyramid), an archaeological remaining in the Saqqara necropolis, Egypt.
One of the shafts was unsealed with nothing inside, but the other four were sealed. They are expecting to make discoveries when they excavate those shafts. He was hopeful about one shaft in particular.
“I can imagine that all of the objects can be found in this area,” he said in an interview, pointing at one of the sealed shafts. “This shaft should lead to a coffin or a sarcophagus of the owner of the tomb.”
The tomb is 33 feet long, 9 feet wide, and just under 10 feet high, Waziri said.
This picture taken on December 15, 2018, shows a general view of a newly-discovered tomb belonging to the high priest ‘Wahtye’ who served during the 5th dynasty reign of King Neferirkare (between 2500-2300 BC), at the Saqqara necropolis, 30 kilometres south of the Egyptian capital Cairo.
Various drawings depict “the manufacturing of pottery and wine, making the religious offerings, musical performances, boats sailing, the manufacturing of the funerary furniture, and hunting,” according to the site Egypt Today. Also, NPR is reporting that the Saqqara site is part of a larger complex where archaeologists have discovered art and architecture that yield insight into daily life in ancient Egypt.
The Fifth Dynasty ruled Egypt from about 2500 BC to 2350 BC, not long after the great pyramid of Giza was constructed.
Giza pyramids.
Saqqara served as the necropolis for Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt for over 2 millennia.
Ancient Egyptians mummified humans to preserve their bodies for the afterlife, and animal mummies were used as religious offerings.
The rate of discoveries seems to be increasing. In November 2018, archaeologists unearthed eight new limestone sarcophagi containing mummies at a site that is 25 miles south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry said the mummies were dated to the Late Period (664-332 BC) and have an outer layer of cartonnage — papyrus or linen which is covered in plaster — decorated with a painted human form. Three of the mummies are well-preserved.
Images show the sarcophagus painted with the colours deep ochre and blue. Moreover, days before the eight mummies were found, the perfectly-preserved mummy of a woman was found inside a coffin in Egypt dating back more than 3,000 years.
That sarcophagus was opened on November 24th, which was one of two coffins discovered in El-Assasif, Luxor, on the bank of the Nile.
Are the ‘Chachapoya Clouds Warriors’ of ancient Peru descendants of Europeans?
At 4,000 km upriver you reach the foothills of the Andes in Peru, and there lived the people of the Chachapoya, also called “The Warriors of the Clouds.”
The painted Clouds Warriors’ sarcophagi of Carajia. Mummies of famed warriors were entombed inside of the sarcophagi and placed on cliffs, with the skulls of their enemies placed on top.
There is little first-hand or contrasting knowledge of the Chachapoyas. Much of what we do know about the Chachapoyas culture is based on archaeological evidence from ruins, pottery, tombs, and other artefacts.
One of the most populous Chachapoya cities is 3,000 metres high and shows that its inhabitants were great builders and probably ruled a vast empire.
Radiocarbon (Carbon-14) analyses date most of the construction to around 800 AD, except for the main entrance dating back to 500 AD.
Kuelap is an archaeological site in northern Peru about two hours from Chachapoyas. At about 3,000 meters high, it is where the higher class of the Chachapoya civilization resided starting over a thousand years ago.
In all of America, there are no similar constructions, but there are similar ones among the Celtic peoples of Europe, especially in ancient Celtic settlements in Galicia. Some Chachapoya skulls show evidence that trepanations have been performed on them, which patients have survived. This surgical practice was already known in the Mediterranean where it is described around 500 BC, and trepanned Celtic skulls have been found in Austrian sites.
The kingdom of the Chachapoya was in eastern Peru, far from the area of influence of the Inca Empire. Although their burials used to take place inside homes, a custom shared with the Celts, they also made burials on the cliffs of steep cliffs, and they have left paintings of people with complex and spectacular headdresses. The Celts also represented their gods with similar headdresses.
Celtic warriors on the chariot (illustration).
The climate of the area brings very frequent storms that cause landslides capable of burying the cities that were in the valleys, for that reason the Chachapoyas chose to build on the tops of the mountains.
During torrential rains, a burial at 2,800 m was discovered and archaeologists were able to recover more than 200 mummies that had survived the storms and looting.
Analysis of the bones has revealed that many Chachapoyas suffered from diseases such as tuberculosis, which had always been thought to have been introduced into America by the Spanish after the Discovery, but this shows that the Chachapoyas already suffered from it many centuries before. This led me to think that the Chachapoyas were descendants of a European people that arrived in America many centuries before Columbus.
And it was a warrior people, many skeletons show that they died from skull fractures and violent deaths. And their most common weapons to attack from a distance were slings, very different from those found in the Inca part of Peru but very similar to the Celtic slings of the Balearic Islands.
Drawing of a Balearic slinger. He wears a spare sling as a headband and a bag of missiles.
A Balearic slinger, world champion in sling shooting, examines a Chachapoya sling and claims that they are practically identical to the traditional Balearic slingshots.
The Chachapoyas traits
Some descendants of the Chachapoyas retain physical features that differentiate them from other Amazonian or Inca tribes. They have lighter skin and many are blond or red-haired, contrasting with the copper complexion and black hair of the rest of the South American tribes. Some of the first Spanish explorers already witnessed those differences that made the Chachapoyas more similar to Europeans than to South Americans.
Saliva samples from children with these physical characteristics have been analyzed at the Molecular Genetic Institute in Rotterdam. Although most of their genome is genuinely native South American, some incorporate between 10 and 50 per cent genes of Celtic origin, specifically from England and Galicia.
Are the Chachapoyas descendants of Celtic tribes embarked on Carthaginian ships that crossed the Atlantic when fleeing the Roman army?
Despite several indications that point to this possibility, the truth is that there is no conclusive evidence. Perhaps new archaeological or genetic studies will confirm this, but some archaeologists and scholars of the Chachapoyas are already convinced of it.
Book of the Dead: The ancient Egyptian guide to the afterlife
A section of the “Book of the Dead,” a papyrus manuscript with cursive hieroglyphs and colour illustrations. Here we see Ani, Scribe of the Sacred Revenues of all the gods of Thebes, administrator of the Granaries of the Lords of Abydos, and his wife Tutu before a table of offerings of meat, cakes, fruit, flowers, etc. Hymn in honour of the Sun God Ra at his rising.
The “Book of the Dead” is a modern-day name given to a series of ancient Egyptian texts that the Egyptians believed would help the dead navigate the underworld, as well as serve other purposes. Copies of these texts were sometimes buried with the dead.
The “‘Book of the Dead’ denotes the relatively large corpus of mortuary texts that were typically copied onto papyrus scrolls and deposited in burials of the New Kingdom [circa 1550 B.C. to 1070 B.C.],” wrote Peter Dorman, professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Chicago, in an article published in the book “Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt(opens in new tab)” (Oriental Institute Museum Publications, 2017).
The “Book of the Dead” became popular during the New Kingdom, but it was derived from the “Coffin Texts” — so named because they were often written on coffins — and the “Pyramid Texts” that were inscribed on the walls of pyramids, Dorman noted. The Coffin Texts were popular during the Middle Kingdom (circa 2030 B.C. to 1640 B.C.), while the Pyramid Texts first appeared in the Old Kingdom’s fifth dynasty (circa 2465 B.C. to 2323 B.C.).
BOOK OF THE DEAD’S SPELLS
The “Book of the Dead” includes individual chapters or spells. “The ancient Egyptians used the word rꜢ to designate each composition. The word rꜢ is generally translated as ‘spell’ or ‘utterance.’ It is written with the hieroglyph of a human mouth because the term was related to speech,” Foy Scalf, the head of research archives at the University of Chicago who holds a doctorate in Egyptology, told Live Science in an email.
There wasn’t a standard book found in every tomb. Instead, each copy contained different spells. “No one such ‘book’ contains all known spells, but only a judicious sampling,” Dorman wrote, noting that “no single ‘Book of the Dead scroll is identical to another.”
The ancient Egyptians called these texts the “Book of Coming Forth by Day,” Dorman wrote, noting that this name reflected “the Egyptians’ belief that the spells were provided to assist the deceased in entering the afterlife as a glorified spirit, or akh.”
These texts “prepared the Egyptians for life after death and [had] the power to conjure up all the parts of one’s body for the spiritual journey,” wrote Barry Kemp, professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Cambridge, in his book “How to Read the Egyptian Book of the Dead(opens in new tab)” (W.W. Norton & Company, 2007). “The Book of the Dead, by means of its spells, conferred on the owner the power to navigate successfully — for eternity — through [the underworld’s] various realms,” Kemp wrote.
A section of the “Book of the Dead.” Here we see judgment of the dead, with the weighing of the heart ritual.
Some spells appear more frequently in copies of the “Book of the Dead” than others, and some were considered almost essential. One of these essential spells is now known as Spell 17, which discusses the importance of the sun-god Re (also called Ra), one of the most important Egyptian gods, Dorman noted.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the body of the deceased could be renewed in the afterlife leaving a person to navigate a place of “gods, demons, mysterious locations and potential obstacles,” wrote Kemp. The chapters of the “Book of the Dead” described some of the things one might encounter — such as the weighing of the heart ceremony in which a person’s deeds were weighed against the feather of the goddess Maat, a deity associated with justice.
The spells were often illustrated. “Pictures [were] of great importance in the New Kingdom collection of funerary texts now called the Egyptian Book of the Dead,” wrote Geraldine Pinch, an Egyptologist, in her book “Egyptian Myth: A Very Short Introduction(opens in new tab)” (Oxford University Press, 2004). “Many owners of Books of the Dead would have been unable to read the hieroglyphic texts, but they could understand the complex vignettes that summarized the contents of the spells,” Pinch wrote.
The spells were not gender-specific. It didn’t have “spells that were used particularly by women” or spells that were used primarily by men, Marissa Stevens, an Egyptologist and assistant director of the Pourdavoud Center for the Study of the Iranian World at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Live Science in an email.
MULTIPLE PURPOSES
This small papyrus features “Book of the Dead” spells 100 and 129. On the top are the text and vignette for spell 129. At the left of the vignette is the god Osiris holding a was-scepter; behind him stands a large djed-pillar. In front of the god is an offering table with food topped by a large lotus flower. On the right is water with two boats. In the left one is the phoenix, while five deities stand in the right one. The lower part of the papyrus features spell 100. This time, Osiris is depicted on the right side, again with a djed-pillar behind him. In front of the god is the emblem for the east, and to the left of this is a boat being punted by a woman (the deceased) with a long oar. Behind her sits the sun god and then the phoenix.
The “Book of the Dead” is most famous for its guidance to the deceased, but it likely also served other purposes. “Too often has the ‘Book of the Dead’ been called a ‘guide’ to the afterlife; it was so much more than that,” Scalf told Live Science. “Probably the most important function of the ‘Book of the Dead,’ which can only be inferred from indirect evidence, is that it helped to assuage people’s fears about the unknowns of death,” Scalf said, noting that wealthy ancient Egyptians also arranged to have their bodies mummified and get their coffins decorated with religious texts in an effort to control what happened to them once they died.
Additionally, the spells in the “Book of the Dead” could be used when a person was still alive. “Most of the spells from the ‘Book of the Dead’ are not designed to ‘navigate’ the underworld,” Scalf said. “Most of the spells are about transformation and transcendent experience. In the earthly life, a ritualist may use rites and incantations to transcend everyday experience [use the spells in a ceremony to have a religious experience],” said Scalf said, noting that “many of the spells include instructions for how to use them on Earth” — which shows that they were likely used by living people too, Scalf said.
Many of these spells could then also be used in the afterlife, the Egyptians believed. “A person may use these same spells to help transform their existence, but in many ways, it is a similar transcendent experience. The spells are largely about elevating to the plane of existence of the gods; only then would the person travel the underworld along with the gods themselves,” Scalf said.
COPIES FOR BURIAL
On the left, Osiris-Seker stands in a shrine in mummified form. The name Osiris-Seker represents the fusion of Seker, the god of death, with Osiris, the god of resurrection. The Papyrus of Ani ends with the tomb of Ani, the white building with the pyramidal top, located at the foot of the mountain of Amenta, at Thebes. Emerging from the mountain’s slope into a papyrus thicket is the head of Hathor in the form of the divine cow. This goddess, mistress of the necropolis, who welcomes the arrivals of the deceased to the underworld, is also associated with the protection of women. Standing before a lavish presentation of luxuriant offerings is another manifestation of Hathor, known as Tawaret. She has the head and body of a hippopotamus, the legs of a lioness and the tail of a crocodile.
Many copies of the “Book of the Dead” that have been discovered were unearthed in tombs and were likely not read much. And many of the “Book of the Dead” manuscripts that survive today were probably not read much before they were buried with the deceased, Scalf told Live Science.
“The longest of the papyrus manuscripts is over thirty meters [98 feet] in length; it would have been a very difficult manuscript to navigate when reading. These manuscripts [found in tombs] were prestige copies, largely meant for deposition in the grave,” Scalf said.
Additionally, spells from the “Book of the Dead” were not always written down on manuscripts. For instance, Scalf noted that the spells were sometimes written down on the bandages that wrapped a person’s mummy. They were also inscribed on the walls of tombs and even on Tutankhamun’s golden death mask.
It’s possible that people who couldn’t afford a copy of the spells may have had the spells read to them. “If you did not have a scroll in your tomb, hired priests or family members might have recited it for you during the funeral, or when visiting the tomb afterwards,” Lara Weiss, a curator of the Egyptian and Nubian collection at the Netherland’s National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, told Live Science in an email.
The last known copies of the “Book of the Dead” were created in the first or second century A.D., Scalf wrote in a study published in the book “Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt.” Another series of funerary texts known as the “Books of Breathing” became popular in its place — which was derived, in part, from the “Book of the Dead,” Scalf wrote.
