Dead

Dead, Book of the, an ancient Egyptian work, in 106 chapters, describing in mystical language the adventures of the soul after death, and the texts it must quote to escape the torments of the lower world. Its nucleus was seemingly a collection of moral maxims, like the Proverbs of Solomon (a very ancient Egyptian work, known, from its discoverer, as the "Papyrus Prisse," is a similar collection), and is older than 3500 B.C.; but it contains many later additions (mostly glosses) of a mystical character, some as late as the Persian conquest. It seems to have grown with the myth of Osiris (q.v.). A critical recension has been undertaken by M. Naville.