Le Livre des Morts des anciens Égyptians... dieuxième édition (The Book of the Dead of the Ancient Egyptians... Second Edition)
Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1907. Second edition. Hardcover. Stout duodecimo. [4, half- and full title], ix, [1, blank], 571 pp. Text in French. Publisher's device at title page; decorative initials, head- and tailpieces throughout. Recent quarter light brown leather over marbled boards; spine with raised bands and gilt-lettered black cloth label; marbled endleaves; yellow ribbon marker. Very light wear along edges of binding with light water-staining at top and bottom of block near spine, not penetrating onto pages.
Second edition, comprising a complete translation of the Egyptian funerary spells and incantations contained in a hieroglyphic manuscript from the Turin Muesum. The manuscript was copied by the famous Prussian Egyptologist and archaeologist, Karl Lepsius who supervised its lithographic reproduction and publication in 1842 and, incidentally, coined the term "Totenbuch" / "Book of the Dead." At the time of Pierret's French translation, Lepsius' edition was considered "the standard copy to which all quotations from Egyptologists refer" (introduction). Pierret believed that the Turin manuscript dated from the Saite Dynasty (672-525 BCE), though more recent scholarship suggests a somewhat later date during the Ptolemaic Era. While such texts are now commonly refered to collectively as "The (Egyptian) Book of the Dead," their 1500-year long history yields no single or canonical edition. Often privately commissioned, the surviving papyri present a varying selection of texts and illustrations. "The Egyptians had a custom of placing a roll of papyrus in the tomb, independent of other objects necessary for the soul's long hyper-terrestrial journey, a sort of passport intended to assure it a favorable reception at the numerous gates of the celestial regions and residences, to place it in the presence of the sun, to introduce it into the boat of this god where, luminous, it will cross the plain ethereal, and to defend it against the enemy powers that will oppose its progress. Most of the papyri preserved in the museums of Europe belong to this class of mortuary manuscripts" (introduction). First published in 1882, our edition contains the original preface, dated 27 October, 1881. With notes and an analytic index.
As successor to Jean-François Champollion and Emmanuel de Rougé, Charles Paul Pierret (1836-1916) was appointed curator of the department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre Museum in 1873. He was the first holder of the chair of Egyptology when the École du Louvre was founded in 1882. Very good condition. Item #53310
Price: $500.00