All of these funerary texts contain spells to protect the deceased in the afterlife.
Pyramid Texts: Old Kingdom – First Intermediate Period+
- Written on the inner walls of the pyramids of pharaohs of the 5th, 6th and 8th dynasties.
- They represent the largest coherent collection of ancient Egyptian texts.
- Ensuring the deceased king can take his place amongst the gods and reunite with hisdivine father Ra.
- The afterlife is located predominantly in the sky.
- Pyramid texts remain an independent collection of texts and were still used to inscribe coffins (but no longer pyramids) during the Middle Kingdom.
Coffin Texts: First Intermediate Period – Middle Kingdom+
- Mostly written on the insides of coffins of high-ranking people and wealthy privateindividuals and not restricted to pharaohs or royal family members.
- Many of the spells are derived from the earlier Pyramid Texts with new content relating to more everyday problems and desires.
- The Coffin Texts include illustrations.
- They do not contain a consistent description of how the afterlife and life there wereconceived and how to get there.
- In addition to a celestial afterlife, a hope for an afterlife linked to the fate of thegod Osiris further develops.
- Coffin texts remain in use as late as the 27th Dynastie (c. 690-520 BC).
Book of the Dead: Second Intermediate Period – Roman Era
- Egyptian title: rA.w n.(ï)w pr.t m hrw – Spells belonging to (the) coming forth by day.
- Many of the spells are derived from the earlier Pyramid and Coffin Texts.
- The spells are not restricted to pharaohs or royal family members.
- Since the New Kingdom the main medium is papyrus but they were also written onmummy bandages.
- The scrolls were placed inside the coffin or in the burial chamberof the deceased.
- The famous spell 125 for the “Weighing of the Heart” is first attested during the reignof Hatshepsut and Thutmose III (18th Dynasty, 15th century BC).
