For the ancient Egyptians, the journey to eternal life was perilous: a passage through trials and incantations culminating in a divine judgment before Osiris and 42 other deities, where a heart was weighed against a feather. Failure meant annihilation at the jaws of Ammit, the fearsome composite creature said to devour unworthy souls.
To guide the dead safely through this spiritual gauntlet, Egyptians compiled a body of funerary texts known today as the Book of the Dead — a modern title coined in the 19th century by German scholar Karl Richard Lepsius. A rare, gilded and remarkably complete example of that text, dating from roughly 305 to 30 B.C., is now on view at the Brooklyn Museum.
The exhibition, titled Unrolling Eternity: The Brooklyn Books of the Dead, presents one of only about 10 known gilded papyri from ancient Egypt. Even more unusual, curators say, is that this scroll appears complete — its blank sheets intact at both beginning and end, a rarity for documents more than 2,000 years old.
“This particular Book of the Dead is gilded and complete — both of those are incredibly rare,” said Egyptologist Yekaterina Barbash to The Guardian, who noted she had never encountered a gilded papyrus in decades of research before working on the exhibition.
A Text for the Living — and the Dead
The funerary spells that evolved into the Book of the Dead originated in earlier pyramid and coffin texts dating back to the third millennium B.C. Over centuries, these incantations — once inscribed on tomb walls — were compiled into portable scrolls. Wealthy Egyptians commissioned scribes to prepare personalized versions for use in burial rites.
The compendiums addressed a wide array of themes: protective spells against scorpions and crocodiles, recitations for mummification rituals, and transformation spells enabling the spirit to assume different forms and traverse realms. No two copies were identical. Scribes varied the selection and order of chapters, sometimes adding alternate phrasing or squeezing lines into narrowing margins as space ran out.
“It was considered almost religious insight to add other words and interpretations,” Barbash said. “You can see the scribes trying to fit everything in at the bottom of the page. It’s human.”
Gold and Eternity
The Brooklyn scroll’s gilded elements — including crowns, solar disks and shrines — underscore both theological symbolism and social status. In ancient Egyptian belief, gold was associated with divinity and eternity; gods were said to possess golden skin, silver bones and lapis lazuli hair. Because gold does not tarnish, it symbolized immortality.
The shimmering details also signaled wealth. Commissioning a gilded papyrus would have required considerable resources, reflecting both devotion and prestige.
A Transatlantic Journey
The scroll’s modern history is nearly as intricate as its ancient one. It was brought to the United States in the 19th century by British physician Henry Abbott, who exhibited Egyptian artifacts in hopes of selling them. Among those who attended was poet Walt Whitman, who reportedly signed the guest book multiple times and later referenced the artifact in his writings.
The papyrus eventually entered the collection of what is now the New York Historical before being transferred to the Brooklyn Museum in 1948.
In the early 2000s, conservators undertook a painstaking three-year effort to stabilize the fragile document, which had been mounted on acidic backing. Using controlled moisture treatments and ultra-thin Japanese kozo-fiber paper — sometimes just 0.02 millimeters thick — specialists carefully separated and remounted the brittle papyrus.
Amazing Masterpiece
Now displayed under carefully controlled conditions, the scroll reveals intricate linework and delicate gold embellishments that curators compare to lace or a spider’s web in their fineness.
For modern viewers, the exhibition offers more than a glimpse into ancient ritual. It underscores a timeless human preoccupation: preparing for what lies beyond — and leaving behind something enduring enough to survive thousands of years.
