The Ritual of Embalming Papyrus or Papyrus of the Embalming Ritual is one of only two extant papyri which detail anything at all about the practices of

mummification A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furth ...

used within the burial practices of Ancient Egyptian culture. One version of the papyri is held in the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

, Cairo (''Pap. Boulaq No.3'') and the other is in the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

(No. 5158).Robert (''Bob'') Brier, Ronald S. Wade
Surgical Procedures during ancient Egyptian Mummification
Chungará (Arica) v.33 n.1 Arica ene. 2001 etrieved 2015-06-29(ed. see als
this link

The papyri

The papyrus in Cairo was discovered in 1857, within a tomb in Thebes. It represents the last ten pages of a work of which all other pages are lost; of these, eight were in a good condition. The Louvre papyrus gives the same information as is found on the last two pages of the Cairo document. Both are copies made in

hieratic script Hieratic (; grc, ἱερατικά, hieratiká, priestly) is the name given to a cursive writing system used for Ancient Egyptian and the principal script used to write that language from its development in the third millennium BC until the ris ...

, with

Demotic Demotic may refer to: * Demotic Greek, the modern vernacular form of the Greek language * Demotic (Egyptian), an ancient Egyptian script and version of the language * Chữ Nôm, the demotic script for writing Vietnamese See also * * Demos (disa ...

notation, during the Roman period, and were copied from a single earlier text.(ed. this source used to add < some Demotic notations, Papyrus of the Embalming Ritual, eleven acts, wrapping, > The papyri probably date to the 1st century AD and contain specifically information on eleven acts of anointing of the body, the wrapping and placing of internal organs, which had been treated, inside

canopic jars Canopus (, ; grc-gre, Κάνωπος, ), also known as Canobus ( grc-gre, Κάνωβος, ), was an ancient Egyptian coastal town, located in the Nile Delta. Its site is in the eastern outskirts of modern-day Alexandria, around from the cente ...

, and the act of performing the bandaging of the embalmed corpse to create a mummy.permalink

The ritual

The act of mummification described was to be done while

prayer Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deified a ...

s and

incantation An incantation, a spell, a charm, an enchantment or a bewitchery, is a magical formula intended to trigger a magical effect on a person or objects. The formula can be spoken, sung or chanted. An incantation can also be performed during ceremo ...

s were performed

ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...

istically.Anne Burton
Diodorus Siculus, Book 1: A Commentary (p.267)
''Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain'', BRILL, 1973, 301 pages, etrieved 2015-06-30/ref> Persons necessarily present and participating within a performance of the ritual were a ''master of secrets'' or ''

stolist In ancient Egypt, a stolist was a person who held the rank of priest and is now understood to have been an adorner of divine images. At some time, stolists belonged to a group or guild known as ''nekrostolisteis'', as is attested to by the archaeol ...

'' (both refer to the same person), a ''

lector Lector is Latin for one who reads, whether aloud or not. In modern languages it takes various forms, as either a development or a loan, such as french: lecteur, en, lector, pl, lektor and russian: лектор. It has various specialized uses. ...

'', and a divine chancellor or seal-bearer (''hetemu-netjer''). Of the persons present, the individual who was the ''hery-sheshta'' fulfilled the most important and superior position, the ''hetemu-netjer'' was next in importance, then the ''wetiu'', who were to wrap the embalmed corpse in material. The text proceeds in the direction of the embalming the head, toward the feet. The head was to be wrapped firstly in linen, of this first linen, the embalmer was to obtain the linen from

Sais Sais ( grc, Σάϊς, cop, Ⲥⲁⲓ) was an ancient Egyptian city in the Western Nile Delta on the Canopic branch of the Nile,Mish, Frederick C., Editor in Chief. "Saïs." '' Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary''. 9th ed. Springfiel ...

, with a second layer added afterwards.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ritual of Embalming Papyrus 1st-century texts 1857 archaeological discoveries Archaeological discoveries in Egypt Egyptian papyri Ancient Egyptian funerary practices