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Its content is to describe the funeral ceremony and pray that the soul of the deceased can reach heaven smoothly; There are all scriptures, incantations, hymns, etiquette incantations, names of gods or revelations written specifically for the dead. The only purpose is to let the dead safely reach the underworld and enjoy the eternal afterlife.
Through complex rituals and spells, groups of spells in coffins and books of the dead can help to surpass the dead, protect them from the devil, and give them the necessary passwords and spells to get the dead into the underworld.
It is actually a guide for the dead to go to the ghost country. Most of the contents of each article are prayers or excuses to protect the deceased from all kinds of difficulties, to help the deceased survive the difficult voyage of past lives and afterlife, to reach the "Palace of Truth" safely, to cope with trials smoothly, and to reach the "Reed Field" of Elysium safely to obtain the spell of eternal life. But at the earliest time, only Pharaoh was entitled to eternal life, because according to the religious concept of ancient Egypt, Pharaoh was the god of the world. Pyramid is a spell specially written for Pharaoh, which was engraved on the pyramid tomb wall of the ancient dynasty king. Since China and North Korea, the coffins of ordinary aristocratic officials can be engraved with pyramid-shaped mantras as amulets for the dead. In the New Kingdom era, these mantras were written on papyrus as a funerary object, that is, the book of death. In the New Kingdom, the Book of Death consisted of twenty-seven articles, each with a different length and a different title. It was a scripture written by the clerk for the deceased, which copied and illustrated the lengthy rune fragments of Crossing the Country of Death (also known as the Out-of-Body Mantra in the Day), including incantations, hymns, lengthy explanations and various etiquette truths. In the book, we can see the general social norms and moral standards of ancient Egyptian society.
Background-Egypt's view of death
This is because the ancient Egyptians believed that the soul would not die after death. The soul enters the lower bound through the waterfall, and there are twelve countries in the lower bound. After it had to cross, it suffered a lot of theft and was severely questioned by God. If you overcome all the difficulties one by one, you can return to the upper bound, see the light of day, return to the body and be reborn. Because this is a difficult process, a special book is needed to guide it.
For ordinary Egyptians, Pharaoh is the god of mankind. He is considered as the son of the sun god "Re" and also translated as "Rui". In The Book of the Dead, it is described that Pharaoh will take a solar boat to the underworld after his death. If he passes the trial of Osiris, the guardian of the underworld, he can join the ranks of the sun gods. He takes a solar boat every morning, rises from the east to the west, turns around the ground at night and comes back from the east. In the ancient kingdom, Pharaoh built a large pyramid and a solar boat buried with him to help Pharaoh reach the sun god step by step. After Pharaoh arrived at the sun god, he could help people achieve eternal life.
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The earliest "book of the dead" appeared around 1500 BC. It is a paper roll made of reeds, and it is also the first book in the world. Later versions include poems dedicated to the sun god Rui, often accompanied by colorful illustrations, and sold to the families of the deceased for burial (that is, poems buried with the dead).
If combined with the existing version, there are more than 200 known chapters, but none of the books we have seen so far contain all these more than 200 chapters.