Details

LOT 255043

Egyptian Funerary Linen Fragment with Hieratic Text from the Book of the Dead for Ta-sherit-n-ta-ihet

GRAECO-ROMAN PERIOD, CIRCA 3RD CENTURY B.C.-2ND CENTURY A.D.

8 5/8 in. (5.08 grams, 22 cm wide).

Bearing a portion of Chapter 17, a spell written in late hieratic script executed in black ink on woven linen, consistent with funerary bandages of the Graeco-Roman period; the inscription identifies the owner as a woman named Ta-sherit-n-ta-ihet, with her mother named Iset-(m-)khebit; as is typical for funerary manuscripts of this period, the father’s name is not recorded. [No Reserve]

Provenance

Found inside an 18th-century Bible and believed to be a souvenir acquired in the 19th century.
From the private collection of a North American lady.

An academically identified and unpublished fragment, offering potential for further scholarly study and publication.
Accompanied by a report in progress dated 28 April 2026 by Holly Lund.

Footnotes

Spell 17 is among the most important and widely transmitted compositions in the Book of the Dead, concerned with cosmology, divine knowledge, and the transformation of the deceased in the afterlife. Even in fragmentary form, such texts provide valuable insight into funerary belief and scribal practice during the later phases of ancient Egyptian religion. This description was prepared using information provided by Dr Ann-Katrin Gill, Academic Assistant at the Egyptological Institute, University of Leipzig, and a separate assessment by Steve Vinson, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University Bloomington.

The linen fragment may derive from a nineteenth-century mummy unwrapping, a practise widely attested in this period.