A Book of the Dead Papyrus Roll Sells for 1.3 Million Euros

On October 6, 2018 the Hôtel des Ventes de Monte Carlo sold a complete Book of the Dead for Horwedja papyrus roll dating from 594-588 BCE for 1,300,000 Euros. The manuscript was written in hieratic script in black ink with titles and important sections written in red ink. The papyrus is part of the “Saite Recension”, a title given to Books of the Dead dating from the 26th Dynasty onwards. Very few papyrus rolls can be dated to the Saite Dynasty, there are fewer than twenty surviving 26th Dynasty Books of the Dead, in contrast to some four to five hundred manuscripts dated to the Ptolemaic Period.