Greenfield Papyrus

The Greenfield Papyrus is a papyrus that contains an ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead and is named after Mrs. Edith Mary Greenfield, who presented it to the Trustees of the British Museum in May 1910.^[1]^[2] Now in the collections of the British Museum, London, it is one of the longest papyri in existence with a length of 37 metres.^[3]

Manuscript

The Greenfield Papyrus is a papyrus roll with an original length of about 37 meters and about 47 cm wide. Nowadays, the manuscript is divided into 96 pieces. The manuscript contains both text and drawings, the text is written on the recto side and in hieratic script and partly in hieroglyphs. The Book of the Dead includes a series of hymns, litanies, tributes and homages. The papyrus is dated to between the 950s and 930s BC during Egypt's Twenty-first Dynasty. The manuscript describes the burial of the priest Pinudjem II and his wife Neskhons's daughter Nesitanebetashru around the year 930 BC. One of the scenes shows when the god Shu (God of Air) helps Nut (Goddess of the Sky) to divide heaven and earth, represented as Geb (God of the Earth). Among the scenes are also parts of the creation of the world according to the Egyptian creation myth with the god Atum in the centre.

Provenance

It is not known when and how the papyrus was discovered but the English collector Herbert Bunce Greenfield acquired the manuscript around 1880. The site of discovery is believed to be Theban Tomb 320 (TT 320), known as the "Royal Cache," near the necropolis of Deir el-Bahri.^[4] His wife, Edith Mary Greenfield, donated the manuscript in 1910 to the British Museum; the papyrus archive number is BM EA 10554-87. In 1912, Keeper of the Egyptian collection at the museum, Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge published a translation in the book The Greenfield papyrus in the British Museum - The funerary papyrus of Princess Nesitanebtȧshru, daughter of Painetchem II and Nesi-Khensu, and priestess of Ȧmen-R̄a at Thebes, about B.C. 970.

References

^ BritishMuseumcollection-database search © Trustees of the British Museum. Retrieved approx. 19:48GMT 2011-9-29
^ Wallis Budge, Ernest Alfred (1912). The Greenfield Papyrus in the British Museum. London: Trustees of the British Museum – via HathiTrust.
^ Thorpe, Vanessa (23 October 2010). "Book of the Dead: Scroll down and learn how to die like an Ancient Egyptian". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
^ Lenzo, Giuseppina (2023). The Greenfield Papyrus : funerary papyrus of a priestess at Karnak Temple (c. 950 BCE). Leuven & Bristol, CT: Peeters. p. 15. ISBN 9789042948426.