Raymond Faulkner (1894–1982)

THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD :
THE BOOK OF GOING FORTH BY DAY

FOREWORD

Sompelling an influence has this book exercised upon me, for fully one-third
of my life, that I write these words with a profound sense of gratitude and
relief. I began working at Samuel Weiser's Bookstore in New York in 1973
During my lunch hours I loved to study the many rare and beautiful books kept
in the basement, and there I came upon the "elephant folio" (14°/4 × 21 inches)
facsimile of the Papyrus of Ani. Published by the British Museum in r
magnificent volume overwhelmed me with the intensity and beauty of its
mysterious imagery. My interest in occult philosophy naturally led me to study
the text of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. I first used the virtually unreadable 189s
translation by Budge in the ubiquitous Dover reprint. The original edition
ased as a companion to the facsimile. One was expected to view the
images in the facsimile while reading the separate translation.

In January of 1979, I purchased the facsimile from Donald Weiser. Soon after,
I found myself literally "watching" a vision of the book you are now holding in
your hands taking shape that is, the exquisite papyrus in full color running
along the top of the page, with a readable, uncluttered English translation belo
When in 198s the color edition of Faulkner's translation of the Theban Recension
was published by Macmillan, I initially thought my idca might have been
accomplished. But examination of the book quickly revealed that it did
rrespond to the majestic volume I had envisioned.

Now that vision has been rcalized the rendition of an antient Egyptian
papyrus that comes the closest in 3500 years to approximating the feeling of the
original, where the words and images are again treated as a unity

Three key issues regarding the creation of this book need to be discussed
My original idea, developed in detail over several years, was
to follow the Ani Papyrus word for word. I planned to use Budge's translation,
with his excellent key to the hieroglyphics as my guide, to present the text and
images together on the same page. The Map Key to the Papyrus, which appears
here on pages 94-97, was developed from that rescarch. Dr. Goelet, however
made clear, first, that Budge's translation falls far short of modern standards, and
second, that the hieroglyphic text of the Ani Papyrus itself is of uneven quality
often much inferior to the excellence of its vignettes. He proposed that we use
Faulkner's translation of the "idcal text" of cach chapter below the images of the
Ani Papyrus, supplemented by his own translations where necessary. Our text
would then represent the best translation from the best Egyptological sources for
The first is the text.the specific chapter of the Book of the Dead illustrated in
thc Ani Papyrus

Thus this volume combines the finest modern scholarship with the most
beautifully illuminated surviving ancient papyrus

The second concern is my "recutting," or clectronic reorganization of the
papyrus. The medium of a scroll is vastly different from that of a book, and I hav
sought to restore the integrity of the images at all costs. Budge unfortunately cut
the original papyrus using the basic "yardstick" method -dividing it into thirty
seven sheets of relatively even length. The result was to disfigure the flow of thc
original scroll. On the other hand, the facsimile volume he published looks more
like a book, with images of uniform width across pages of uniform width. In this
edition, you will find some few images occupying just over a third of
the page in width, while others have necessitated the trouble and expense of
gatefold sprcads (originally suggested by my colleague Bill Corsa) to properly
commodate the ornately bordered art. (The original papyrus measured 78 feet...… (más)