In the Saite period a sort of standard edition was drawn up, consisting of 165 chapters in a fixed order and with a common title the book of going forth in the day; this recension was published by Lepsius in 1842 from a Turin papyrus Like the Pyramid texts, the Book of the Dead served a funerary purpose, but its contents are far more heterogeneous; besides chapters enabling the dead man to assume what shape he will, or to issue triumphant from the last judgment, there are lists of gates to be passed and demons to be encountered in the nether world, formulae such as are inscribed on sepulchral figures and amulets, and even hymns to the sun-god.
A wellknown vignette in the Book of the Dead depicts the scene.
The funerary ritual is known from texts in the Theban tombs (XVIIIthXXth Dyn.) and papyri and sarcophagi of later date; older versions are contained in the Pyramid texts and The Book of the Dead.
By the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty some early chapters of the Book of the Dead had been provided with a triple commentary.
The Pyramid texts and the Book of the Dead are the most important of these, and teach us much about the dangers and needs that attended the dead man beyond the tomb, and about the manner in which it was thought, they could be counteracted.
