Early in the history of Egypt, beliefs about the afterlife were incorporated into a literary genre of spells and descriptive texts. These texts were used in burials in a number of different ways throughout the ages. Beginning in the eighteenth century BC, they were written on papyrus scrolls like those you see here. These two come from the tomb of Nauny, a short, plump woman who died in her early seventies during the early twenty-first dynasty. In typical burials of this time, one papyrus was deposited directly on the mummy. In this case, it was the shorter scroll on the bottom. It contains texts from a corpus the ancient Egyptians called the "Book of the One Who Is in the Netherworld." You can see the Egyptian title written at the right end of the papyrus. The beings depicted are various forms of the sun god during his nightly journey through the netherworld, alternating with images of Nauny’s white mummy.

Nauny’s longer papyrus is also a typical part of a twenty-first-dynasty burial. It was found inside a wood figure of the god Osiris. Its texts are taken from the "Book of Coming Forth by Day" which we commonly call the "Book of the Dead." And they’re meant to help Nauny through the final judgment that every Egyptian had to undergo after death. Its illustrations are especially fine. Reading from right to left, we see Nauny reciting her innocence before the gods of the judgment hall. In the center, between the texts, we see her judgment, symbolized by a weighing of her heart against a figure of Maat, goddess of justice and right order. Having passed this, she is able to enjoy renewed daily life as a spirit—worshipping the rising sun, enjoying working the fields, and ferrying in a boat to the west at sunset. The left end shows Nauny in the netherworld at night in the presence of Osiris, ruler of the netherworld, and the god of rebirth and resurrection.