No. 3155 in the Louvre were identical in a large number of places with the text on the coffin of Butehai-Ȧmen,
, in Turin. Butehai-Ȧmen was a priest who flourished under the XXth Dynasty, and he caused a copy of the Book of Opening the Mouth to be written upon the two covers of his coffin in red and black ink. Devéria had examined this papyrus many years before, and he stated in his Catalogue des Manuscrits Égyptiens (Paris, 1881, p. 171) that it “contained a liturgical text entirely different from the ordinary funerary works, and that it was noteworthy by reason of the mention in it of the priests of different orders who officiated, and the description of the part which each individual performed in the funeral ceremony.” In a valuable paper entitled “Le Fer et l'Aimant en Égypte,”[1] he translated about a page and a half of the papyrus, and Sig. Schiaparelli believes that he cherished the thought of publishing the complete work.
The papyrus was written for a priestess called Sais,
The lower portions of the first few leaves are wanting, and the writing is in places very difficult to read. Being convinced of the importance of the text, Sig. Schiaparelli spent a winter in copying it, and he devoted himself to the preparation of an edition of the text on the coffin in Turin, which dates from the
- ↑ Mélanges d'Archéologie Égyptienne, tom. i., p. 45.
