CARTEA MORȚILOR
GHIDUL EGIPTEAN PENTRU LUMEA DE APOI

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This volume represents the result of a long-term investigation into the transmission and interpretation of the Book of the Dead. The present work focuses on the Papyrus of Nu, selected in accordance with the tendency of Egyptologists to privilege this document over the more frequently edited Papyrus of Ani. The choice is justified by the complexity and scope of the Papyrus of Nu, which preserves one of the most extensive sequences of chapters in the funerary corpus.
The project was conceived according to widely recognized principles in Egyptological research: given the impossibility of producing a synoptic edition of all the manuscripts, we opted for the editing and translation of the chapters preserved in a single papyrus. In cases where certain chapters are missing from the Papyrus of Nu, reading variants have been provided from parallel manuscripts of close date and, where necessary, from later traditions (examples from the Late and Ptolemaic Periods).
For each chapter, several essential elements have been taken into account: the numbering system (following the instructions of Lepsius, Naville and subsequent revisions), the accompanying vignettes (with reference to the plates of Naville’s Book of the Dead of 1886), the translation of the spells, explanatory notes indicating the hieroglyphic and hieratic sources (Budge, 1898), as well as modern standard translations. The results of the project of the University of Bonn (Backes and collaborators) have also been integrated. Each text is accompanied by commentaries, and in some cases comparative observations with the Sarcophagus Texts, the Book of the Two Ways or late non-canonical versions are also provided.
The present work, limited to the corpus of the 190 traditional chapters, constitutes the first Romanian translation and annotated edition of the Book of the Dead. It aims to balance fidelity to the manuscript with accessibility, while providing an academic tool that situates the Papyrus of Nu within the broader textual tradition.