Book of the Dead of Hori (c. 1069–945 BCE): Art, History and Details

Book of the Dead of Hori (c. 1069–945 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The Egyptian Book of the Dead--or as they called it, the Book of Going Forth By Day--was not a single, unified, and authoritative manuscript, but a handful of special spells selected from a pool of about 200 age-old magical formulae. This illustrated Book of the Dead inscribed for the priest Hori includes the so-called Book of Gates. There are sixteen gates through which Hori must pass, each guarded by a fierce, animal-headed, knife-brandishing monster. Among them are "The Mistress of Wrath," "The Fiery One," and the "Long-Horned Bull." To reach the afterlife, Hori must present the gate-keepers with a series of secret passwords provided for him in the papyrus. At the far right, we see Hori, who having completed his task, is now reborn.

Object facts

• Title: Book of the Dead of Hori
• Date: c. 1069–945 BCE
• Culture: Egypt, Third Intermediate (1069–715 BCE), Dynasty 21
• Type: Funerary Equipment
• Technique: papyrus
• Dimensions: Overall: 23 cm (9 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Egypt - New Kingdom
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1921.1032

Collection credit

The Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Accessions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 8, no. 9 (1921): 138-41.
• Cooney, John D. "Siren and Ba, Birds of a Feather." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 55, no. 8 (1968): 262-71.
• Heerma van Voss, Matthieu Sybrand Huibert Gerard. Ägypten, die 21. Dynastie. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.