The collection of mummy bandages with the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead in Museum Gustavianum, Uppsala University

Museum Gustavianum (formerly Victoria museum) at Uppsala University holds a comprehensive collection of mummy bandages inscribed with texts and vignettes from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. It can be dated from the Ptolemaic period or slightly earlier (ca 400-100 B.C.) and comprises ca 250 specimens of various forms, types and size. The collection was purchased by Karl Piehl, professor of Egyptology, in the 1890ies, but remained untouched until his former student, Ernst Akmar Andersson, four decades later made a preliminary inventory.

His publication, Les bandelettes de momie du Musée Victoria de Upsala (1932-9), remains a standard work in any study dealing with this object type.

The circumstance that the work of Akmar continues to attract a great deal of interest shows the need of a new comprehensive edition of the material that also answers to the demands of contemporary research. The present monograph provides a complete inventory and description of the entire collection, with a detailed publication of 22 individual sets containing in all 105 mummy bandages.

Here is given information on owners, dating criteria, origin, identifications of the texts, hieroglyphic transcription of the hieratic handwriting and phonetic transliteration with text critical apparatus, as well as a paleographical table. This work will be an important contribution to research within this field and finally offer a proper publication of one of the largest collections in the world.