Archaeologists have found the remnants of a 4,000-year-old “book” in a burial shaft in Dayr al-Barsha, Egypt. The oldest known copy of The Book of Two Ways, the story is related to Osiris, the Egyptian lord of the underworld. From The Brussels Times:
(Katholieke Universiteit Leuven archaeologist) Harco Willems describes the document as a collection of sparse incantations and legendary drawings…
Two curved sinuous lines run through the book. They are interpreted by some researchers as a representation of the two roads that lead the deceased to safety through the dangers of the underworld to a happy life in the afterlife.
Archaeologists found the fragments in a sarcophagus attributed to Ankh, a woman of the family of a governor named Ahanakht.
As The Daily Grail half-joked, “Don’t. Read. The. Incantations. Aloud!”
More: “Harco Willems discovered oldest copy of The Book of Two Ways” (KU Leuven)
image: color manipulated photo of a fragment of the text