Forgeries for the Dead : fake specimens of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (original) (raw)

2014

Abstract

It is not an easy job to manufacture ancient written objects. You have to imitate the archaic style, the writing must be copied faithfully to the original and the material has to look antique. Faking Book of the Dead manuscripts1 implicates some advantages: The amount of available specimens is huge and only a few specialists know them all: currently we know about 3000 Book of the Dead manuscripts, from small fragments, only a few centimeterslong, up to complete manuscripts of more than 20 meters-long. Also, every day there is a chance that new manuscripts come out from auctions or excavations. Since Book of the Dead manuscripts were in use for a period of about 2000 years, their typologies are various and numerous; manuscripts of very high quality are widely attested as well as very roughly decorated scrolls. Therefore, a heavyhanded line is not compulsorily an evidence for a forgery. In order to forge a manuscript which looks authentic, it is not necessary to have a very precise co...

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