Foremost amongst the latter is the Ritual to which Lepsius gave the name of the Book of the Dead. It was first discovered by Champollion in the early days of Egyptian decipherment, and a comparative edition of the text current during the Theban period has been made by Dr. Naville. Papyri containing the whole or portions of it are numberless; the chapters into which it is divided are inscribed on the coffins, and even on the wrappings of the dead, as well as on the scarabs and the _ushebtis_ that were buried with the mummy. It was, in fact, a sort of passport and guide-book combined in one, which would carry the dead man in safety through the dangers that confronted him in the other world, and bring him at last to the judgment-hall of Osiris and the paradise of Alu. It described minutely all that awaited him after death; it detailed the words and prayers that would deliver him from his spiritual enemies; and it put into his mouth the confession he would have to make before the tribunal of the dead. Without it he would have been lost in the strange world to which he journeyed, and hence the need of inscribing at least some portions of it on his tomb or sepulchral furniture, where their ghostly doubles could be read by his ka and soul. The Book of the Dead was the Bible or Prayer-book of the Osirian creed. Its universal use marks the triumph of the worship of Osiris and of the beliefs that accompanied it. It was for the follower of Osiris that it was originally compiled; the judgment with which it threatened him was that of Osiris, the heaven to which it led him was the field of Alu. The Pyramid texts of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties imply that it already existed in some shape or other; the Osirian creed is known to them in all its details, and the “other world” depicted in them is that of the Book of the Dead.(150) But the Book of the Dead is a composite work. Not only are the religious conceptions embodied in it composite and sometimes self-contradictory, on the literary side it is composite also. It was, moreover, a work of slow growth; glosses have been added to it to explain passages which had become obscure through the lapse of time; the glosses have then made their way into the text, and themselves become the subject of fresh commentary and explanation. Chapters have been inserted, paragraphs interpolated, and the later commentary combined with the original text. The Book of the Dead as it appears in the age of the Theban dynasties had already passed through long centuries of growth and modification.(151)