The age of the composition of this remarkable book is unknown. But so old is it that the earliest copies we possess show that when they were made, some six thousand years ago, the exact meaning of parts of the text had become obscure to the transcribers. Fragments of it have been found in those ancient tombs, the Pyramids; chapters or long extracts were written on stone and wooden coffins; but after the expulsion of the Hyksos, or Shepherd Dynasty, by the kings of Thebes, about 1580 B.C., papyrus came more into use for the purpose. One of the most superbly-illustrated examples is that known as the _Papyrus of Ani_, belonging to what is called the Theban recension of the text, which was much used from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Dynasty (1587-1060 B.C.). It will suffice, as evidence of the magical qualities attributed to the written word, to quote the following from the seventy-second chapter, as translated into sonorous English by Dr. Wallis Budge:-- "If this writing be known (by the deceased) upon earth, and this chapter be done into writing upon (his) coffin, he shall come forth by day in all the forms of existence which he desireth, and he shall enter into (his) place, and be not rejected. Bread and ale and meat shall be given unto Osiris, the scribe Ani upon the altar of Osiris ... there shall wheat and barley be given unto him; there shall he flourish as he did upon earth, and he shall do whatsoever pleaseth him, even as do the gods who are in the underworld, for everlasting millions of ages, world without end." Under Dr. Wallis Budge's editorship, the Ani papyrus has recently been supplemented by the issue of facsimiles and translations of papyri and other texts connected with the _Book of the Dead_. Among these is a _Book of Breathings_, written in a late hieratic, and dating from late pre-Christian times. It contains a ritual to be said by the priest for or over the dead, and teaches belief in a resurrection of the body and a state of material bliss on earth. "Thy soul shall live," and, so runs the text, "thy corruptible body shall burst into life, and thou shalt never decay." ... "Grant that his soul may go into every place wheresoever it would be, and let him live upon earth for ever and ever." Up to a point the story of Egyptian writing illustrates the stages of development of writing generally so clearly that its recital, even at the cost of some repetition, will be helpful, and the more so as it falls into line with the story of other scripts.