The Book of the Dead evolved from which earlier funerary text collection?

The Book of the Dead evolved from the earlier Coffin Texts.

The Coffin Texts were collections of funerary spells written mainly on the inside surfaces of coffins during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, beginning around the First Intermediate Period. They expanded access to afterlife literature beyond the king, since private people who could afford decorated coffins could also obtain protective spells.

Many Book of the Dead spells preserve, revise, or expand material from the Coffin Texts. The later collection was generally written on papyrus and used during the New Kingdom and later periods, while the Coffin Texts were primarily associated with coffins and other funerary objects.

The broader ancestry includes the Pyramid Texts, much older royal inscriptions from the Old Kingdom. This sometimes causes confusion: the Coffin Texts themselves were partly derived from the Pyramid Texts, but the immediate earlier collection from which the Book of the Dead developed was the Coffin Texts. The tradition gradually shifted from royal funerary writing toward more individualized preparations for the afterlife.