The Book of the Dead was in use from the 16th century BCE until which century?

The Book of the Dead was in use from the 16th century BCE until the 1st century BCE.

Its earliest known occurrences belong to Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period, around the 16th Dynasty, roughly the 17th or 16th century BCE depending on chronology. The texts developed from older funerary traditions, especially the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom and the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom. Early examples could appear on coffins or linen, while papyrus scrolls became increasingly typical during the New Kingdom.

The tradition continued for well over a thousand years. During the 25th and 26th Dynasties, scribes revised and standardized the arrangement of spells in what is called the Saite recension. Later manuscripts were produced in the Late Period and Ptolemaic period, though they were often abbreviated.

The 1st century BCE marks the last established use of the Book of the Dead as a funerary text. That does not mean Egyptian afterlife imagery vanished immediately: some artistic motifs survived into Roman times, and the broader religious tradition continued in other forms.