The Egyptian Book of the Dead was typically written on papyrus. Rather than a single fixed book, it was a collection of spells intended to help a dead person navigate the afterlife and achieve eternal existence.
Scribes usually copied the spells onto papyrus scrolls in hieroglyphic or hieratic writing, often adding colorful vignettes. These images could show the deceased before the gods, funerary rituals, or the weighing of the heart. The famous Papyrus of Ani, created around 1250 BC, is one of the best-known surviving examples.
The title “Book of the Dead” is a modern scholarly label. Ancient Egyptians called the tradition something closer to “Spells of Coming Forth by Day.” There was no single canonical edition: families or individuals could commission selections of spells according to their means and beliefs.
Earlier funerary traditions used Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were carved or painted on tombs, coffins, and other objects. That difference explains why papyrus is the characteristic material associated with the later Book of the Dead.