Papyrus from the Book of the Dead of Padiamenet

From Egypt
Third Intermediate Period, around 1000 BC

The head baker of the estate of Amun

This is the only known sheet of the papyrus from the Book of the Dead of Padiamenet, who was the head baker of the estate of Amun. The 'estate of Amun' is a very wide-ranging term which covers the physical and economic areas controlled in association with the cult. This can include areas outside the cult centre in Thebes.

Books of the Dead usually begin with an introductory hymn to the sun god, Re, and/or a hymn to Osiris, accompanied by a vignette of the deceased before one of the deities. This vignette shows Padiamenet burning incense for Osiris. Some food (bread and onions) and lotus flowers stand as offerings on the table, while underneath stand two jars, one of which is a wine jar with a lotus bud and stalk coiled around it.

The use of the colour blue is very striking. Osiris' blue robe is particularly unusual, since by convention he usually wears white or red. Blue food offerings are also unconventional. Blue, like green, is a colour associated with new life and rebirth, which is probably the intended symbolism here.

R.O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of t, (revised ed. C. A. R. Andrews) (London, The British Museum Press, 1985)