The Egyptian Book of the Dead is unquestionably one of the most influential books in all history. Embodying a ritual to be performed for the dead, with detailed instruction for the behavior of the disembodied spirit in the Land of the Gods, it served as the most important repository of religious authority for some three thousand years.

Chapters were carved on the pyramids of the ancient 5th Dynasty, texts were written in payrus, and selections were painted on mummy cases well into the Christian Era. In a certain sense it stood behind all Egyptian civilization.