Book of the Dead of Kha

The Book of the Dead of Kha is a 14-meter-long papyrus scroll displayed at the Museo Egizio in Turin. Written in cursive hieroglyphs, it contains thirty-three spells intended to guide and protect the deceased in the afterlife. The scroll dates to the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty, around 1425 to 1353 BCE.

Kha served as Superintendent of Works in the royal necropolis during the reigns of Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV, and Amenhotep III. He oversaw the craftsmen who cut and decorated tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Italian Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli discovered Kha's tomb at Deir el-Medina in 1906, finding it completely intact. The papyrus lay carefully placed atop Kha's inner coffin.

Fine materials, precise handwriting, and vibrant illustrations demonstrate the care invested in this funerary text. Scholars have noted erased and rewritten names, unfinished decorations, and later additions. This evidence suggests the papyrus was first made for another owner before being adapted for Kha.