The Apis Embalming Ritual. P. Vindob 3873 (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 50)

This book is the first complete edition of a hieratic-demotic papyrus preserved to this day in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The papyrus dates back to the middle of the second century B.C. and contains a minute discription of a considerable part of the embalming and burial rites of the Apis, the sacred bull of the Egyptians. The Vienna papyrus is the only authentic document to give a coherent picture of the course of events during the embalming of the holy animal, adding substantially to what we know already from the Serapeum stelae and the classical writers. comprises a general introduction, a translation with commentary, an annotated transcription, a glossary, several indexes and photos of the text.