A Demotic Book of Transformations

P. Louvre E 3452 was written for a priest named Imuthes, who lived at Thebes in southern Egypt in the first century BC. It can be classified as a book of transformations, containing spells designed to enable him to assume various non-human forms in the afterlife. Although the belief that a deceased person could assume such forms is attested as early as the Old Kingdom, it is only in the Graeco-Roman Period that we find entire works devoted to this topic. P. Louvre E 3452 is the earliest of these and the only one written in the cursive Demotic script. It is also unusual in that, although written in Demotic, its language is Middle Egyptian. Transformation spells, as preserved in the Louvre papyrus, served a dual purpose. First, they were supposed to enhance the deceased’s ability to leave the underworld to return to earth. Second, the assumption of non-human forms allowed the deceased to join the entourages of various deities and participate in their worship in the afterlife. Each of the non-human forms assumed by the deceased was linked to a specific deity, and through the necessary transformation, he or she was accepted into the community of that deity’s followers in the afterlife. Mark Smith provides the first modern edition of P. Louvre E 3452. It comprises an introduction, a transliteration and translation, a line-by-line commentary on grammatical, lexicographical, historical, topographical, and theological aspects, a glossary, a bibliography, and high-resolution color images of the papyrus itself, with fragments that are currently assembled and have been digitally restored to their correct positions.