Papyrus of Iry-Iry

The publication here of the papyrus of Iry-Iry results from the serendipitous convergence of several fortuitous circumstances. Iry-Iry’s manuscript first came to the attention of John Larson, Museum Archivist for the Oriental Institute, during a visit to the Newberry Library in Chicago after which he obtained photographs of the manuscript for the purpose of study and preservation. While conducting research on Book of the Dead manuscripts in Chicago area collections for an exhibition at the Oriental Institute opening in October 2017 called Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt, the author discovered the photos obtained by John Larson among the digital archival files of the Oriental Institute and quickly realized the interesting nature of the manuscript after a brief examination. The aim of this article is to publish the manuscript in full with accurate identification of its contents in order to bring it to the attention of scholars and projects collaborating on similar material. As a result, a Memphite hymn to Osiris has been identified from several sources gathered together with P. Iry-Iry. In addition, a new source for the introductory section of the Book of Caves (BD 168) has been discovered, known previously only from the papyrus of Bakenmut. This article provides a full discussion of the papyrus of Iry-Iry as well as a comparative edition of parallel manuscripts for the two compositions it contained. This study is divided into the following sections: the owner of the papyrus, the layout and contents of the
manuscript, an edition of the papyrus of Iry-Iry, parallels for the Memphite hymn to Osiris, and parallels for the introduction to the Book of Caves.

Read the full article on the JEA website

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