Book of the Dead of Kha

When Schiaparelli's team opened Kha's outer shrine in 1906, this papyrus lay spread over the coffin inside. Schiaparelli wrote that it was perfectly preserved and as supple as if it had just been made. It is 13.8 metres long, with 33 chapters of spells and painted vignettes, and it is among the earliest known copies of the Book of the Dead, close in time to those made for the nobles Yuya and Maiherpri.

Rolls like this were often prepared in advance, with blank spaces left for a name, and Kha's and Merit's names were filled in later. In 2019 the Egyptologist Susanne Töpfer pointed to one name that had been erased and written over, and to a figure of Osiris whose garment had been changed, and suggested the roll might first have been intended for someone else.

Three thousand years in a sealed tomb had done it no harm. Within months of its arrival in Turin, the change in humidity had left it cracked and fragile. Since the room was rearranged in December 2025, it has been shown at full length in a 14-metre case from which the oxygen has been removed.