By using the technique of photogrammetry for the 3D visualization of ancient Egyptian coffins decorated with magical texts and iconography, this project aims at building up a new digital platform for an in-depth study of the ancient Egyptian funerary culture and its media. It has started in August 2015 through the support of a Mellon Fellowship for the Digital Humanities at UC Berkeley and up until now it has focused on ancient Egyptian coffins kept at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology of UC Berkeley. The main outcome will be a digital platform that allows to display a coffin in 3D and where users will be able to pan, rotate, and zoom in on the coffin, clicking on areas of text to highlight them and view an annotated translation together with other metadata (transcription of the hieroglyphic text, bibliography, textual variants, museological data, provenance, etc.)

O objetivo dessa dissertação é a análise do conceito heka nos textos funerários do Egito Faraônico. Heka é a palavra em egípcio antigo para o que significamos como magia, essa mesma palavra pode aparecer dentro da literatura funerária representando a divindade da magia. Será realizada uma análise dos textos compostos por fórmulas mágicas e narrativas míticas utilizados em contextos funerários egípcios. O objetivo da análise é identificar o significado da palavra egípcia no contexto das fontes, compreendendo a extensão semântica do conceito de heka através do seu relacionamento com os mitos cosmogônicos. Deste modo, reconhecendo-a enquanto conceito que assimila atributos personificados dentro das narrativas. Esse estudo pretende, portanto, alcançar interpretações significativas sobre essas fontes e contribuir com a compreensão dos elementos simbólicos e cognoscíveis das narrativas míticas e dos textos funerários do Antigo Egito. / The objective of this dissertation is the analysis of the heka concept in the funerary texts of Pharaonic Egypt. Heka is the ancient Egyptian word for what we mean as magic, this same word may appear within funerary literature representing the divinity of magic. An analysis of the texts composed by magical formulas and mythical narratives used in Egyptian funerary contexts will be done. The purpose of the analysis is to identify the meaning of the Egyptian word in the context of the sources, understanding the semantic extension of the heka concept through its relationship with the cosmogonic myths. In this way, recognizing the term as a concept that assimilates personified attributes within the narratives. This study therefore intends to reach meaningful interpretations of these sources and contribute to the understanding of the symbolic and knowable elements of the mythical narratives and funerary texts of Ancient Egypt.

Le papyrus du Vatican n° inv. 38603 est un Livre des morts hiératique daté de l’époque tardive, provenant vraisemblablement de la ville de Thèbes et contenant un certain nombre d’originalités iconographiques et textuelles. Son étude exhaustive est entreprise à l’aide d’une présentation détaillée, d’une traduction complète, d’un commentaire de chacun des textes qui le composent, d’une mise en contexte au sein de la documentation tardive du genre et d’une paléographie. Ces éléments permettent de mettre en valeur divers aspects des croyances funéraires des égyptiens de cette époque. D’autre part, ils autorisent à resserrer la datation du papyrus autour de 300 av. J.-C. et à replacer le document dans un contexte précis en forte relation avec la religion et les cultes osiriens qui se développent à Thèbes à partir de laTroisième Période intermédiaire. / The Papyrus Vatican inv. No 38603 is a hieratic Book of the Dead dated of the late period, coming probably from the city of Thebes and containing a number of textual and iconographic peculiarities. His comprehensive study is undertaken using a detailed presentation, a complete translation, a commentary on each of its component texts, a contextualization within the late documentation of the type and a paleography. These elements can highlight various aspects of Egyptian funerary beliefs of that time. On the other hand, they allow for closer dating of papyrus around 300 BC. and put the document in a specific context in strong relationship with religion and cults of Osiris that develop at Thebes since the Third Intermediate Period.

By using the technique of photogrammetry for the 3D visualization of ancient Egyptian coffins decorated with magical texts and iconography, this project aims at building up a new digital platform for an in-depth study of the ancient Egyptian funerary culture and its media. It has started in August 2015 through the support of a Mellon Fellowship for the Digital Humanities at UC Berkeley and up until now it has focused on ancient Egyptian coffins kept at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology of UC Berkeley. The main outcome will be a digital platform that allows to display a coffin in 3D and where users will be able to pan, rotate, and zoom in on the coffin, clicking on areas of text to highlight them and view an annotated translation together with other metadata (transcription of the hieroglyphic text, bibliography, textual variants, museological data, provenance, etc.)