Ancient Egyptians built burials for the next world with the same seriousness they brought to this one: canopic jars for preserved organs, amulets for protection, ushabti figures for labor in the afterlife, and, for some people, funerary papyri carrying spells from what modern scholars call the Book of the Dead.

In central Egypt’s Al-Ghuraifa area, archaeologists uncovered one of those elaborate burial landscapes: a New Kingdom cemetery, publicly announced in 2023, with rock-cut tombs, mummies, amulets, statues, canopic jars, and a long papyrus containing chapters or spells from the Book of the Dead tradition.

Egyptian officials described the scroll as the first complete papyrus found in the Al-Ghuraifa area and said it was in good condition. Mustafa Waziri, then secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, said as much in the ministry’s original announcement.

The cemetery dates to the New Kingdom, roughly 1550 B.C. to 1070 B.C., and the broader excavation area was not a one-object story. Contemporary accounts described multiple rock-cut tombs and named several people connected to the burial landscape, including Nani or Nany, Ta-de-Isa or Taji Ist, and Djehuty-Mes. The papyrus still drew the sharpest attention, partly because it was reportedly found in burial context and partly because long, well-preserved Book of the Dead manuscripts do not turn up every day.

But the details are still messy. Reports have described the papyrus as roughly 13 to 18 meters long, or about 43 to 59 feet, depending on the account.

“If it’s that long and well-preserved [then it’s] certainly a great and interesting find,” Lara Weiss, CEO of the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Germany, told Live Science.

Foy Scalf, an Egyptologist at The University of Chicago told Live Science that it’s “very rare” to find a copy in the grave it was originally buried in—although, without photographs and an official publication describing the text, it’s hard to verify the details of the find.

The book, which is more properly translated as “The Chapters/Book of Going Forth By Day,” played a key role in ancient Egyptian culture. Any examples of the text give researchers insight into ancient Egyptian religion and beliefs about an afterlife, according to the American Research Center in Egypt.

“The ‘Book of the Dead’ reveals central aspects of the ancient Egyptians’ belief system,” the center writes, “and, like many topics in Egyptology, our theories are constantly changing, growing, and adapting with every new translation of this text.”

Egyptian officials previously said the papyrus was expected to be displayed at the Grand Egyptian Museum. Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities says the museumhas been operating in a trial phase and is scheduled for an official opening on July 3, 2026.

The papyrus was only one piece of a crowded cemetery. Reports from the time describe stone and wooden coffins, mummies, canopic jars, thousands of amulets, and more than 25,000 ushabti figures—the small funerary statues meant to work for the dead in the afterlife. The engraved and painted coffin of Ta-de-Isa, described as the daughter of Eret Haru, the high priest of Djehuti in Al-Ashmunin, was one of the standout objects. Nearby were wooden boxes holding her canopic vessels, a complete set of ushabti statues, and a figure of Ptah-Sokar, a funerary deity.

For now, the discovery is real and visually tantalizing, but still waiting on the boring paperwork that makes a spectacular find scientifically usable.