The Book of Two Ways: An Ancient Egyptian Guide to the Afterlife

Nov 07, 2025 0

In ancient Egypt, death wasn’t merciful enough to end one’s troubles. Instead, the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with life in all its forms.

Even those who know little of ancient Egypt’s mysteries have heard of the infamous Book of the Dead. As part of a larger corpus of mortuary literature, the Book of Two Ways complements texts like the Coffin Texts and, later, the Book of the Dead, which add layers of moral and theological depth to the understanding of death and the afterlife.

Coffin Texts on the Sarcophagus of King Mentuhotep II

Discovery and Significance

In 2012, archaeologists opened a tomb in the Egyptian necropolis of Deir el-Bersha. In 2012, guided by archaeologist Harco Willems from Belgium’s University of Leuven, a team of researchers investigated one of the five burial shafts located inside the tomb complex of Ahanakht. The Egyptologist has overseen digs at the Coptic necropolis of Dayr al-Barshā, used as a cemetery during the Middle Kingdom period, from about 2055 to 1650 B.C, since 2001.

Judging by the remains and the setup of the sarcophagus, it belonged to an elite woman named Ankh who was related to an elite government official. Researchers estimated the age of Ankh’s sarcophagus texts based on inscriptions and other relics found nearby that referred to the reign of Pharaoh Mentuhotep II, who ruled until 2010 B.C.E. This image of Pharoah Mentuhotep II was found at the site of Deir el-Bahri in Egypt. The team furthermore found two dozen extant texts of the Book Of Two Ways maps inside the burial shaft.

At least two paths to Rostau existed: one by land, another by sea. Both were arduous enough to require a guidebook, the aptly named Book of Two Ways.

This intricate map of the ancient Egyptian underworld may be the first illustrated “book” in history. Coffin fragments bearing the earliest known version of the “Book of Two Ways,” an ancient Egyptian text considered the world’s first illustrated book.

The newest (technically, oldest) copy of Book of Two Ways joins just two dozen others known to modern archaeologists. It unseats the previous record-holder by about 40 years, Colin Barras reported for New Scientist in October. An even older “Book of Two Ways” has now been unearthed.

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Content and Purpose

The Book of Two Ways is one of the earliest known "guides to the beyond," offering a spiritual map intended to help the deceased navigate the afterlife. The planks of wood bear carved ink inscriptions and painted illustrations meant to ensure successful passage through the netherworld to Rostau, the realm of Osiris.

Throughout the Book of Two Ways, gods, demons, and gatekeepers populate the routes, with specific spells required to move past each obstacle. The arduous trip to reach Rostau, the markings proclaimed, would be plagued by obstacles of fire, demons, and spirits that she would have to overcome.

“This one begins with a text encircled by a red line designated as ‘ring of fire,'” Willems said. Her journey, the text portended, might have been waylaid early on by a ring of fire. Later, she may have dealt with demons, spirits and even earthly plights like fire. The only protection against these ills were spells cast by the deceased Ankh herself.

The “maps” of this book and others are muddled with meandering lines and ominous figures-symbols difficult to interpret in modern times. Some researchers think the depictions may have been drawn from images in life, rather than death, evoking rituals meant to bring deceased gods or humans back from the dead. That makes excerpts from Book of Two Ways common fixtures of Egyptian graves.

The “Book of the Two Ways” was the first example of a map of the underworld in Ancient Egypt. It describes the existence of seven gates with guardians or demons in each one.

Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani)

Evolution and Accessibility

Unlike earlier Pyramid Texts exclusive to royalty, this guide represents a shift toward greater accessibility, symbolizing a "democratization" of the afterlife in Egyptian culture. As part of a generations-long process, the aristocracy are now taking a greater share in its rewards than ever before.

They paint spells, hymns and stories upon their coffins, giving them access to the realm of Osiris and breaking the old royal-control of the afterlife. The Coffin Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian funerary spells written on coffins beginning in the First Intermediate Period.

They are partially derived from the earlier Pyramid Texts, reserved for royal use only, but contain substantial new material related to everyday desires, indicating a new target audience of common people. As the modern name of this collection of some 1,185 spells implies, they were mostly inscribed on Middle Kingdom coffins.

Now, researchers have yet again uncovered evidence that ancient Egypt’s elaborate death customs sometimes included providing the dead with these “coffin texts” so that they could make their way to the underworld. Remarkably, each person had their own version of the text that was customized based on their status and wealth. Ankh’s guide texts incorporated incantations to help her ward off the demons she encountered on her journey.

The Coffin Texts

The floor of one of the coffins of Gua, a physician of the governor Djehutyhotep. The paintings, dated to 1795 B.C., show the “two ways”-land and sea-that the dead could use to navigate the afterlife.

Unlike the bound books of modern times, the ancient text wasn’t a standalone volume. Instead, excerpts were written on the inside of the sarcophagus itself, surviving in the form of two rotting cedar panels etched with images and hieroglyphs. Easily accessible to the entombed, such “coffin texts” were meant to “situate the deceased in the world of the gods,” study author Harco Willems, an Egyptologist at the University of Leuven in Belgium, tells Lidz.

“These ‘coffin texts’ tend to situate the deceased in the world of the gods,” Willems said. “Sometimes they are combined with drawings.

As Willems said, “The ancient Egyptians were obsessed with life in all its forms,” explained Rita Lucarelli, an Egyptology curator at the University of California, Berkeley. Rita Lucarelli, an Egyptology curator at the University of California, Berkeley, in an interview with Lidz.

They were also sometimes written on tomb walls, stelae, canopic chests, papyri and mummy masks. Unlike modern books, these historic writings weren’t inscribed on bound pages, but on the walls of sarcophagi. They were meant to aid the deceased through the perilous journey to the underworld, during which they might be beset by demons or raging fires.

The Afterlife and the Duat

In contrast to the Pyramid Texts which focus on the celestial realm, the coffin texts emphasize the subterranean elements of the afterlife ruled by the deity Osiris, in a place called the Duat. An Osirian afterlife is offered to everyone, and the deceased is even referred to as "the Osiris-[name]."

This subterranean realm is described as being filled with threatening beings, traps, and snares with which the deceased must contend. A new theme recorded in the coffin texts is the notion that all people will be judged by Osiris and his council according to their deeds in life. The texts allude to the use of a balance, which became the pivotal moment of judgment in the later Book of the Dead.

The ancient Egyptians believed that to get to the afterlife, they had to be deemed innocent in the Judgment Hall. They combine ritual actions intended as protection, expressions of aspiration for a blessed existence after death and of the transformations and transmigrations of the ba and akh and so on. In addition there are descriptions of the land of the dead, its landscape and inhabitants.

While the Book of Two Ways focuses less on morality and more on ritual knowledge, it still reveals shifting Egyptian views on divine order and the nature of the afterlife. Gods such as Re, Osiris, and Thoth each represent paths or destinations, suggesting varied and personalized goals for the deceased, whether joining the sun god or dwelling in Osiris' mansion. By blending cosmic and spiritual aspirations, the Book of Two Ways captures the Egyptians’ pursuit of eternal life through divine alignment, serving as both a guide and a symbol of evolving religious thought on life beyond death.

Map of Duat

Legacy

A few coffins from the Middle Egyptian necropolis of el-Bersheh (Deir El Bersha) contain unique graphical representations of the realm of the afterlife, along with spells related to the journey of the deceased through the Duat. This collection, called the Book of Two Ways, was the first example of an Ancient Egyptian map of the underworld.

The Book of Two Ways is a precursor to the New Kingdom books of the underworld as well as the Book of the Dead, in which descriptions of the routes through the afterlife are a persistent theme.

Already, this “oldest” copy may have a contender, Barras reports: a leather scroll version discovered by Egyptologist Wael Sherbiny, who has yet to publish his findings.