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The Book of Two Ways, a guide to the Ancient Egyptian underworld, is perhaps the first illustrated book in history 鈥� and now archaeologists have found remains of the oldest known copy. The discovery comes at a time when researchers are rethinking the meaning of the archaic text and its enigmatic images.

About a century ago, Egyptologists began finding strange annotated drawings inside 4000-year-old wooden coffins buried in a necropolis called Dayr al-Barsha虅. Among the drawings was a (pictured above) that seemed to be described as roads in the surrounding hieroglyphic text. Elsewhere, the text appeared to offer instructions for travelling through the underworld towards the resting place of the god Osiris 鈥� a journey that, if successful, would secure a happy afterlife.

This suggested to researchers that the illustrations were a map of the underworld, with the meandering lines representing two paths the dead could take on their travels. For this reason, they dubbed the document the Book of Two Ways.

Only a few dozen copies of the book survive today. Now, one more has been added by Gina Criscenzo-Laycock at the University of Liverpool, UK, and Hanne Creylman and Harco Willems at the KU Leuven in Belgium. In 2012, they led a team that excavated a burial shaft at Dayr al-Barsha虅 that previous generations of archaeologists had ignored because it had clearly been plundered in the past.

However, the researchers realised that the very bottom of the tomb had escaped the attention of the grave robbers, and here they found the remains of a coffin. The wooden boards were covered in hieroglyphs. 鈥淭o my amazement it was a Book of Two Ways,鈥� says Willems.

Oldest ever found

What makes the find significant is that this particular copy of the book 鈥� although incomplete 鈥� is the oldest ever found. From nearby inscriptions, it was possible to date the coffin to the time of Pharaoh Mentuhotep II, who reigned until 2010 BC. This suggests this copy of the book is about 40 years older than any other we know of, says Willems.

Other archaeologists agree with this conclusion, although Foy Scalf at the University of Chicago says complete confidence in the dating will be possible only after the team publishes its final excavation report. He also points out there is a rival for the 鈥渙ldest copy鈥� title: another Egyptologist,聽Wael Sherbiny, recently claimed to have found another early version of the Book of Two Ways on a leather scroll, but he is yet to publish his analysis.

Burkhard Backes at the University of T眉bingen in Germany says there are a few earlier, simpler visual depictions of the Egyptian underworld, but the Book of Two Ways appears to be far more elaborate. Scalf says it could even be described as the 鈥渇irst illustrated 鈥榖ook鈥� in history鈥�.

This means that the new discovery slightly extends our record of such works of literature, and also suggests the Ancient Egyptians began producing detailed maps to help the dead reach the afterlife earlier than we thought.

Or, at least, it might do. While most archaeologists still consider the Book of Two Ways to be a visual guide to the underworld, a few 鈥� including Willems 鈥� have their doubts.

鈥淚t definitely looks like a map,鈥� he says, but he adds that it is very difficult to know that the Ancient Egyptians intended it to be seen and read in those terms. 鈥淚t would be nice if we had much clearer explanatory texts about what is going on in the Book of Two Ways,鈥� he says. 鈥淯nfortunately, what we have is not very helpful.鈥�

The cult of Osiris

The 鈥渕ap鈥�, he says, is largely a confusing arrangement of meandering lines, monstrous figures, doors and ships. It looks map-like to our modern eyes, but it might not have done to the Ancient Egyptians 4000 years ago.

Willems speculates that the Book of Two Ways was initially developed as a religious text tied to the cult of Osiris. The Egyptians believed that Osiris, the ruler of the underworld, was himself dead. 鈥淭he cult of Osiris was about bringing the god back to life through ritual,鈥� says Willems. The tasks described in the book might originally have been those undertaken ritually by a priest during a religious ceremony designed to give new life to Osiris. Only later might the Ancient Egyptians have decided to reproduce descriptions of those tasks in coffins in the belief that they could help restore the occupant to life.

Rune Nyord at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, favours this idea. He says many chunks of the text in the Book of Two Ways and other Ancient Egyptian funerary literature can be shown to have originated in temple cults. The idea even provides an alternative explanation for the map-like illustrations: Nyord says one 20th-century Egyptologist,聽Paul Barguet, noticed a structural similarity between the 鈥渕ap鈥� in the Book of Two Ways and the standard architectural layout of an Egyptian temple.

Although it is still a mysterious document, the Book of Two Ways does indicate that the Ancient Egyptians living 4000 years ago were fascinated by the underworld. It is also clear that both men and women could hope to obtain a favourable afterlife: the newly discovered copy of the Book of Two Ways was in the coffin of a high-ranking woman called Ankh.

鈥淏ut the funny thing is the whole idea of how you survive in the netherworld is expressed in male terms,鈥� says Willems. Because the idea of being restored to life was tied so closely with the story of the male god Osiris being reborn, the Book of Two Ways is largely written from a male perspective.

The text could be personalised with the name of the coffin鈥檚 occupant 鈥� Ankh, for example 鈥� but elsewhere in the book this occupant is referred to as 鈥渉e鈥� even when 鈥渟he鈥� would be more appropriate, presumably because the scribes were copying from a master version of the text that had Osiris as the protagonist. 鈥淚t can become really confusing to decide whether the coffin contained a man or a woman,鈥� says Willems.