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This composition
is not attested before the Book of the Dead; it is less common than the variant
Chapter 30B, frequently found inscribed on heart scarabs - large scarab-shaped
amulets of hard green-black stones, placed over the heart. The earliest heart
scarabs inscribed with chapter 30 date to the mid-Thirteenth Dynasty, and
the practice of placing a large scarab over the heart continued at least to
the third century BC.
The following example
is taken from an Eighteenth Dynasty Book of the Dead on papyrus, preserved
in Hannover (Kestner Museum 1970.37), published in the Book of the Dead project
of Bonn and Cologne Universities (Munro
1995):
Transliteration
r n tm xsf ib n
N r.f
ib n mwt.i sp sn HAty.i n
wnn.i tp taA
m aHa r.i m mtrw r-gs nbw
xt
m Dd r.i iw ir.n.f st r wn-mAa
r irt.n.i
m sxprw xt r.i r-gs nTr aA
i.nD Hr.k ib.i i.nD Hr.k HAty.i
i.nD Hr.k bskw.i i.nD Hr.tn
nTrw ipw
xntyw Hnsktyw rmnyw Hr Damw.sn
Dd.tn nfr.i n ra swAD.tn wi n nHb-kAw
isk sw smA.f tA r imt-aAt
wAH.i tp tA tm mwt m imnt Ax
im
Formula for not
allowing the heart of N to be removed from him
My heart of my
mother, my heart of my mother, my heart of my earthly being
Do not stand against me as
witness beside the lords of the ritual
Do not say against me, he
did do it, about my actions
Do not make a case against
me beside the great god
Hail my heart, Hail my heart
Hail my entrails, Hail those
gods
At the fore, tressed, resting
upon their sceptres
Tell my goodness to Ra, hand
me to Nehebkau
See him, uniting the earth
at the great one within
May I endure on earth, not
die in the west, and be a blessed spirit there
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