On Nov. 1, the Getty Villa Museum opened its new show “The Egyptian Book of the Dead,” drawing on its collection of manuscripts and objects from the ancient civilization. Despite viewing audiences’ general familiarity with Egyptian funerary practices, many of the selected pieces have never before received public exhibition. Now at the Villa, the objects come together to represent the Egyptians’ thinking about mortality — and by extension, their shared humanity.

Few historical civilizations have managed to capture the popular imagination like ancient Egypt. Yet stemming back to Napoleon’s campaign in North Africa and the following explosion of research in the region, Western understanding of their society has always been complicated, tainted by the effects of colonialism and exoticism.

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The new exhibition plays to the public interest in ancient Egypt while also striving to foster a more complete appreciation of its culture. Focusing on a funerary text popularized in the action film “The Mummy” (1999), the show presents an array of objects involved in the tradition of preparing individuals for the afterlife. Consisting of almost 200 spells, the Book of the Dead was meant to equip the deceased with the ability to successfully navigate the underworld.

The Getty’s Book of the Dead collection, principally composed of papyri and fragments of linen mummy wrappings, dates back to a 1983 donation, yet the pieces remained in storage for decades until research interest rekindled the excitement around the pieces. Now, seven manuscripts and two pieces related to the Book of the Dead are on view, even as scholars work to uncover the secrets of the objects.

Through the nine objects, the exhibition demonstrates the breadth of the Book of the Dead’s traditions. Tracking certain features of the manuscripts across time, the show gives voice to an intricate dialogue that displays gradual developments in form and content over centuries.

“The Book of the Dead manuscripts were produced for a period of about 1,500 years in ancient Egypt from about 1550 to 50 BC … but we actually have material in the collection that represents almost that entire time span,” said Sara E. Cole, assistant curator of antiquities at the Getty Villa Museum. “I wanted to select manuscripts that showed that chronological range so that we can look at how the Book of the Dead is evolving over time.”

The objects shown are also notable for the unique stories they tell about their owners. Of the seven manuscripts exhibited at the Villa, several belong to women, in turn revealing information about feminine life and roles in ancient Egypt. Two objects, for example, reveal their owners to have been the “singer of Amun” at the god’s temple in Thebes.

The exhibition also highlights the dazzling artistic attributes of the objects, consisting of graceful stretches of handwriting and intricately designed vignettes of symbolic Egyptian imagery and iconography. Yet the textual nature of the pieces presents exhibitional challenges, demanding visitors to get close to the manuscripts.

“Up close, when you can see the handwriting, you can see these very intricately hand-drawn vignettes, the texture of the woven linen or of the papyrus sheets — but from a distance, they look like brown rectangles,” Cole said.

The show takes a delicate approach to engage viewers in substantive interaction with the material at an intimate level. Critical excerpts of the spells written in the manuscripts are given in translation, while large wall graphics make the small drawings on the objects more visible. The exhibition draws its visitors into close contact with the material, where the attentive eye is rewarded through the revelation of countless small subtleties woven throughout the Egyptian funerary traditions.

Most notably, “The Egyptian Book of the Dead” gives visitors a direct glimpse into the beliefs of humans living thousands of years ago. After spending time with objects that defined much of the ancient Egyptian worldview, one begins to see the throughlines extending to the modern day. The exhibition demonstrates the same preoccupations about the substance of meaningful living, the structure of the universe, our relationship to higher powers and the specifics of the afterlife.

“There’s a really deep, poignant human element in all of this, that’s getting at the anxieties we all have,” Cole said. “[The manuscripts are] showing how the Egyptians were trying to grapple with all of these complex questions that we can 100% relate to.”

“The Egyptian Book of the Dead” is on view at the Getty Villa until Jan. 29, 2024. Admission to the museum is free, but an advanced time reservation is required for entry.