Book of the Dead chapter 30a

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

Translation

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