The Bremner-Rhind Papyrus I – The Songs of Isis and Nephthys by R. O. Faulkner

The religious papyri of the Graeco-Roman period are a source of information for Egyptian
myth and ritual which has been comparatively little exploited. Of this group of papyri, the
members of which are scattered in quite considerable number in the principal museums of
the world, the Bremner-Rhind papyrus (British Museum, no. 10188) is probably one of the
largest and certainly one of the oldest, since it dates back to not long after the end of the
Thirtieth Dynasty. That it belongs at latest to the fourth century B.C. is made quite certain
by the date of’ the twelfth year, fourth month of the inundation-season, of Pharaoh Alexander, son of Alexander’, i.e. 312-311 B.c.,1 given in the so-called ‘Colophon’, which was added by an owner of the papyrus in a hand different from that of the rest of the document. The papyrus was therefore written prior to that date, but probably not very much earlier, since palaeographically it belongs to the Ptolemaic group.