The Book of the Dead is another artifact that reappeared in a museum after years of absence

This Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead has finally (and literally) seen the light of day.An exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles will be putting a version of The Book of the Dead — made up of 19 funerary scroll fragments — on display today. The museum has housed these scrolls since 1983, and have — for the past four decades — stored them in a dark vault due to their fragility, as papyrus is notoriously damaged by light. The exhibition will see seven of the scrolls on display until 29 January.

The scrolls fell into the museum’s hands through … a donation? The scrolls’ journey began with a British antiquarian by the name of Sir Thomas Phillipps. In the mid-19th century, he set out to own one copy of every book in the world, indiscriminately buying manuscripts from booksellers.

By the time of his death in 1872, he had accumulated 60k documents and 50k books. How he got a hold of these copies of the Book of the Dead scrolls is unclear. Nevertheless, his descendents auctioned off the collection gradually, and in the 1970s the scrolls were acquired by Hans P. Kraus, a New York book dealer, who then donated them to the museum.

Ownership of copies of The Book of the Dead was intended for ancient nobility and priests.Individuals of high status could commission copies of specific spells and even customize them to include their names. Two of the scrolls at the Getty can be traced back to women named Aset and Ankhesenaset, priestesses at the Karnak temple in Thebes. The scrolls are tattered, having been brutishly removed from their tombs during colonial raids of Ancient Egyptian burial sites.

The ethics of “artifact acquisition” has made headlines this past month, with the Museum of Natural History deciding to remove all human remains from public display, citing the immorality of looted graves, violated burial sites, and viewing ancient persons as objects.

The British Museum has also been under scrutiny since August, when it was reported that 2k items had been stolen from their collections. The scandal has prompted several countries to renew long-running petitions requesting that the museum return all stolen colonial artifacts, among them a petition for the return of the Rosetta Stone.

The museum has historically rejected all such requests, stating that they are better equipped to preserve and catalog the artifacts. This is the same museum that was not aware of 2k missing items until they were alerted by a Danish antiquities dealer who saw several artifacts auctioned off on eBay for a fraction of their worth — items that will most likely never be recovered.