• Researchers found a 3,300-year-old papyrus where an artist used white pigment to slim a jackal figure.
  • The correction appears in a Book of the Dead created for the royal scribe Ramose.
  • Analysis revealed the ancient "white-out" contained calcite and huntite, applied to subtly reshape the original painting.

 

Research into a 3,300-year-old papyrus shows that ancient Egyptian craftspeople used a form of white-out to correct artistic mistakes.

Curators at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, U.K., were preparing papyri ahead of the institution's "Made in Ancient Egypt" exhibition when they noticed one in which the outline of a jackal had been modified with a thick white fluid to make the animal appear thinner.

The alteration was found in a copy of the Book of the Dead, an anthology of spells believed to guide the deceased through the afterlife, that was made for a senior royal scribe named Ramose, who lived in the early 13th century B.C.E. The scene in question depicted Ramose placing his hands along the body of a jackal-headed god, most likely Wepwawet, an ancient Egyptian god of war and hunting.

"It's as if someone saw the original way the jackal was painted and said, 'it's too fat; make it thinner,'" the exhibition's curator, Helen Strudwick, said in a statement. The artist did just that by applying bold white lines to either side of the jackal's black body as well as the upper halves of its back legs.

A detail of the back of the jackal magnified 90 times, made using a 3D digital microscope, shows how the white paint overlies the black of the animal's body. Photo: courtesy The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.

In addition to infrared photography showing that the white lines had been painted over the jackal's figure to alter its shape, researchers used a 3D digital microscope to work out what the white paint is made of. They found the ancient version of white-out consisted of a mixture of calcite and huntite, both white carbonates. This contrasted to the paint used to depict Ramose's flowing robes, which was made from only huntite.

Intriguingly, under the microscope, researchers spotted flecks of yellow paint that were most likely applied to make the correction better blend in with the papyrus, which would have been far paler in color than today.

a man pets a jackal on a papyrus

The jackal as it would have appeared before correction. Photo: courtesy The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

Strudwick has previously found examples of ancient Egyptian craftspeople using correction fluid on papyri now housed in the British Museum and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. "When I have pointed them out to curators, they've been astonished," she said. "It's the kind of thing that you don't notice at first."

Ramose's Book of the Dead was discovered in a tomb at Sedment, Middle Egypt, by the archaeologist William Flinders Petrie in 1922 and entered the collection of the Fitzwilliam shortly thereafter. Estimated to have once reached more than 60-feet in length, its hundreds of fragments were meticulously repaired and joined together by a specialist conservator in the early 2000s. It is considered one of the finest Books of the Dead to have survived from ancient Egypt.

It's the latest unusual finding researchers have made while staging "Made in Ancient Egypt," which focuses on the highly skilled workers who constructed and decorated important tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Back in July, the Fitzwilliam announced the discovery of a 4,000-year-old handprint on a "soul house," a clay model that held food offerings.

"Made in Ancient Egypt" is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Trumpington St, Cambridge, the U.K., through April 12, 2026.