Dead Sea Bitumen in Egyptian Mummification and the Toponym ‘Djahy’ in Papyrus Boulaq III

This article examines the toponym ‘Djahy’, which appears as the source of bitumen in an Egyptian mummification manual dated to the 1st century CE (P. Boulaq III). Classical sources such as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus identified the Dead Sea as the origin of bitumen used in Egyptian mummification, a claim now confirmed by scientific analyses showing that Dead Sea bitumen was widely used from around 900 BCE. While ‘Djahy’ is well attested as a broad Levantine region, its association with the Dead Sea in P. Boulaq III suggests either a semantic narrowing of the toponym or an articulation of its eastern boundaries while maintaining broader use. Drawing together textual and scientific evidence, this article argues that by the Roman period, ‘Djahy’ had encompassed the Dead Sea region.