Myth: We can deduce that Gustav Seyffarth saw the words "beginning of the book" after the Facsimile 3 vignette on the Hor papyrus.
Fact: Gustav Seyffarth described the Facsimile 3 vignette on the Hor papyrus.
If another document followed the Hor Book of Breathings on the roll, and it contained the words "beginning of the book," that would be a blow to the missing roll theory, which proposes the Book of Abraham text was on the roll, because the Book of Abraham does not contain the words "beginning of the book." The Book of Abraham does say "book," of course, but it's actually the word "beginning" that Seyffarth was known to have rendered as "book," which was in reference to a different Book of Breathings than the one for Hor. Moreover, the word for "book" in "Book of Abraham" would most likely not have been the same word as is translated as "book" in the Book of Breathings, because the translation of the word as "book" in "Book of Breathings" is an unusual case. So if Seyffarth saw "beginning of the book," that book would not likely have been the Book of Abraham.
Anyway, Seyffarth never claimed to have seen the words "beginning of the book" on the Hor roll, so the missing roll theory is safe from that scare. If, however, Seyffarth had claimed to see the words, "Book of Hymns," then there would have been a chance he actually saw the words which appear in the Book of Breathings as "beginning of the book," because Seyffarth had translated those words in other Book of Breathing documents as "Book of Hymns." However, Seyffarth never claimed to have seen the words "Book of Hymns" on the Hor roll, either.
If you are confused, and asking why we are talking about things Seyffarth didn't say about the Hor roll rather than what he actually did say about it, here's the reason. Some people claim that Seyffarth's description of what he saw on the Hor papyrus includes something which doesn't match anything he could have actually seen on either the Facsimile 3 vignette (which is the only part of the Hor papyrus we know for sure he saw) or on anything else that could have plausibly been part of the portion of the Hor roll which he saw. So they say we need to reconstruct what he saw.
And the reconstruction they propose goes like this:
1) Seyffarth was said to have described the papyrus roll as "an invocation to the Deity Osirus, in which occurs the name of the person, (Horus,) and a picture of the attendant spirits, introducing the dead to the Judge, Osirus."
2) Even though Facsimile 3 contains an invocation to gods (which includes Osiris), and even though it mentions the name of the person, Horus, and even though it includes a picture of the attendant spirits introducing the dead to Osiris, thus matching Seyffarth's description on every point, it must be counted as not matching Seyffarth's description (for no stated reason).
3) Using the premise that the Facsimile 3 vignette is not sufficient, a need is created for something else to be the invocation, i.e. another text on the roll.
4) A hymn can be a type of invocation.
5) Seyffarth once translated something as a "book of hymns."
6) What Seyffarth translated as "book of hymns" actually said "beginning of the book."
7) Therefore, Seyffarth saw a second document on the roll, saw the words "beginning of the book," translated the words as "book of hymns" and then later described it as an invocation to Osiris.
Okay the first major problem with this attempted reconstruction is that the Facsimile 3 vignette already matches Seyffarth's description, so there's no actual logic to the deductive reasoning involved in claiming a second document is needed.
The second major problem with this attempted reconstruction is that even if Seyffarth thought it was a book of hymns (yet chose not to call it that), he said it is "to" Osiris, etc. The words "book of hymns" say nothing about Osiris or Horus or a picture of attendant spirits. Of course, one could posit that Seyffarth thought the Facsimile 3 vignette was part of the book of hymns, but then one would be relying on Facsimile 3 to match all the parts of Seyffarth's description.. when the ONLY reason for proposing the additional document on the roll in the first place is the perceived need for a document that can serve the function of BETTER matching Seyffarth's description. One would apparently need to posit that neither the Facsimile 3 vignette nor the words "book of hymns" on their own is able to match Seyffarth's description, but that only together do they have power to match Seyffarth's description. But where does Facsimile 3 fall short and need the words "book of hymns" to make up the difference? Let's see if we can find any holes.
An invocation to the Deity Osiris? It's there. Facsimile 3 says: "O gods of the necropolis, gods of the caverns, gods of the south, west, north and east, grant salvation to the Osiris Hor..." If one wants to claim that this invocation isn't explicit enough about being to Osiris, then how would adding the words "book of hymns" change it from not being to Osiris to suddenly being to Osiris?
The name Horus? It's there.
A picture of the attendant spirits, introducing the dead to the Judge, Osiris? It's there.
It's all there. Without the words "book of hymns." And, therefore, without the words "beginning of the book."
