The Papyrus Collection of the Turin Egyptian museum consists of nearly 700 whole or reassembled manuscripts and over 17,000 papyrus fragments, documenting over 3,000 years of written material culture. A significant part of this collection are the Ramesside Hieratic papyri from the New Kingdom age.
The vast majority of the papyrus manuscripts in the Museo Egizio are unpublished and unknown to a wider audience. Most date from the Ramesside period (c. 1300–1050 BCE) and are highly likely to originate from the settlement of Deir el-Medina, which housed the families of the workmen who built the royal tombs. They probably belonged to members of the administration of the royal necropolis.
The Ramesside manuscripts in the Turin collection range in content from documentary (e.g. necropolis and temple administration, juridical texts) to literary, ritual, magical and religious. Almost all of them are written in hieratic, and in either the Classical or the Late Egyptian language. The importance and nature of the Turin Ramesside papyrus archive have been highlighted firstly by notable scholars scholars such as Willem Pleyte, Francesco Rossi in the years 1869-1876. Their excellent edition is until now a recognized academic standard in hieratic studies, what thus laid the foundation for the further study of the Turin hieratic manuscripts.