The Joseph Smith Hypocephalus (also known as the Hypocephalus of Sheshonq) was a papyrus fragment, part of a larger collection of papyri known as the Joseph Smith Papyri, found in the Gurneh area of Thebes, Egypt, around the year 1818. The owner's name, Sheshonq, is found in the hieroglyphic text on said hypocephalus. Three hypocephali in the British Museum (37909, 8445c, and 8445f) are similar to the Joseph Smith Hypocephalus both in layout and text and were also found in Thebes. A woodcut image of the hypocephalus was initially published on March 15, 1842, in Volume III, No. 10 of the Latter Day Saint newspaper Times and Seasons, two years before the death of Joseph Smith, who was the editor of the Times and Seasons. This image is included as one of several appendices to the Book of Abraham, where it is called Facsimile No. 2. The Book of Abraham has been considered scripture by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) since 1880. The location of the original document is unknown. Hypocephali Hypocephali are small disk-shaped objects, generally made of stuccoed linen, but also of papyrus, bronze, gold, wood, or clay, which ancient Egyptians from the Late Period onwards placed under the heads of their dead. They were believed to protect the deceased, causing the head and body to be enveloped in light and warmth, thereby making the deceased divine. Hypocephali symbolized the Eye of Ra (later the Eye of Horus), which represented the sun, and the scenes portrayed on them relate to Egyptian ideas of resurrection and life after death, connecting them with the Osirian resurrection myth. To the ancient Egyptians, the daily setting and rising of the sun was a symbol of death and rebirth. The hypocephalus represented all that the sun encircles — the world of the living, over which it passed during the day, was depicted in the upper half, and that of the dead, which it crossed during the night, in the lower portion. They were part of the burial materials created by Egyptians from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty onward and are considered anachronistic to the time period that Abraham would have lived. Chapter 162 of the Book of the Dead version of that period contain directions for the making and use of hypocephali. LDS Scholar Royal Skousen has argued that Smith made a mistake when he connected the facsimiles