JOEL - Earlier recorded descriptions of both the physical appearance and the length of the scrolls contradict the appearance of what we have today.
The Prophet described the papyrus he used in translation in these words:
“The record … found with the mummies, is beautifully written on papyrus, with black, and a small part red, ink or paint, in perfect preservation.” (History of the Church, 2:348.)
The Book of Breathings papyrus, discovered in Chicago, has no writing in red ink and is in an extremely poor state of preservation.
In 1906, while visiting Nauvoo, President Joseph F. Smith related an experience as a child of seeing his Uncle Joseph in the front rooms of the Mansion House working on the Egyptian manuscripts. According to President Smith, one of the rolls of papyri when unrolled on the floor extended through two rooms of the Mansion House(Dialogue, vol. 3, no. 2, 1968, p. 101). The eleven fragments now in our possession can easily be spread out on the top of a small desk.
Also only one of the three Abraham facsimiles(included in Joseph Smith's translation) were among the rediscovered fragments.
From these and other eye-witness accounts it is clear that Smith had a much more extensive collection of papyri from which he wrote the book of Abraham, rather than from the current known fragments we have today.
At least one Egyptologist now recognizes that the assertion that the breathings text was thought or is thought now to be the source of the book of Abraham is incorrect(Zondhoven, Annual Egyptological Bibliography 1977, 180-81).
It has also been proposed by many that Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Abraham from the scrolls at all. The scrolls may have contained some informaton that originated with Abraham, which served as a catalyst to prompt Joseph to receive revelation, making it posible for him to recreate original writings of Abraham.