Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt

by John H. Taylor

Of all the ancient peoples, the Egyptians are perhaps best known for the fascinating ways in which they grappled with the mysteries of death and the afterlife. This beautifully illustrated book draws on the British Museum's world-famous collection of mummies and other funerary evidence to offer an accessible account of Egyptian beliefs in an afterlife and examine the ways in which Egyptian society responded materially to the challenges these beliefs imposed.The author describes in detail the numerous provisions made for the dead and the intricate rituals carried out on their behalf. He considers embalming, coffins and sarcophagi, shabti figures, magic and ritual, and amulets and papyri, as well as the mummification of sacred animals, which were buried by the millions in vast labyrinthine catacombs.The text also reflects recent developments in the interpretation of Egyptian burial practices, and incorporates the results of much new scientific research. Newly acquired information derives from a range of sophisticated applications, such as the use of noninvasive imaging techniques to look inside the wrappings of a mummy, and the chemical analysis of materials used in the embalming process. Authoritative, concise, and lucidly written, Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt illuminates aspects of this complex, vibrant culture that still perplex us more than 3,000 years later.

Genres: History, Egypt, Egyptology, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Religion, Death

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

It was just last spring that I found myself at the Karnak temple. Our guide was a professor of Egyptology, and he inspired me to learn more about ancient Egypt. After more than three thousand millennia of existence, the Egyptians had time to discover many things in various fields (surgery, phisics, philosophy just to name a few). What caught my attention was the influence of their own culture and beliefs on subsequent religions like Judaism, Christianism, and Islam. On a wall in Luxor's Karnak temple, hierogliphs stated that God created light, which reminded me of the Old Testament's Genesis. Therefore, the natural question that followed was, is the Bible inspired by the writings in Karnak? The professor's answer was that the Genesis events were transmitted orally from Adam and Eve's time until a scribe would mark them into the temple's wall.

I've read a few books on Egyptology since then. However, most of them are mostly about historical events and not that much about religion and beliefs. Not this book, though. Besides the fact that it reads just wonderful and it is abundant with colorful pictures, its focus is on spirituality and the fact that ancient Egyptians were very much keen on the arrangements for eternal life. The first chapter presents the main points that I believe played an important role in the subsequent fundamentations of religion:

> after death, the dead person was judged by a jury of 42 jurors. Each and every one of these juries was asking if the deceased had committed a specific deed (e.g., stealing, killing, mocking God).

> the deceased will be admitted to the afterlife if he passes the test and his heart is pure.

> if the deceased did not pass, then his head would be removed and he would burn in flames for eternity.

> to prepare for an ideal funary process, during the lifetime a person should make a pilgrimage to the god Osiris's town of Abydos.

Of course, this is only a teaser, as the focus of the book is not only this but much more, like the tomb and burial objects, the embalming methods of humans and even of sacred animals. A list of many other works is referenced at the end, which I cannot wait to put my hands on.

[DAJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funerary practices are the best-known and best-documented aspect of ancient Egyptian culture, so there are a lot of books about them—so many that it's difficult to judge which is best. This one is a solid and readable introduction to the topic, with chapters on afterlife beliefs, mummification, burial goods, funerary figures, tombs and cemeteries, the rituals surrounding death and burial, coffins and sarcophagi, and animal mummies. In some cases it discusses topics that tend to be overlooked in general books on this subject. It discusses the reuse of tombs for later burials, for instance, and it devotes a fair amount of space to mortuary cults, in which people periodically made offerings to the deceased person long after burial.

Nevertheless, there are two significant omissions. First, although the book refers to various funerary texts many times, it doesn't discuss them directly very much. Fortunately, another easily readable book, Hieroglyphs and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, fills that gap and would make a good companion to this one. Second, like all studies of Egyptian funerary customs, Taylor's book tends to overlook the burials of the poor. Poor burials contain fewer goods than those of the wealthy elite and therefore attract less archaeological attention. Egyptologists are only beginning to address this problem, so there are few books about it. Burial Customs in Ancient Egypt: Life in Death for Rich and Poor helps with that problem, as well as with understanding other types of burials, such as those in Nubia, that Egyptological sources tend to ignore.

If you're looking for more depth on topics covered here, Jan Assmann's massive Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt is the most thorough examination of afterlife beliefs; Nicola Harrington's Living with the Dead discusses mortuary cults and ancestor worship; and a pair of books by Aidan Dodson and Salima Ikram comprehensively cover mummies and tombs.

[Katharine Holden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Thorough and easy to follow. Great pictures.