"Human beings," the acclaimed Egyptologist Jan Assmann writes, "are the animals that have to live with the knowledge of their death, and culture is the world they create so they can live with that knowledge." In his new book, Assmann explores images of death and of death rites in ancient Egypt to provide startling new insights into the particular character of the civilization as a whole.Drawing on the unfamiliar genre of the death liturgy, he arrives at a remarkably comprehensive view of the religion of death in ancient Egypt. Assmann describes in detail nine different images of death: death as the body being torn apart, as social isolation, the notion of the court of the dead, the dead body, the mummy, the soul and ancestral spirit of the dead, death as separation and transition, as homecoming, and as secret. Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt also includes a fascinating discussion of rites that reflect beliefs about death through language and ritual.
Table of Contents:
Translator's NoteIntroduction: Death and CulturePart One. Images of Death
Chapter 1. Death as Dismemberment
Chapter 2. Death as Social Isolation
Chapter 3. Death as Enemy
Chapter 4. Death as Dissociation: The Person of the Deceased and Its Constituent Elements
Chapter 5. Death as Separation and Reversal
Chapter 6. Death as Transition
Chapter 7. Death as Return
Chapter 8. Death as Mystery
Chapter 9. Going Forth by DayPart Two. Rituals and Recitations
Chapter 10. Mortuary Liturgies and Mortuary Literature
Chapter 11. In the Sign of the Enemy: The Protective Wake in the Place of Embalming
Chapter 12. The Night of Vindication
Chapter 13. Rituals of Transition from Home to Tomb
Chapter 14. Provisioning the Dead
Chapter 15. Sacramental Explanation
Chapter 16. Freedom from the Yoke of Transitoriness: Resultativity and Continuance
Chapter 17. Freedom from the Yoke of Transitoriness: ImmortalityAfterword: Egypt and the History of DeathNotes
Index
About the Author :
Jan Assmann is Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at Heidelberg University and the 1998 winner of the prestigious Deutsche Historikerpreis (German History Prize). He is the author of The Search for God in Ancient Egypt, also from Cornell. The late David Lorton, an Egyptologist, was the translator of many books, including Ancient Egypt in 101 Questions and Answers, The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus, The Secret Lore of Egypt, and Akhenaten and the Religion of Light, all from Cornell.
Review :
Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt serves as a compendious introduction to how ancient Egyptians approached their mortality as well as their impending immortality. Throughout, Assmann continues to build upon his vast store of important publications, yet again bringing to his work a deep background in theoretical literature, especially anthropology and philosophy. This gives his work a decidedly comparative flair, citing parallels or contrasts with cultures ancient or modern, Near Eastern or otherwise. Much of Assmann's Egyptological work has become required reading, and Death and Salvation will be no exception. Controversial, insightful, incredibly informed, and in constant contact with the primary textual material, this volume will continue to inspire discussion for years to come.
(Journal of Near Eastern Studies) Assmann astounds the reader with his deep knowledge of religious texts from all periods of Egyptian civilization and from the Greeks and Romans too. He is equally familiar with evidence from art and architecture.... He leads the reader through the maddeningly opaque pronouncements of Egyptian intellectuals about the nature of death, its origin, its meaning, its importance. Every page shines a fresh light on a topic that fascinates us all, but leaves us puzzled. Assmann's book will take its place as classic study and shows again why he is justly regarded as one of the great Egyptologists writing today.
(Bryn Mawr Classical Review)
