Death and salvation in ancient Egypt / by Jan Assmann ; translated from the German by David Lorton ; abridged and updated by the author.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Assmann, Jan.

Standardized Title:

Tod und Jenseits im Alten Ägypten. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Eschatology, Egyptian.

Egypt--Religion.

Egypt.

Religion.

Death--Religious aspects.

Death.

Physical Description:

xi, 490 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2005.

Contents:

Introduction: Death and Culture 1

1 Death as Culture Generator 2

2 Principal Distinctions in the Relationship between Death and Culture 9

a) This Life and the Next Life as Lifetime-Encompassing Horizons of Accomplishment 10

b) Death Pieced-on to Life and Life Permeated by Death 11

c) World of the Living, World of the Dead: Border Traffic and Exclusion 13

d) Images and Counterimages, Death and Counterworld 16

Part 1 Images of Death

Chapter 1 Death as Dismemberment 23

1 The Opening Scene of the Osiris Myth 23

2 The Egyptian Image of the Body 26

3 Salvation from Death by Piecing Together 31

Chapter 2 Death as Social Isolation 39

1 The Physical and Social Sphere of Man 39

2 "One Lives, if His Name is Mentioned" 41

3 "One Lives, if Another Guides Him" 53

4 Subjection to Death through Social Isolation 56

5 "I Am One of You": Salvation from Death through Inclusion 58

Chapter 3 Death as Enemy 64

1 The Lawsuit in Heliopolis 64

2 The Moralizing of Death: The Idea of the Judgment of the Dead 73

3 Death as Enemy and the Life-giving Significance of the Judgment of the Dead 77

Chapter 4 Death as Dissociation: The Person of the Deceased and Its Constituent Elements 87

1 The Ba 90

a) The Ba in the Sky, the Corpse in the Netherworld 90

b) The Uniting of Ba and Corpse 95

2 The Deceased and His Ka 96

3 The Heart 102

4 Image and Body 105

a) Image and Death, Statue and Mummy 105

b) Reserve Head and Mummy Mask 106

c) Shabty and Golem 110

Chapter 5 Death as Separation and Reversal 113

1 Separation from Life: Death as Parting and Inversion 113

a) The Widow's Lament 113

b) Death-"Come!" is His Name 119

2 Out of the Realm of Death and into the Place of Eternal Nourishment 128

a) The Food of Life 128

b) The Dialogue between Atum and Osiris 134

3 Inversion as a State of Death 138

Chapter 6 Death as Transition 141

1 Transition as Ascent to the Sky 141

2 Transition as Journey to Osiris 147

3 Assistance from Beyond: The Image of Death as Transition and the Realm of the Living 158

Chapter 7 Death as Return 164

1 Nut Texts: Laying to Rest in the Coffin as Return to the Womb 165

a) The Inscription on the Coffin of King Merneptah 165

b) Goddess of the Coffin, Goddess of the West, Goddess of the Tree: Figurations of the Great Mother 170

c) Renewal and Vindication: Re and Osiris 173

2 "The Place Where My Heart Returns": The Tomb in the Homeland 176

a) Return to the Tomb 176

b) Death as Return and the Mystery of Regeneration 182

Chapter 8 Death as Mystery 186

1 The Mystery of the Sun: Renewal and Rebirth 186

2 The Mystery of Osiris 189

3 The Tomb as Sacred Place 192

4 Initiation and Death 200

Chapter 9 Going Forth by Day 209

1 This Life as the Afterlife: The "Reversed Polarity" of Mortuary Belief in the New Kingdom 209

2 Festival and Garden as Elysian Aspects of the Realm of the Living 218

a) Visits Home 218

b) Visiting the Garden 221

c) Participation in Major Divine Festivals 225

Part 2 Rituals and Recitations

Chapter 10 Mortuary Liturgies and Mortuary Literature 237

1 Provisioning and Transfiguration: The Recording of Recitation Texts in Old Kingdom Pyramids 237

2 Writing as Voice and Recollection: The Recording of Mortuary Texts in Middle Kingdom Coffins and in the Book of the Dead 247

3 Greetings, Requests, and Wishes 252

Chapter 11 In the Sign of the Enemy: The Protective Wake in the Place of Embalming 260

1 The Night before the Funeral 260

2 Coffin Texts Spell 62 270

3 Wakes and Coffin Decoration 278

Chapter 12 The Night of Vindication 280

1 Liturgy A, Part 1: The Judgment Scene 280

2 Liturgy A, Part 2: The Transfiguration of the Vindicated One 288

3 Liturgy A, Part 3: The Vindicated One as Companion of the Gods 290

4 Liturgy B: Embalming and Provisioning 292

Chapter 13 Rituals of Transition from Home to Tomb 299

1 Artistic and Textual Depictions of the Funeral 299

2 From Home to Tomb 304

a) Crossing Over to the West 304

b) Embalming, Cult Drama in the Sacred Temenos, and Rituals in the Garden 305

c) The Procession to the Tomb 308

3 The Rites of Opening the Mouth at the Entrance of the Tomb 310

a) The Opening of the Mouth Ritual 310

b) Setting up the Mummy "before Re" 317

c) Offering of the Heart and Leg 324

Chapter 14 Provisioning the Dead 330

1 Pyramid Texts Spell 373 331

2 Summoning the Dead 337

3 Presentation of Offerings 343

Chapter 15 Sacramental Explanation 349

1 On the Semantics of Transfigurative Speech 349

2 The Discharge of the Corpse of Osiris: On the Sacramental Explanation of Water 355

3 Mortuary Rituals for Egypt 363

Chapter 16 Freedom from the Yoke of Transitoriness: Resultativity and Continuance 369

1 Resultativity 369

2 "Trust Not in the Length of the Years": Salvation through Righteousness 379

3 "Make Holiday! Forget Care!" 384

Chapter 17 Freedom from the Yoke of Transitoriness: Immortality 389

1 Realm of Death and Elysium: The Originally Royal Sense of This Distinction 389

2 Redemption through Unio Liturgica 392

3 Salvation through Divine Grace 404

Afterword: Egypt and the History of Death 407.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 418-478) and index.

ISBN:

0801442419

OCLC:

57595063

Publisher Number:

9780801442414