Yearning for Immortality: The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife
Autor Rune Nyorden Limba Engleză Paperback – 5 mar 2025
Many of us are familiar with the ancient Egyptians’ obsession with immortality and the great efforts they made to secure the quality of their afterlife. But, as Rune Nyord shows, even today, our understanding of the Egyptian afterlife has been formulated to a striking extent in Christian terms. Nyord argues that this is no accident, but rather the result of a long history of Europeans systematically retelling the religion of ancient Egypt to fit the framework of Christianity. The idea of ancient Egyptians believing in postmortem judgment with rewards and punishments in the afterlife was developed during the early modern period through biased interpretations that were construed without any detailed knowledge of ancient Egyptian religion, hieroglyphs, and sources.
As a growing number of Egyptian images and texts became available through the nineteenth century, these materials tended to be incorporated into existing narratives rather than being used to question them. Against this historical background, Nyord argues that we need to return to the indigenous sources and shake off the Christian expectations that continue to shape scholarly and popular thinking about the ancient Egyptian afterlife.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780226838250
ISBN-10: 0226838250
Pagini: 272
Ilustrații: 10 halftones
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.46 kg
Ediția:First Edition
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press
ISBN-10: 0226838250
Pagini: 272
Ilustrații: 10 halftones
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.46 kg
Ediția:First Edition
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press
Notă biografică
Rune Nyord is associate professor of ancient Egyptian art and archaeology at Emory University. He is the author of Breathing Flesh: Conceptions of the Body in the Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts and Seeing Perfection: Ancient Egyptian Images Beyond Representation, and he has edited or coedited several anthologies.
Cuprins
Introduction
1. Antiquity’s Antiquity: Ancient Sources
2. Explaining the Remains: Medieval and Renaissance Sources
3. The Egyptian Afterlife in Universal History: 1650–1700
4. Death and Initiation: 1700–1750
5. Describing Egypt: 1750–1798
6. Invasion and Aftermath: 1798–1822
7. The Decline of Metempsychosis: 1822–1860
8. Emergence of the Modern Paradigm: 1860–1885
Conclusion: Where Do We Go from Here?
Acknowledgments
References
Index
1. Antiquity’s Antiquity: Ancient Sources
2. Explaining the Remains: Medieval and Renaissance Sources
3. The Egyptian Afterlife in Universal History: 1650–1700
4. Death and Initiation: 1700–1750
5. Describing Egypt: 1750–1798
6. Invasion and Aftermath: 1798–1822
7. The Decline of Metempsychosis: 1822–1860
8. Emergence of the Modern Paradigm: 1860–1885
Conclusion: Where Do We Go from Here?
Acknowledgments
References
Index
Recenzii
"Nyord provides an intricate account of how Egyptian mortuary practices have been transformed in the Western imagination to fit Christian archetypes. . . . Exploring why Western misinterpretations of ancient Egyptian death practices persist, the author points to an enduring 'universal human longing for transcendent, eternal life,' as well as documentaries, film exhibits, and books that reinforce entrenched ideas about the Egyptian quest for immortality. Dense and methodical, Nyord’s history meticulously probes the challenges of cultural transmission. Serious Egyptologists will be edified."
"Despite the familiarity of ancient Egypt’s human mummies, how to interpret the culture’s attitude to immortality is still controversial. Egyptologist Rune Nyord analyses European ideas about ancient-Egyptian mortuary religion, 'construed in terms of a belief in a personal afterlife.' He notes that early scholars considered it as fitting a Christian framework. This erroneous perception persisted even after the hieroglyphs were deciphered in the nineteenth century. Nyord argues that it must be corrected, drawing on hieroglyphic sources."
"In the tradition of the best books–notably Christina Riggs’ 2014 Unwrapping Ancient Egypt, which [Yearning for Immortality] references–this will make uncomfortable reading for many. The approach taken is relatively uncommon in Egyptology: critiquing (and successfully undermining) significant received wisdom, while at the same time pointing to fresh interpretation of the indigenous sources. . . . likely to quickly become essential reading for students of Egyptian religion."
"As Nyord demonstrates, the broad concept of a merit-based Egyptian afterlife was
already widely-held scholarly opinion long before it became possible to consult genuine ancient Egyptian writings following the decipherment of hieroglyphs pioneered by Jean-François Champollion from 1822 onwards. That this picture was contrary to what was understood of ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs by their ancient contemporaries is the starting-point for the investigation."
already widely-held scholarly opinion long before it became possible to consult genuine ancient Egyptian writings following the decipherment of hieroglyphs pioneered by Jean-François Champollion from 1822 onwards. That this picture was contrary to what was understood of ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs by their ancient contemporaries is the starting-point for the investigation."
“Yearning for Immortality is groundbreaking. Carefully examining the foundations of beliefs about the ancient Egyptian afterlife, Nyord brings a desperately needed critical lens to the history of Egyptology. Nyord argues that ancient findings were made to fit into preexisting narratives, and he makes the convincing and unsettling case that contemporary ways of understanding the ancient Egyptian afterlife carry on the flawed and remarkably insidious frameworks developed before the decipherment of hieroglyphics. This book shows that the current paradigm is in a moment of crisis and in dire need of reexamination, critique, and ultimately replacement.”
“Nyord offers a proposal for revising the way we think about ancient Egyptian funerary religion, presenting fresh ways of looking at the subject. Addressing the assumption that ancient Egypt was a society obsessed with death and eternal life, Yearning for Immortality considers how ideas of ancient Egyptian afterlife were created and traces how these ideas became deeply rooted throughout the centuries. Nyord’s is an important argument for contemporary Egyptology, for scholars working on the reception of ancient Egypt (and antiquity more widely), and for the fields of religious and mortuary studies.”