“Egypt and Empire offers a different approach by covering together periods that are usually treated separately in different academic disciplines. Across Eurasia and North Africa in the First Millennium AD, empires rose and fell, each adopting a universalizing faith which distinguished it broadly from its neighbours. In Egypt, our sources are particularly rich, owing to...
“Exploring Religion in Ancient Egypt offers a stimulating overview of the study of ancient Egyptian religion by examining research drawn from beyond the customary boundaries of Egyptology and shedding new light on entrenched assumptions. Seth removes the eyes of Horus, which grow into lotus buds, and he pretends not to have found him, but Hathor...
“Perhaps surprisingly the most common career for women, after housewife and mother, was the priesthood, where women served deities, notably Hathor, with music and dance. Many would come to the temples of Hathor to have their dreams interpreted, or to seek divine inspiration. This is a wide ranging and revealing account told with authority and...
“This book is a vivid reconstruction of the practical aspects of ancient Egyptian religion. Through an examination of artifacts and inscriptions, the text explores a variety of issues. Clues to the proper understanding of Egyptian mysteries are contained in the Book of the Dead Spell 148, which instructs, “This [papyrus] roll is a real secret....
“Little is known about Nefertiti, the Egyptian queen whose name means “a beautiful woman has come.” She was the wife of Akhenaten, the pharaoh who ushered in the dramatic Amarna Age, and she bore him at least six children. She played a prominent role in political and religious affairs, but after Akhenaten’s death she apparently...
“Why do ancient Egyptian statues so often have their noses, hands, or genitals broken? Although the Late Antiquity period appears to have been one of the major moments of large-scale vandalism against pagan monuments, various contexts bear witness to several phases of reuse, modification, or mutilation of statues throughout and after the pharaonic period. Reasons...
“Written some 3,500 years ago, the Papyrus of Ani is the most complete, ornate, and best preserved example of Ancient Egyptian philosophical and religious thought. Presented here for the first time in its original form, with the hieroglyphic images matched to what has been acknowledged as the finest English translation of the test. The Egyptian...
“In some versions of the Egyptian mythology, the sun god was born from a blue lotus that emerged from the primeval waters. The flower itself could be identified with the great goddess who gave birth to the sun. The blue lotus came to be a general symbol of rebirth. It was also the emblem of...
“By curious coincidence, the breakthrough that had allowed ancient Egyptian writing to be first deciphered, and had thus opened up the study of pharaonic civilization through its numerous inscriptions, had occurred exactly a century before. In 1822, the French scholar Jean-François Champollion published his famous Lettre à M. Dacier, in which he correctly described the...
“Iron from Tutankhamun’s Tomb analyzes iron artifacts from the tomb in depth for the first time. This group consists of small iron chisels set into wooden handles, an Eye of Horus amulet, a miniature headrest, and the blade of a richly decorated golden dagger. The most important of these were placed in close proximity to...
