![]() In the next world there are a lot of gods who are guarding gateways that you have to get through, and if you don't give the right answers to their questions at the gates, they can attack you because they have knives and snakes in their hands. There are also spells about protecting yourself because the ancient Egyptians expected to be attacked on the journey to the afterlife by snakes, crocodiles, insects – an idea very much based on the threats they knew in real life only much more frightening and much more dangerous.Īs well as the animals, you could be attacked by gods or demons who served the gods. So there are a lot of spells to make sure you don't lose your head or your heart, that your body doesn't decay, as well as other spells about keeping alive by breathing air, having water to drink, having food to eat. The ancient Egyptians believed that a person was made up of different elements: body, spirit, name, heart, they're all embodiments of a person, and they were afraid that these elements would disperse when you died. Some of the spells are to make sure you can control your own body after death. Depending on how rich you were, you could either go along and buy a ready-made papyrus which would have blank spaces for your name to be written in, or you could spend a bit more and probably choose which spells you wanted. They would have been quite expensive so only wealthy, high-status people would have had them. They usually have beautiful coloured illustrations as well. ![]() ![]() The 'book' is usually a roll of papyrus with lots and lots of spells written on it in hieroglyphic script. The Book of the Dead isn't a finite text – it's not like the Bible, it's not a collection of doctrine or a statement of faith or anything like that – it's a practical guide to the next world, with spells that would help you on your journey. They imagined the afterlife as a kind of journey you had to make to get to paradise – but it was quite a hazardous journey so you'd need magical help along the way. 'Book of the Dead' is a modern term for a collection of magical spells that the Egyptians used to help them get into the afterlife. It was exciting to be able to focus on these special documents and to have the rare opportunity to display such a variety of them. The 'Journey through the afterlife: ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead' exhibition was the result of years of work behind the scenes in planning, preparation and research.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |