4 Art: Le Pont-au-Change (The Exchange Bridge, Paris).

1 Art: The Night Journey of Muhammad on His Steed, Buraq from the Bustan of Sacdi.

21 Compare: What Can Images of Foreigners Tell Us About the People That Make Them?.

20 Compare: What Makes a Work of Art Appealing to a Foreign Audience?.

19 Compare: How Can Art Aid in the Reconciliation of New and Old Beliefs?.

18 Compare: How Can Art Inspire Technical Innovation?.

17 Compare: How Can Hybrid Art Define Individual Identity?.

16 Art: Our Lady of Cocharcas Under the Baldachin.

15 Art: Saltcellar with Portuguese Figures.

14 Art: Namban (“Southern Barbarians” in Japan).

13 Art: Chûbon no zu (Picture of the Middle Class).

8 Art: Portrait of East India Company Official (probably William Fullerton).

4 Art: Chi Kan Jo (Wisdom, Impression, Sentiment).

3 Art: Pelea de Gallos (Fight of the Roosters).

The elite had it pretty good here, so they were happy to have it continue that way in the next world and they perceived a continuation of the sort of best parts of the world that they had lived in.” And the idea of the Book of the Dead was, in essence, a guidebook to the netherworld, with these kind of cues and helpful little hints to get you through an obstacle that you might confront or a scary beast of some kind, what you would need to say or do to get past him.Įlite people were responsible for preparing their tomb and all of the goods that would be buried while they were still alive. But the Book of the Dead was used by elite, traditionally painted on papyri roles and buried with the individual. The kings had their own set of texts that weren’t used by elite people. Over the course of Egyptian history, these texts were developed and expanded, both in their content and in who could use them. The first example of these texts appear in the Old Kingdom, they are called the Pyramid Texts, and these texts were inscribed on the walls of the burial chambers of pharaohs, starting with the last pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty, and then through the Sixth Dynasty.

It’s one part of this larger body of texts that relate to the experience of death and ideas about the afterlife. The Book of the Dead is something that has very deep roots in Egyptian religious and cultural traditions. They thought there was something after this world. “The Egyptians certainly had a sense of an afterlife. Kha and Meryt stand with hands raised, presenting offerings and awaiting judgment. Egyptians believed that Osiris would weigh the heart of the deceased in a scale against the feather of Ma’at, goddess of truth, harmony, and justice. In this scene, Kha and his wife Meryt stand before Osiris, “Lord of the West” (the “West” representing the kingdom of the dead), who is often depicted with a green face. This particular Book of the Dead was created for a man named Kha, who served as the overseer of works at Deir el-Medina. Books of the Dead later developed in the New Kingdom, when Egyptians began copying the funerary incantations onto papyrus scrolls, accompanied by illustrations like the one shown here. 2130–1938 BCE), the practice became more widespread, and “Coffin Texts,” including expanded collections of spells, were inscribed on the interiors of coffins and tombs of varying social classes. However, after the end of the Old Kingdom in the First Intermediate Period (ca. The earliest collections of such spells, known as “Pyramid Texts,” were created specifically for kings and queens, inscribed inside royal pyramids of rulers of the Sixth to Eighth Dynasties. These spells were believed to help guide and protect the deceased on their complicated journey. Books of the Dead, which the Egyptians called Books of Going Forth by Day, were collections of magic spells written on papyrus and enclosed in the burial chambers of tombs.

The journey involved overcoming a variety of perils and obstacles. After death, it was believed that the soul would travel through the underworld in search of the Hall of Judgment of Osiris-whose tribunal would determine whether one could achieve immortality as an akh, or transfigured spirit.

Kingdom of the dead tombs