Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt / / Jan Assmann.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Assmann, Jan,
• TeilnehmendeR: Lorton, David.
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Edition: Abridged and updated by the author
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (504 p.)

"Human beings," the acclaimed Egyptologist Jan Assmann writes, "are the animals that have to live with the knowledge of their death, and culture is the world they create so they can live with that knowledge." In his new book, Assmann explores images of death and of death rites in ancient Egypt to provide startling new insights into the particular character of the civilization as a whole. Drawing on the unfamiliar genre of the death liturgy, he arrives at a remarkably comprehensive view of the religion of death in ancient Egypt.Assmann describes in detail nine different images of death: death as the body being torn apart, as social isolation, the notion of the court of the dead, the dead body, the mummy, the soul and ancestral spirit of the dead, death as separation and transition, as homecoming, and as secret. Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt also includes a fascinating discussion of rites that reflect beliefs about death through language and ritual.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Translator’s Note -- Introduction: Death and Culture -- Part One. Images of Death -- 1. Death as Dismemberment -- 2. Death as Social Isolation -- 3. Death as Enemy -- 4. Death as Dissociation: The Person of the Deceased and Its Constituent Elements -- 5. Death as Separation and Reversal -- 6. Death as Transition -- 7. Death as Return -- 8. Death as Mystery -- 9. Going Forth by Day -- Part Two. Rituals and Recitations -- 10. Mortuary Liturgies and Mortuary Literature -- 11. In the Sign of the Enemy: The Protective Wake in the Place of Embalming -- 12. The Night of Vindication -- 13. Rituals of Transition from Home to Tomb -- 14. Provisioning the Dead -- 15. Sacramental Explanation -- 16. Freedom from the Yoke of Transitoriness: Resultativity and Continuance -- 17. Freedom from the Yoke of Transitoriness: Immortality -- Afterword: Egypt and the History of Death -- Notes -- Index