Description
"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.
Author: Jan Assmann
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 10/15/2014
Pages: 504
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.60lbs
Size: 9.54h x 6.16w x 1.18d
ISBN13: 9780801479731
ISBN10: 0801479738
BISAC Categories:
- History | Ancient | Egypt
- Religion | Antiquities & Archaeology
- Social Science | Archaeology
About the Author
Jan Assmann is Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at Heidelberg University and the 1998 winner of the prestigious Deutsche Historikerpreis (German History Prize). He is the author of The Search for God in Ancient Egypt, also from Cornell. The late David Lorton, an Egyptologist, was the translator of many books, including Ancient Egypt in 101 Questions and Answers, The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus, The Secret Lore of Egypt, and Akhenaten and the Religion of Light, all from Cornell.