Download or read book Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations written by Gregory Shushan and published by Continuum. This book was released on 2011-12-22 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gregory Shushan challenges post-modern scholarly attitudes concerning cross-cultural comparisons in the study of religions. In an original and innovative piece of comparative research, he analyses afterlife conceptions in five ancient civilisations (Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt, Sumerian and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, Vedic India, pre-Buddhist China, and pre-Columbian Mesoamerica). These are considered in light of historical and contemporary reports of near-death experiences, and shamanic afterlife 'journeys'. Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations is a significant study, for it presents a comprehensive new comparative framework for the cross-cultural study of myth and religion, while at the same time providing a fascinating exploration of the interface between belief and experience.
Download or read book The Afterlife in Ancient Civilizations written by Daniel S. (Daniel Scott) Copeland and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt written by John H. Taylor and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2001-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the ancient peoples, the Egyptians are perhaps best known for the fascinating ways in which they grappled with the mysteries of death and the afterlife. This beautifully illustrated book draws on the British Museum's world-famous collection of mummies and other funerary evidence to offer an accessible account of Egyptian beliefs in an afterlife and examine the ways in which Egyptian society responded materially to the challenges these beliefs imposed. The author describes in detail the numerous provisions made for the dead and the intricate rituals carried out on their behalf. He considers embalming, coffins and sarcophagi, shabti figures, magic and ritual, and amulets and papyri, as well as the mummification of sacred animals, which were buried by the millions in vast labyrinthine catacombs. The text also reflects recent developments in the interpretation of Egyptian burial practices, and incorporates the results of much new scientific research. Newly acquired information derives from a range of sophisticated applications, such as the use of noninvasive imaging techniques to look inside the wrappings of a mummy, and the chemical analysis of materials used in the embalming process. Authoritative, concise, and lucidly written, Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt illuminates aspects of this complex, vibrant culture that still perplex us more than 3,000 years later.
Download or read book Imagining the Afterlife in the Ancient World written by Juliette Harrisson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human beings have speculated about whether or not there is life after death, and if so, what form that life might take, for centuries. What did people in the ancient world think the next life would hold, and did they imagine there was a chance for a relationship between the living and the dead? How did people in the ancient world keep their dead loved ones alive through memory, and were they afraid the dead might return and haunt the living in another form? What sort of afterlife did the ancient Greeks and Romans imagine for themselves? This volume explores these questions and more. While individual representations of the afterlife have often been examined, few studies have taken a more general view of ideas about the afterlife circulating in the ancient world. By drawing together current research from international scholars on archaeological evidence for afterlife belief, chiefly from funerary sites, together with studies of works of literature, this volume provides a broader overview of ancient ideas about the afterlife than has so far been available. Imagining the Afterlife in the Ancient World explores these key questions through a series of wide-ranging studies, taking in ghosts, demons, dreams, cosmology, and the mutilation of corpses along the way, offering a valuable resource to those studying all aspects of death in the ancient world
Download or read book The Egyptian Book of the Dead written by Eva Von Dassow and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2008-06-02 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reissue of the legendary 3,500-year-old Papyrus of Ani, the most beautiful of the ornately illustrated Egyptian funerary scrolls ever discovered, restored in its original sequences of text and artwork.
Download or read book Book of the Dead written by Foy Scalf and published by Oriental Institute Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover how the ancient Egyptians controlled their immortal destiny! This book, edited by Foy Scalf, explores what the Book of the Dead was believed to do, how it worked, how it was made, and what happened to it.
Download or read book Journey Through the Afterlife written by John H. Taylor and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With contributions from leading scholars and detailed catalog entries that interpret the spells and painted scenes, this fascinating and important work affords a greater understanding of ancient Egyptian belief systems and poignantly reveals the hopes and fears about the world beyond death.
Download or read book Life After Death written by Alan Segal and published by Image. This book was released on 2010-06-23 with total page 882 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A magisterial work of social history, Life After Death illuminates the many different ways ancient civilizations grappled with the question of what exactly happens to us after we die. In a masterful exploration of how Western civilizations have defined the afterlife, Alan F. Segal weaves together biblical and literary scholarship, sociology, history, and philosophy. A renowned scholar, Segal examines the maps of the afterlife found in Western religious texts and reveals not only what various cultures believed but how their notions reflected their societies’ realities and ideals, and why those beliefs changed over time. He maintains that the afterlife is the mirror in which a society arranges its concept of the self. The composition process for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam begins in grief and ends in the victory of the self over death. Arguing that in every religious tradition the afterlife represents the ultimate reward for the good, Segal combines historical and anthropological data with insights gleaned from religious and philosophical writings to explain the following mysteries: why the Egyptians insisted on an afterlife in heaven, while the body was embalmed in a tomb on earth; why the Babylonians viewed the dead as living in underground prisons; why the Hebrews remained silent about life after death during the period of the First Temple, yet embraced it in the Second Temple period (534 B.C.E. –70 C.E.); and why Christianity placed the afterlife in the center of its belief system. He discusses the inner dialogues and arguments within Judaism and Christianity, showing the underlying dynamic behind them, as well as the ideas that mark the differences between the two religions. In a thoughtful examination of the influence of biblical views of heaven and martyrdom on Islamic beliefs, he offers a fascinating perspective on the current troubling rise of Islamic fundamentalism. In tracing the organic, historical relationships between sacred texts and communities of belief and comparing the visions of life after death that have emerged throughout history, Segal sheds a bright, revealing light on the intimate connections between notions of the afterlife, the societies that produced them, and the individual’s search for the ultimate meaning of life on earth.
Download or read book Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt written by Jan Assmann and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-14 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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.
Download or read book Near Death Experience in Ancient Civilizations written by Gregory Shushan and published by Inner Traditions. This book was released on 2025-02-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cross-cultural comparison of ancient beliefs about death and the afterlife • Reveals the powerful influence of near-death experiences (NDEs) on the formation of religious beliefs, mystical literature, and ritual practices • Focuses on the afterlife beliefs of five ancient world regions: Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt, Sumer and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, Vedic India, pre-Buddhist China, and Maya and Aztec Mesoamerica • Shows how the similarities among afterlife beliefs and their correspondences with NDEs reveal that they both stem from universal truths Taking readers on a thought-provoking journey into our ancestors’ beliefs about death, dying, and the afterlife, Gregory Shushan, Ph.D., reveals the powerful influence of near-death experiences (NDEs) on religious beliefs and ritual practices throughout human history. Focusing on five ancient world regions—Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt, Sumer and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, Vedic India, pre-Buddhist China, and Maya and Aztec Mesoamerica—Shushan expertly explores each civilization’s afterlife beliefs, highlighting their similarities with NDEs and comparing them with each other. He explains how each of these civilizations developed independently of one another, with little or no cultural contact between them, yet there is a series of similarities between afterlife beliefs among these groups too consistent and specific to be mere coincidence. This leads to the profound implication that afterlife beliefs are not entirely invented by cultures: they also stem from universal truths derived from NDEs. Drawing on anthropology, psychology, and philosophy, the author explores how each civilization interpreted NDEs to form their beliefs and presents a rich understanding of how afterlife beliefs develop over time. He also explores the metaphysical implications of his discoveries, including what an actual afterlife would look like based on cross-cultural similarities and differences. Revealing that NDEs have occurred throughout human history, Shushan shows how they continue to influence our understanding of what lies beyond death to this day.
Download or read book Death Power and Apotheosis in Ancient Egypt written by Julia Troche and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-15 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Death, Power, and Apotheosis in Ancient Egypt uniquely considers how power was constructed, maintained, and challenged in ancient Egypt through mortuary culture and apotheosis, or how certain dead in ancient Egypt became gods. Rather than focus on the imagined afterlife and its preparation, Julia Troche provides a novel treatment of mortuary culture exploring how the dead were mobilized to negotiate social, religious, and political capital in ancient Egypt before the New Kingdom. Troche explores the perceived agency of esteemed dead in ancient Egyptian social, political, and religious life during the Old and Middle Kingdoms (c. 2700–1650 BCE) by utilizing a wide range of evidence, from epigraphic and literary sources to visual and material artifacts. As a result, Death, Power, and Apotheosis in Ancient Egypt is an important contribution to current scholarship in its collection and presentation of data, the framework it establishes for identifying distinguished and deified dead, and its novel argumentation, which adds to the larger academic conversation about power negotiation and the perceived agency of the dead in ancient Egypt.
Download or read book Life After Death written by Alan F. Segal and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 780 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Ancient Roman Afterlife written by Charles King and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In ancient Rome, it was believed some humans were transformed into special, empowered beings after death. These deified dead, known as the manes, watched over and protected their surviving family members, possibly even extending those relatives’ lives. But unlike the Greek hero-cult, the worship of dead emperors, or the Christian saints, the manes were incredibly inclusive—enrolling even those without social clout, such as women and the poor, among Rome's deities. The Roman afterlife promised posthumous power in the world of the living. While the manes have often been glossed over in studies of Roman religion, this book brings their compelling story to the forefront, exploring their myriad forms and how their worship played out in the context of Roman religion’s daily practice. Exploring the place of the manes in Roman society, Charles King delves into Roman beliefs about their powers to sustain life and bring death to individuals or armies, examines the rituals the Romans performed to honor them, and reclaims the vital role the manes played in the ancient Roman afterlife.
Download or read book Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life written by E. A. Wallis Sir Budge and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2019-11-20 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life" is a treatise on the subject by Egyptologist E.A. Wallis Budge. It is intended to place before the reader in a handy form an account of the principal ideas and beliefs held by the ancient Egyptians concerning the resurrection and the future life, which is derived wholly from native religious works. The literature of Egypt which deals with these subjects is large and, as was to be expected, the product of different periods which, when taken together, cover several thousands of years making it necessary to reconcile the statements and beliefs of a writer of one period with those of a writer of another.
Download or read book Osiris written by Bojana Mojsov and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bojana Mojsov tells the story of the cult of Osiris from beginning to end, sketching its development throughout 3,000 years of Egyptian history. Draws together the numerous records about Osiris from the third millennium B.C. to the Roman conquest of Egypt. Demonstrates that the cult of Osiris was the most popular and enduring of the ancient religions. Shows how the cult provided direct antecedents for many ideas, traits and customs in Christianity, including the concept of the trinity, baptism in the sacred river, and the sacrament of the Eucharist. Reveals the cult’s influence on other western mystical traditions and groups, such as the Alchemists, Rosicrucians and Freemasons. Written for a general, as well as a scholarly audience.
Download or read book The Book of the Dead written by Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Funerary Statuettes written by Saphinaz-Amal Naguib and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
