The dead were thought to undergo a last judgment consisting of two tests presided over by Osiris, the god of the underworld, and supervised by the jackal-headed god of embalming and cemeteries, Anubis.
Kingdom of the dead book free#
By the time of the New Kingdom (1539–1075 BCE), the Egyptians had come to believe that only a person free from wrongdoing could enjoy an afterlife. The Egyptians developed elaborate funerary practices to ensure that their deceased moved safely and effectively into the afterlife.
But the “ka” needed a body to live in, either the mummified body of the deceased or, as a substitute, a sculpted likeness in the form of a statue. While a famous quote from the film “one mustn’t read from the book!” I assure you it is certainly safe -and encouraged- to do so.Īncient Egyptians believed that an essential part of every human personality is its life force, or soul, called the “ka,” which lived on after the death of the body, forever engaged in the activities it had enjoyed in its former existence. If one should mention The Book of the Dead, what comes to mind? If you are like me, the first initial thought is the 1999 movie, The Mummy, in which the Book of the Dead is used to unleash a 3,000-year-old Egyptian priest who wreaks havoc on the living world.
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