Egyptian Elysium: Connecting the Realms of the Living and the Dead in the Greco-Roman Period
The long history of Egyptian afterlife writings began during the 3rd millennium BC, when the body of compositions known as the Pyramid Texts were carved onto the walls and coffins of the pyramids of Old Kingdom rulers at Saqqara, the necropolis of the ancient capital of Memphis. The function of the writings was to ensure that the ‘spiritual’ components of the deceased—the Ba and the Ka—were reunited after separating upon the death of the material body. The unification of these spiritual elements caused the deceased to be reborn as an Akh, which may be described as a transcendent, celestial being. As summarily explained by James Allen (2005:7):
“At death, the ka separated from the body. In order for an individual to survive as a spirit in the afterlife, the ba had to be reunited with its ka, its life force: in the Pyramid Texts and elsewhere, the deceased are called ‘those who have gone to their kas.’ The resultant spiritual entity was known as an akh: literally, an ‘effective’ being. No longer subject to the entropy of a physical body or the limitations of physical existence, the akh was capable of living eternally, not merely on earth but also in the larger cosmic plane inhabited by the gods.”
The Pyramid Texts established the two themes that would permeate Egyptian afterlife literature for thousands of years: transfiguration and reintegration. Through a ritualized process of embalming, mummification, and entombment the deceased would be reborn into an immortalized condition with access to the various planes of being. From the earliest times the journey of the Ba-soul of the deceased to attain this blessed condition was correlated with that of the Sun god Re as he traveled through the underworld at night following sunset and to then unite with Osiris so as to emerge reborn at dawn. The deceased was therefore closely associated with the forms assumed by Re during his journey across the sky during the day and through the nethersky in the underworld at night.
The Greco-Roman Renaissance
The above-mentioned themes informed Egyptian afterlife texts throughout the ages, including the Coffin Texts, The Book of Amduat, The Book of Gates, The Book of Caverns, The Books of the Sky, and The Book of the Dead. While these texts are well-known in both academic and non-professional circles, what has received considerably less attention is the fact that the last centuries of the Egyptian civilization when the country was under Greek and then Roman rule witnessed a virtual renaissance in the field of afterlife literature.
Pyramid text utterance 302-312 (Unas pyramid). (Public Domain)
Top image: Depiction of Pharaohs and Egyptian gods. Source: Creative mind / Adobe Stock
By Jason Jarrell
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