Exploring Religion in Ancient Egypt

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910795827503321
• Autore: Quirke Stephen
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Somerset : , : John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, , 2014; ©2015
• ISBN: 9781118610497; 9781444332001
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (282 pages)
• Collana: Blackwell Ancient Religions Ser.
• Disciplina: 299/.31
• Soggetti: Egypt -- Religion; Electronic books.
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Nota di contenuto: Intro -- Exploring Religion in Ancient Egypt -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Chapter 1 Belief without a Book -- Word Worlds: Ancient and Modern -- Religion? -- Modern study of ancient worlds -- Three hurdles -- An ancient Egyptian definition of religion? The composition the King as Priest of the Sun -- Using written sources in context -- Language and politics -- Applying critical theory to Egyptology -- Future -- Elementals and Sources -- Landscape forces and resources -- Town and countryside -- Time-space blocks: ancient egypt as a chain of ecologies -- The time of kemet: dynasties and periods -- Preservation: geological and historical factors -- Beyond written sources: mudbrick architecture -- Ancient practice and modern prejudice in distinguishing elite and popular religion -- Suspending assumptions -- Netjeru deities: names and forms -- Evolutionary readings of ancient images -- Ancient and modern multiplication of forms of netjeru -- Visual forms as poetic metaphors -- Fission and fusion in names of netjeru -- Ancient descriptions of netjeru: hymns and narratives -- Instituting sacred space: the question of priesthood -- Checklist on assumptions -- Chapter 2 Finding the Sacred in Space and Time -- Holiness: Absolute or Relative -- The human body -- Living human geography: case-studies -- Chapter 3 Creating Sacred Space and Time: Temple Architecture and Festival -- ; Formalizing Sacred Space: For Offerings -- Range of different architectural types/engagements with ground -- Recipients of offerings -- Daily offering rituals -- Staff in offering spaces -- Kingship, temple offerings, and temple staff: in practice -- Kingship, initiation, and holders of sacred knowledge -- Formalizing Sacred Time: Festival, Feast, and Foundation -- Festival: not necessarily carnival -- Festivals at the lahun kingship temple (1800 bc).; Festival lists in monumental inscriptions -- Offerings at festivals: written evidence -- Feasting and offering in the archaeological record -- Founding a temple -- Chapter 4 Chaos and Life: Forces of Creation and Destruction -- Introduction -- Chaos and life: identifying and assessing evidence -- Myth as Speech in Religion -- Mythic thinking -- The myth debate in Egyptology -- Learning from storytelling: the only option? -- Learning from schemata information blocks? -- The weight of kingship in ancient Egyptian compositions -- Constellations Outside Writing -- Evidence beyond words and images? -- Principles, forces, and materials -- Small-scale carving as a widespread source of imagery -- Relations of fertility: movements of seasons, flood, and the return of the distant goddess -- Relations of physical regeneration from immobility: masculine desert, Min and Amun -- Sailings of the Sun -- Trusting the ferryman? Aggression and defense: fauna of danger and disorder -- Seth: animal fusion -- Predator as guardian: jackal deities -- Multiple fauna: images and bodies -- Child-god-king -- Images of order as single and as balance -- Speaking and Narrating the Divine -- A motif throughout temple ritual: offerings as the eye -- Myth in practice -- Local, central, or all-Egyptian? -- Narrative and image as accompaniments -- The Nut image: world description as accompaniment to burial space -- Ptah, Horus, and Seth: creation at Mennefer, the Shabako inscription -- Creation: centered on the Sun -- Place and process of creation -- Overcoming violence after creation: Horus against Seth -- The end of the world -- A longer narrative, 1150 bc: the judgement of Horus and Seth -- Two narratives -- Conclusion: icon, constellation, and tale -- Chapter 5 Being Good: Doing, Saying, and Making Good Possible -- Translating Ma'at -- Sources for Ethics.; Damage as mirror of (In)justice -- Teachings and their limits -- Conclusion: combining the evidence types -- Chapter 6 Being Well -- Health and Well-Being: Starting from Comparative Ethnography -- Material health -- Health, healers, and healed: written evidence -- Writings for good health -- Intangibles -- Chapter 7 Attaining Eternal Life: Sustenance and Transformation -- Ancient Egyptian Afterlives: Sources and their Limits -- Reconsidering Modern Perceptions of Ancient Egyptian Afterlives -- Burying the Dead: Conceptions of the Tomb -- Burying, Caring for, and Relating to the Dead: Four Questions -- Burying the Dead: Chronological Survey -- 3100-2700 bc Underground provisions store, overground offering space -- 2600-2300 bc Underground blank, overground provisioning/leisure machines for the rich -- 2300-1850 bc Markers of age, gender, and status in the regions: underground and overground provisioning and leisure machines for the richest -- 1850-1700 bc Underground solar kingship or birth or leisure, overground provisioning? -- 1600-1350 bc Underground provisions store and leisure, overground provisioning/leisure -- 1350-1100 bc Underground protected space, overground devotion, provisions secondary? -- 1100-700 bc Underground protected space, sometimes leisure, overground devotion -- 700-525 bc Underground regeneration machine, overground devotion -- Centers of Writing or Drawing the Afterlife: Rituals and Eternal Regeneration -- Transforming into akh-Being -- Hegemony and Variety: Chronological Considerations -- From Theme to ; Integration: Futures of Study -- Bibliography -- Preface -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Index -- End User License Agreement.
• Sommario/riassunto: Exploring Religion in Ancient Egypt offers a stimulating overview of the study of ancient Egyptian religion by examining research drawn from beyond the customary boundaries of Egyptology and shedding new light on entrenched assumptions. Discusses the evolution of religion in ancient Egypt - a belief system that endured for 3,000 years Dispels several modern preconceptions about ancient Egyptian religious practices Reveals how people in ancient Egypt struggled to secure well-being in the present life and the afterlife.