Yearning for Immortality

Rezensionen / Stimmen

"Nyord provides an intricate account of how Egyptian mortuary practices have been transformed in the Western imagination to fit Christian archetypes. . . . Exploring why Western misinterpretations of ancient Egyptian death practices persist, the author points to an enduring 'universal human longing for transcendent, eternal life,' as well as documentaries, film exhibits, and books that reinforce entrenched ideas about the Egyptian quest for immortality. Dense and methodical, Nyord's history meticulously probes the challenges of cultural transmission. Serious Egyptologists will be edified." * Publishers Weekly * "Despite the familiarity of ancient Egypt's human mummies, how to interpret the culture's attitude to immortality is still controversial. Egyptologist Rune Nyord analyses European ideas about ancient-Egyptian mortuary religion, 'construed in terms of a belief in a personal afterlife.' He notes that early scholars considered it as fitting a Christian framework. This erroneous perception persisted even after the hieroglyphs were deciphered in the nineteenth century. Nyord argues that it must be corrected, drawing on hieroglyphic sources." * Nature * "In the tradition of the best books-notably Christina Riggs' 2014 Unwrapping Ancient Egypt, which [Yearning for Immortality] references-this will make uncomfortable reading for many. The approach taken is relatively uncommon in Egyptology: critiquing (and successfully undermining) significant received wisdom, while at the same time pointing to fresh interpretation of the indigenous sources. . . . likely to quickly become essential reading for students of Egyptian religion." * Ancient Egypt * "As Nyord demonstrates, the broad concept of a merit-based Egyptian afterlife was
already widely-held scholarly opinion long before it became possible to consult genuine ancient Egyptian writings following the decipherment of hieroglyphs pioneered by Jean-Francois Champollion from 1822 onwards. That this picture was contrary to what was understood of ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs by their ancient contemporaries is the starting-point for the investigation." * Journal of Religious History * "Yearning for Immortality is groundbreaking. Carefully examining the foundations of beliefs about the ancient Egyptian afterlife, Nyord brings a desperately needed critical lens to the history of Egyptology. Nyord argues that ancient findings were made to fit into preexisting narratives, and he makes the convincing and unsettling case that contemporary ways of understanding the ancient Egyptian afterlife carry on the flawed and remarkably insidious frameworks developed before the decipherment of hieroglyphics. This book shows that the current paradigm is in a moment of crisis and in dire need of reexamination, critique, and ultimately replacement." -- Margaret Geoga, The University of Chicago "Nyord offers a proposal for revising the way we think about ancient Egyptian funerary religion, presenting fresh ways of looking at the subject. Addressing the assumption that ancient Egypt was a society obsessed with death and eternal life, Yearning for Immortality considers how ideas of ancient Egyptian afterlife were created and traces how these ideas became deeply rooted throughout the centuries. Nyord's is an important argument for contemporary Egyptology, for scholars working on the reception of ancient Egypt (and antiquity more widely), and for the fields of religious and mortuary studies." -- Stephanie Moser, University of Southampton