Mummies. Life after Death in Ancient Egypt
Munich 1997
Stron: 144 format albumowy
Język: angielski
92 kolorowych i 58 czarno-białych ilustracji.
The aucient Egyptians believed that the bodies of the dead niust he preserved if their souls are to live on in the afterworld. The mummification of corpses was therefore an essential requirement of Egyptian religion. Mummies: Lije iißcr Dcatli in Ancient fyypt provides a comprehensive survcy of currcnt knowledge about the preservation of corpses in Egyptian antiquity, froni the simple embalming procedures practiced dunng the earher dynasties to the highly sophisticated techniques developed over more than three niillennia of ancient Egyptian culture.
In this copiously illustrated volume the munimies arc examined in the context ot Egyptian funerary ritu.il, vith special attention accorded mummy masks and cases, äs well äs the amulets and other artifacts that werc buried with the deceased ajid only seen by the souls of the dead.
The reccnt history of the Egyptian niumniies, frorn their discovery by Europeans to modern techniques of Computer analysis, is a particular feature of the Book. In the baroquc period, mummies were included in cabinets ot curiosities by rieh dilettantes and royalty alike, often to be treated with little or no rcspect for their spiritual signi-ficance or cultural value. In fact, when ccrtain parts were ground to "Mummy powder", they were considered to have powcrful medicinal properties. In the 19th Century hundreds of Egyptian mummies werc plundered from tonibs and sold in western Europe. Mummies: Life öfter Dcath in Ancient Egypt shows how radiological techno-logy, antibody research, DNA and simulated reconstruc-tion. and spatial analyses through three-dimcnsional Computer images have expanded our knowledge of pcoplc who died thousands of years ago and of their everyday life in ancient Egypt. These fascinatiiig reccnt discoveries are presented in this absorbing volume.
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