Cover image for
Title:
An ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead : the Papyrus of Sobekmose / translation, introduction, and commentary by Paul F. O'Rourke.
Author:
O'Rourke, Paul F. (Egyptologist), translator, writer of supplementary textual content.

Brooklyn Museum.
Publication Information:
London : Thames & Hudson ; New York, NY : Brooklyn Museum, 2016.

©2016
Call Number:
PJ1555.E5 O76 2016
Abstract:
The Book of the Dead of Sobekmose', in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, New York, is one of the most important surviving examples of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead genre. Such papyrus scrolls were composed of traditional funerary texts, including magic spells, that were thought to assist a dead person on their journey into the afterlife. This publication is the first to offer a continuous English translation of a single, extensive, major text that can speak to us from beginning to end in the order in which it was composed. The papyrus itself is one of the longest of its kind to come down to us from the New Kingdom, a time when Egypt's international power and prosperity were at their peak. This new translation not only represents a great step forward in the study of these texts, but also grants modern readers a direct encounter with what can seem a remote and alien civilization. With language that is, in many places, unquestionably evocative and very beautiful, it offers a look into the mindset of the ancient Egyptians, highlighting their beliefs and anxieties about this world as well as the next. The papyrus itself is reproduced in its entirety and the translation is prefaced by a fully illustrated introductory essay which, along with a brief chronology of ancient Egypt and a glossary guiding the reader through the religious and mythological terminology that they will encounter, grounds it in its historical context.
Added Corporate Author:
Added Uniform Title:
Papyrus of Sobekmose.
Geographic Term:
ISBN:
9780500051887
Physical Description:
216 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm.
Contents:
Foreword / Anne Pasternak -- Preface: translating an ancient text -- Introduction. The worlds of the living and the dead -- The purpose of the book of the dead -- Background and earlier traditions -- The emergence of the book of the dead -- New funerary texts -- Other texts in the tomb complex -- Book of the Dead of the gold worker of Amun Sobekmose. Description of the papyrus -- Translation of the recto texts --Translation of the verso texts -- Translation of the offering formulae -- Notes on the translation -- Reproduction of the papyrus. Recto -- Verso -- Reference list -- Glossary of Egyptian terms and names -- A brief chronology of Ancient Egypt -- Picture information.
Uniform Title:
Book of the dead. English.
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