This book, originally written in the early 20th century by Budge, is an excellent guide to the Book of the Dead, whether a novice or a professional Egyptologist. The first few pages of the book have an assortment of images regarding the Book of the Dead, such as images of funeral processions, the judgement of the soul and the reuniting of body and soul. Included are some short descriptions of what the images mean.
The introductory pages not only detail the history of the book itself, but also tell of the discovery of the Papyrus of Ani, how it was first treated, how it varies from tomb to tomb, whose tombs it has been discovered in, how it was written, what it was to the Ancient Egyptians and where in time it may have originated. It does so through complex, descriptive wording as well as footers going into greater depth about key topics. It also contains a list of chapters, their titles and short descriptions.
The translation itself is excellent, with hieroglyphs above the English text. Each passage is numbered so the reader can tell where it comes from in the hieroglyphics, which also makes it a good resource for anyone interested in learning to read hieroglyphs. Alongside the direct translation comes some narration explaining potential meanings and interpretations.
Given the date the book was originally published, one could also argue that it gives an insight into the mind of a 1900s historian.
All in all, an excellent book. It has everything relevant to the subject with which it deals, and is in my opinion the best version you could buy. It is let down only because it is not in colour; just a few colour pages to show the gorgeous colours used in Egyptian art and writing would have made it perfect, but it gains five stars anyway for the hieroglyphic text accompanying the English text throughout the translation.
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This book is mostly a commentary on the Book of the Dead with quotes from the most significant passages of the papyrus e.g The Negative Confession.It is a handy size for reading on the train. My copy from Dodo press has no pictures of the Ani papyrus. For a fully illustrated library copy I would recommend Chronicle books ISBN 978-0-8118-6489-3. However I like the type-setting in this book which has an olde feel to it as if just off Budges typewriter. I had read it all on Web sites so mainly bought this as a souvenir of my realisation that the Old Testament view of its neighbouring cultures was wrong.(Egyptians, Canaanites, Babylonians were more the same than different). When I read the negative confession I was struck by how the Egyptian morality was just as good as later Hebrew laws. I was amazed by the many other similarities in how the Egyptians viewed and addressed their gods to how the Bible folk viewed theirs. The Egyptians believed their gods were the source of wisdom, knowledge and Truth who required them to live good lives and treat others well. The language of praising the gods was all so familiar, also the ideas of resurrection, eternal life/ hell, a god of judgment to decide who went where, a cleansing from sin by the negative confession. Is this the earliest record of these concepts? Did the Egyptians dream up these ideas? The Old Testament seems to have hardly any idea of the afterlife, only a shadowy sheol. Chapter iv is “Thoth, the author of the Book of the Dead”; Thoth was the heart, mind and tongue of the creator god, he at all times voiced the will of the great god and spoke the words which commanded everything to come into existence.[I can’t help thinking he must have spoken with a lisp- I thoth tho, maybe that is why this world is a bit squint?] This is a little book of 30 pages but contains the discovery of great significance: that many concepts of the Egyptians of 3500 years ago were similar to what is widely held today. Interesting to compare their concept of heart&soul&spirit&mind against some modern psychologists ideas that humans are generated solely from the mind albeit influenced by biological factors like hormones.
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(Kindle Format Review) Never going to be in the top 100 “must read” list I guess, but an interesting topic and not as challenging or “high brow” as folk might imagine.
Having stripped all of the illustrations out, the Kindle format, sadly, becomes pretty unintelligible and the strange {Fig #} inserts referring to a total absence of fig inserts just makes the text even more baffling.
It could have been a fun experiment. Instead it was just an experiment. Hope it’s more fun for you 🙂
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Excellent Guide to the Book of the Dead,
This book, originally written in the early 20th century by Budge, is an excellent guide to the Book of the Dead, whether a novice or a professional Egyptologist.
The first few pages of the book have an assortment of images regarding the Book of the Dead, such as images of funeral processions, the judgement of the soul and the reuniting of body and soul. Included are some short descriptions of what the images mean.
The introductory pages not only detail the history of the book itself, but also tell of the discovery of the Papyrus of Ani, how it was first treated, how it varies from tomb to tomb, whose tombs it has been discovered in, how it was written, what it was to the Ancient Egyptians and where in time it may have originated. It does so through complex, descriptive wording as well as footers going into greater depth about key topics. It also contains a list of chapters, their titles and short descriptions.
The translation itself is excellent, with hieroglyphs above the English text. Each passage is numbered so the reader can tell where it comes from in the hieroglyphics, which also makes it a good resource for anyone interested in learning to read hieroglyphs. Alongside the direct translation comes some narration explaining potential meanings and interpretations.
Given the date the book was originally published, one could also argue that it gives an insight into the mind of a 1900s historian.
All in all, an excellent book. It has everything relevant to the subject with which it deals, and is in my opinion the best version you could buy. It is let down only because it is not in colour; just a few colour pages to show the gorgeous colours used in Egyptian art and writing would have made it perfect, but it gains five stars anyway for the hieroglyphic text accompanying the English text throughout the translation.
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|A momento of the mounental discoveries of E.A Budge,
This book is mostly a commentary on the Book of the Dead with quotes from the most significant passages of the papyrus e.g The Negative Confession.It is a handy size for reading on the train. My copy from Dodo press has no pictures of the Ani papyrus. For a fully illustrated library copy I would recommend Chronicle books ISBN 978-0-8118-6489-3. However I like the type-setting in this book which has an olde feel to it as if just off Budges typewriter. I had read it all on Web sites so mainly bought this as a souvenir of my realisation that the Old Testament view of its neighbouring cultures was wrong.(Egyptians, Canaanites, Babylonians were more the same than different). When I read the negative confession I was struck by how the Egyptian morality was just as good as later Hebrew laws. I was amazed by the many other similarities in how the Egyptians viewed and addressed their gods to how the Bible folk viewed theirs. The Egyptians believed their gods were the source of wisdom, knowledge and Truth who required them to live good lives and treat others well. The language of praising the gods was all so familiar, also the ideas of resurrection, eternal life/ hell, a god of judgment to decide who went where, a cleansing from sin by the negative confession. Is this the earliest record of these concepts? Did the Egyptians dream up these ideas? The Old Testament seems to have hardly any idea of the afterlife, only a shadowy sheol. Chapter iv is “Thoth, the author of the Book of the Dead”; Thoth was the heart, mind and tongue of the creator god, he at all times voiced the will of the great god and spoke the words which commanded everything to come into existence.[I can’t help thinking he must have spoken with a lisp- I thoth tho, maybe that is why this world is a bit squint?] This is a little book of 30 pages but contains the discovery of great significance: that many concepts of the Egyptians of 3500 years ago were similar to what is widely held today. Interesting to compare their concept of heart&soul&spirit&mind against some modern psychologists ideas that humans are generated solely from the mind albeit influenced by biological factors like hormones.
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|a struggle,
(Kindle Format Review)
Never going to be in the top 100 “must read” list I guess, but an interesting topic and not as challenging or “high brow” as folk might imagine.
Having stripped all of the illustrations out, the Kindle format, sadly, becomes pretty unintelligible and the strange {Fig #} inserts referring to a total absence of fig inserts just makes the text even more baffling.
It could have been a fun experiment. Instead it was just an experiment. Hope it’s more fun for you 🙂
Was this review helpful to you?
|