ARCE-GA: Patterns of Life: Images in the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead

Lecture Information

The Book of the Dead, or Recitations for Coming Forth by Day, is one of the most famous ancient Egyptian cultural products. Long understood as a straightforward guidebook to the afterlife, the nature of Book of the Dead has increasingly been called into question in recent research, raising significant challenges concerning how the texts and images were understood by their ancient creators and users. This is true not least of the often-elaborate images adorning many manuscripts – if they were not meant to instruct readers about things happening in the afterlife, what were their functions from the ancient point of view? To answer this question, we need to take more general ancient Egyptian conceptions and experiences of images as a point of departure for exploring the various uses of imagery in the Book of the Dead.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Rune Nyord is an Associate Professor of Ancient Egyptian Art and Archaeology at Emory University. Before joining Emory in 2018, he held positions at the University of Copenhagen, University of Cambridge (Christ’s College), and the Free University Berlin. His research focuses on conceptions and experiences of representation, ontology, and personhood in ancient Egypt, especially as evidenced in Middle Kingdom (Middle Bronze Age, early 2nd millennium BCE) funerary culture, and drawing on a combination of archaeological and textual sources. Professor Nyord has written several books about ancient Egypt and earned his PhD at the University of Copenhagen.