Search results for ""Author Erik Hornung""
Prestel The Quest for Immortality Treasures of Ancient Egypt
This volume accompanies an exhibition of the same name, which includes artefacts from nearly 2000 years before Christ. Objects such as coffins, tombs, masks, jewellery, papyri, sarcophagi and sculpture reveal the reverence and awe with which the Egyptians considered the mystery of death.
£16.20
C.H. Beck Das Tal der Knige
£9.50
Cornell University Press The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife
Ancient Egyptians held a rich and complex vision of the afterlife and codified their beliefs in books that were to be discovered more than two millennia later in royal tombs. Erik Hornung, the world's leading authority on these religious texts, surveys what is known about them today.The contents of the texts range from the collection of spells in the Book of the Dead, which was intended to offer practical assistance on the journey to the afterlife, to the detailed accounts of the hereafter provided in the Books of the Netherworld. Hornung looks closely at these latter works, while summarizing the contents of the Book of the Dead and other widely studied examples of the genre. For each composition, he discusses the history of its ancient transmission and its decipherment in modern times, supplying bibliographic information for any text editions. He also seeks to determine whether this literature as a whole presents a monolithic conception of the afterlife. The volume features many drawings from the books themselves—drawings that illustrate the nocturnal course of the sun god through the realm of the dead.Originally published in German and now available in a fluid English translation, this volume offers an accessible and enlightening introduction to a central element of ancient Egyptian religion.
£23.99
Cornell University Press Akhenaten and the Religion of Light
Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, was king of Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty and reigned from 1375 to 1358 B.C. E. Called the "religious revolutionary," he is the earliest known creator of a new religion. The cult he founded broke with Egypt's traditional polytheism and focused its worship on a single deity, the sun god Aten. Erik Hornung, one of the world's preeminent Egyptologists, here offers a concise and accessible account of Akhenaten and his religion of light.Hornung begins with a discussion of the nineteenth-century scholars who laid the foundation for our knowledge of Akhenaten's period and extends to the most recent archaeological finds. He emphasizes that Akhenaten's monotheistic theology represented the first attempt in history to explain the entire natural and human world on the basis of a single principle. "Akhenaten made light the absolute reference point," Hornung writes, "and it is astonishing how clearly and consistently he pursued this concept." Hornung also addresses such topics as the origins of the new religion; pro-found changes in beliefs regarding the afterlife; and the new Egyptian capital at Akhetaten which was devoted to the service of Aten, his prophet Akhenaten, and the latter's family.
£20.99
Cornell University Press Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many
An excellent historical overview of the gods... It is a recommended necessary reading for those studying Ancient Egyptian religion.―Frankie's Reviews in Egyptology A work of extraordinary distinction, Hornung’s book will appeal to anyone interested in ancient Egypt, in ancient religion, and in the history of religion, as well as students and scholars of ancient history, anthropology, and archaeology. Osiris, Horus, Isis, Thoth, Anubis - the many strange and compelling figures of the Egyptian gods and goddesses seem to possess endless fascination. The renowned Egyptologist Erik Hornung here studies the ancient Egyptians' conceptions of god, basing his account on a thorough reappraisal of the primary sources. His book, now available in English for the first time, is the most extensive exploration yet undertaken of the nature of Egyptian religion. Hornung examines the characteristics, spheres of action, and significance of Egyptian gods and goddesses, analyzing the complex and changing iconography used to represent them, and disentangling the many seemingly contradictory aspects of the religion of which they are a part. He seeks to answer two basic questions: How did the Egyptians themselves see their gods? Did they believe there was an impersonal, anonymous force behind the multiplicity of their deities? Throughout, he attempts to evoke the complexity and richness of the religion of the ancient Egyptians and of their worldview, which differs so greatly from our own. Sensitively translated by John Baines and with a new preface by the author, this edition has been amplified and updated with an English-language audience in mind.
£23.99
Living Human Heritage Publications Professor Dr. Theodor Abt Egyptian Amduat: The Book of the Hidden Chamber
£95.39
Cornell University Press The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife
Ancient Egyptians held a rich and complex vision of the afterlife and codified their beliefs in books that were to be discovered more than two millennia later in royal tombs. Erik Hornung, the world's leading authority on these religious texts, surveys what is known about them today.The contents of the texts range from the collection of spells in the Book of the Dead, which was intended to offer practical assistance on the journey to the afterlife, to the detailed accounts of the hereafter provided in the Books of the Netherworld. Hornung looks closely at these latter works, while summarizing the contents of the Book of the Dead and other widely studied examples of the genre. For each composition, he discusses the history of its ancient transmission and its decipherment in modern times, supplying bibliographic information for any text editions. He also seeks to determine whether this literature as a whole presents a monolithic conception of the afterlife. The volume features many drawings from the books themselves—drawings that illustrate the nocturnal course of the sun god through the realm of the dead.Originally published in German and now available in a fluid English translation, this volume offers an accessible and enlightening introduction to a central element of ancient Egyptian religion.
£100.80
Cornell University Press Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many
An excellent historical overview of the gods... It is a recommended necessary reading for those studying Ancient Egyptian religion.―Frankie's Reviews in Egyptology A work of extraordinary distinction, Hornung’s book will appeal to anyone interested in ancient Egypt, in ancient religion, and in the history of religion, as well as students and scholars of ancient history, anthropology, and archaeology. Osiris, Horus, Isis, Thoth, Anubis - the many strange and compelling figures of the Egyptian gods and goddesses seem to possess endless fascination. The renowned Egyptologist Erik Hornung here studies the ancient Egyptians' conceptions of god, basing his account on a thorough reappraisal of the primary sources. His book, now available in English for the first time, is the most extensive exploration yet undertaken of the nature of Egyptian religion. Hornung examines the characteristics, spheres of action, and significance of Egyptian gods and goddesses, analyzing the complex and changing iconography used to represent them, and disentangling the many seemingly contradictory aspects of the religion of which they are a part. He seeks to answer two basic questions: How did the Egyptians themselves see their gods? Did they believe there was an impersonal, anonymous force behind the multiplicity of their deities? Throughout, he attempts to evoke the complexity and richness of the religion of the ancient Egyptians and of their worldview, which differs so greatly from our own. Sensitively translated by John Baines and with a new preface by the author, this edition has been amplified and updated with an English-language audience in mind.
£45.90
Cornell University Press The Sungod's Journey through the Netherworld: Reading the Ancient Egyptian Amduat
"The ancient Egyptian sources come alive, speaking to us without seeming alien to our modern ways of thinking. Andreas Schweizer invites us to join the nocturnal voyage of the solar barque and to immerse ourselves, with the 'Great Soul' of the sun, into the darkness surrounding us. Here in the illustrations and texts of the Amduat, threats hidden in the depths of our soul become visible as concrete images, an analysis of which remains ever worthwhile: even in the guise of the evil, ominous, or dark side of godhead with which Schweizer concerns himself. The netherworld into which we descend underlies our own world. Creative energies of dreadful intensity are active there, and only death, to which all must surrender, makes us truly alive by offering us regeneration from the depths."—Erik Hornung, from the Foreword The Amduat (literally "that which is in the netherworld") tells the story of the nocturnal journey of Re, the Egyptian Sungod, through the netherworld from the time when the sun dies, after setting in the west, to its rebirth at sunrise in the east. In the middle of the night, in the profoundest depths of the netherworld, this resurrection is made possible by a mystical union of the sun with the mummified body of Osiris, god of the dead. This great mystery of the union between the freely moving soul of the Sungod, longing for the bright and boundless sky, with Osiris's corpse, which is irrevocably bound to the subterranean realm of the dead, evokes the renewal of all life and the restoration of totality. In the Egyptian belief system, the pharaohs and in later times all blessed dead embarked on this same "night-sea journey" after death, ultimately becoming one with Re and living forever. The vision of the afterlife elaborated in the Amduat, dating from around 1500 B.C.E., has been influential for millennia, providing the model for an entire genre of Egyptian literature, the Books of the Afterlife, which in turn endured into the Greco-Roman era. Its themes and images persisted into gnostic and alchemical texts and made their way into early Christian portrayals of the beyond. In The Sungod's Journey through the Netherworld, Andreas Schweizer guides the reader through the Amduat, offering a psychological interpretation of its principal textual and iconographic elements. He is concerned with themes that run deep and wide in human experience, drawing on Jungian archetypes to find similar expression in many cultures worldwide: sleep as death; resurrection as reawakening or rebirth; and salvation or redemption, whether from original sin (as for Christians) or from the total annihilation of death (as for the ancient Egyptians).
£35.10
