The Book of the Dead

Receiving a renewal notice for my friendship with the British Museum on Friday finally got me to visit on the last day of this exhibition.  After a bit of argy bargy at Three Bridges station about train tickets (so expensive these days and the cheap ones are hidden on page two of the machine's menu) Adrian and I got to London for around noon. 

I am impressed by the technology in the BM.  Members don't book tickets for the special exhibitions but simply insert their card into the reader at the entrance for details checking and in you go.  The audio guide is now an iPod Touch in a tamper proof case with alarm attached and includes high quality graphics that point out particular areas of interest in an exhibit that enhances the experience.

The Egyptians could be accused of being obsessed by death given the amount of rigmarole surrounding it but death rituals are important sources of information about civilisations and this is no exception.  Cutting off the foreleg of a living calf as part of the ritual seems a bit unnecessary but other than that most of the activity seems quite harmless and makes as much sense as many modern religious rituals in my opinion.

Basically the Book is a sort of passport into the afterlife.  It's a book of spells to be used on the journey.  They vary in length and complexity, some are obviously created for their owners and others seem to be sort of 'off the peg' editions wish spaces to fill in the names after purchase (I presume money changed hands in the transaction). 

On of the things the traveller into the afterlife has to ensure is that their heart weighs in okay and that's what's happening in the picture above (copied from BM website).  If the heart does not pass this test the Devourer is standing by to gobble it up.  The Devourer is the funny looking creature on the right of the picture.  It has the head of a crocodile, the front end of a leopard and the rear of a hippopotamus.  A most unusual and interesting composite beast.

I loved the shabtis, they brought the ancients to life for me.  These mummified  miniature people accompany the deceased into the afterlife to perform any manual labour (so they don't have to do it themselves).  To spend any part of eternity engaged manual labour is so abhorrent to them they make arrangements to avoid it!  We think we know that this afterlife does not exist but it might.  Nobody actually knows.  This Ancient Egyptian afterlife has the advantage of being quite fully described unlike the monotheistic religions of modern times that always seem to be a bit vague on the detail.