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REVIEW BY ROGER FORSHAW
In ancient Egypt, death was not regarded as the end of human existence, but rather as a transition to a new state of being in the afterlife. This scholarly but readable volume explores the evolution over time of one of the essential concepts of Egyptian afterlife beliefs: the Duat, or otherworld. The Duat represents an important element of the afterlife, but many scholars have been unable to agree on what the ancient Egyptians understood by this term.
In an extensive study of some ten major funerary compositions, extending from the Old Kingdom to the end of the New Kingdom, Silvia Zago not only examines the plurality of ideas embodied within the term ‘Duat’, but considers what the Duat comprises, and where it is imagined to be located. Her analysis includes a translation and discussion of some of the more important sections of the texts, as well as an examination of the relevant developments in Egyptian culture, society, and ideology that helps the reader to appreciate the context in which afterlife beliefs evolved.
Within the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom there was not a singular, unambiguous conception of the Duat, with its location and features conceived as flexible and variable. This premise continues into the subsequent Coffin Texts, but now an increasingly complex picture of the Duat begins to emerge, one bustling with demons and obstructive creatures. In addition, notions of the otherworld as a subterranean domain begin to infiltrate the funerary literature, where previously it had been thought to be primarily a celestial region. The funerary texts of the Book of the Dead develop this theme further by bringing together the solar and Osirian aspects of the otherworld, and, like its predecessors, the texts were intended, among other things, to ensure the deceased’s attainment of the glorified condition of the akh.
The Underworld Books, also known as the Amduat, which appeared in the New Kingdom, maintained the multifaceted attributes of the Duat, but also referred to a chthonic (inhabiting the underworld) nature. The increasingly physical character of a Duat as a clearly defined locale within the Egyptian cosmos is more explicit in the Underworld Books.
The final group of funerary texts that are examined, the Books of the Sky, appeared after the Amarna Period. The depiction of the realm that these texts evoke is primarily celestial as opposed to the chthonic realm of the contemporary Underworld Books.
This is a topic that previous researchers have tended to over-complicate, and their published works have challenged the reader. The author of this present study is to be congratulated, as this is a clear, well-written text and presents a complex aspect of ancient Egyptian funerary religion in a readable and coherent style.
A Journey through the Beyond: The Development of the Concept of Duat and Related Cosmological Notions in Egyptian Funerary Literature
by Silvia Zago
LOCKWOOD PRESS, 2022
ISBN 978-1-9484-8853-2
Hardback, £73
