The Great Myths #4: The Pyramid Texts of Ancient Egypt
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An episode from 1/28/21: Tonight, I read from perhaps the oldest surviving religious texts in the world, the spells and prayers that were inscribed into the walls of the tombs of the pharaohs as early as 2353 BC. Collectively referred to as the Pyramid Texts, they were the basis of the later Coffin Texts, and the more famous Egyptian Book of the Dead.
\\nThese texts were not meant as "literature" in any modern sense. Instead, inscribed as they were into the walls of the pharaoh\'s tomb, the pharaoh\'s spirit was supposed to recite them after death in order to travel into the sky, gain access to the Egyptian afterlife, and identify himself completely with Osiris, the god of death and resurrection.
\\nIn this first episode on Egyptian mythology, we can see immediately how the spells and prayers are a great example of just how strange and off-putting ancient literature can really be. The very real theological and spiritual needs of the Egyptians, which had little use for narrative as we think of it, led them to create this incantatory and repetitive form of liturgy. There\'s nothing else quite like it.
\\nThe books I read from in this episode include:
\\n- \\n
- The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, tr. James P. Allen (read the introduction here) \\n
- The Ancient Egyptian Pyramids Texts, tr. Raymond O. Faulkner \\n
- Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many \\n
Other episodes on Egyptian mythology are here.
\\nDon\\u2019t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us\\xa0on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books:\\xa0Notes from the Grid,\\xa0To the House of the Sun,\\xa0The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and\\xa0Bone Antler Stone.
\\nAny comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to\\xa0humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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