The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Earth
Jun 2014 · Wilbour Studies in Egypt and Ancient Western Asia Book 1 · Lockwood Press
Ebook
594
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
Collections of scenes and texts designated variously as the "Book of the Earth," "Creation of the Solar Disc," and "Book of Aker" were inscribed on the walls of royal sarcophagus chambers throughout Egypt's Ramessid period (Dynasties 19-20). This material illustrated discrete episodes from the nocturnal voyage of the sun god, which functioned as a model for the resurrection of the deceased king. These earliest "Books of the Earth" employed mostly ad hoc arrangements of scenes, united by shared elements of iconography, an overarching, bipartite symmetry of composition, and their frequent pairing with representations of the double sky overhead. From the Twenty-First Dynasty and later, selections of programmatic tableaux were adapted for use in private mortuary contexts, often in conjunction with innovative or previously unattested annotations. The present study collects and analyzes all currently known Book of the Earth material, including discussions of iconography, grammar, orthography, and architectural setting.
About the author
Joshua Aaron Roberson is Assistant Professor, Department of History, Camden County College (Blackwood, NJ). He has worked as an epigrapher and sigillographer with the University of Pennsylvania expeditions to Saqqara and Abydos. He has also worked as a sigillographer for the French-Egyptian expedition (CNRS/CFEETK) to the Opet temple at Karnak, and has conducted independent research in the Valley of the Kings and El Asasif at Thebes (modern Luxor) and the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
