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Glorification Spells from a Priestly Milieu in Ancient Egypt

Online ISBN:
9780198905073
Print ISBN:
9780192898784
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Glorification Spells from a Priestly Milieu in Ancient Egypt

Ann-Katrin Gill,
Ann-Katrin Gill
Georg Steindorff-Universität Leipzig
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Mark Smith
Mark Smith
University of Oxford
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Published online:
24 October 2024
Published in print:
5 September 2024
Online ISBN:
9780198905073
Print ISBN:
9780192898784
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This volume presents the first comprehensive edition of an ancient Egyptian ritual composition entitled the Glorification Recited on Each Due Occasion of the Embalming Place, a collection of glorification spells attested in five papyri from around 300 bce. These spells preserve and transmit religious ideas which resonated with the ancient Egyptians for millennia. The collection and adaptation of them into a single coherent ritual work bear witness to the remarkable creativity of the priests and scribes of the latest periods of Egyptian history. Much of this process may be attributable to members of a single family or a small circle of colleagues living in a particular place during a circumscribed period of time, highlighting the importance of individual or small-group agency, not only in preserving and transmitting religious traditions, but in transforming them as well. Glorification spells were recited in the embalming place and elsewhere. They were intended not only to revivify those to whom they were addressed, restoring their mental and physical faculties, but to secure their elevation to a new, exalted status, that of an akh, or glorified spirit, as well, which integrated the beneficiary within the hierarchy of gods and other glorified spirits in the next world. The book places the Glorification Recited on Each Due Occasion of the Embalming Place in its wider historical, religious, and sociological context. It should be of interest not only to Egyptologists but to scholars in a wide range of neighbouring disciplines as well.

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