we're in the British Museum in London in
a room that is filled with ancient
Egyptian mummies and as a result it's
also filled with modern children and
tourists it's a great room there's great
stuff here we're looking at a fragment
of a scroll which is largely ignored if
the papyrus scroll and papyrus is a reed
that grows in the Nile Delta that was
made into a kind of paper like substance
and actually was probably the single
most important surface for writing right
up into the medieval we're looking at a
written text of something that we call
The Book of the Dead which the ancient
Egyptians had other names for but which
was an ancient text that had spells and
prayers and incantations things that the
Dead needed in the afterlife this is a
tradition that goes all the way back to
the Old Kingdom writing that we call
Pyramid Texts these were sets of
instructions for the afterlife and then
later we have coffin texts writing on
coffins and then even later in the New
Kingdom
we have Scrolls like this that we call
the books of the Dead sometimes the
texts were written on papyrus like the
one we're looking at sometimes they were
written on shrouds that the dead were
buried in so these were really important
texts that were originally just for
Kings in the Old Kingdom but came to be
used by people who were not just part of
the royal family but still people of
high rank and that's what we're looking
at here this text was found in the tomb
of someone named who never a scribe
scribe had a priestly status so we are
dealing here with somebody who is
literate who occupied a very high
station in Egyptian culture and we
actually see representations of the man
who had died was buried with this text
and we look on the left edge of this
scroll at the top you can see a
crouching figure in white who nifer who
is speaking to a line of
pouching deities gods professing the
good life that he lived that he's earned
a place in the afterlife well what we
have below is a scene of judgment
whether who never has lived a good life
and deserves to live into the afterlife
and we see who never again this time
standing on the far left and we can
recognize him because he's wearing the
same white robe and he's being led by
the hand by a god with a jackal head
Anubis a god that's associated with the
dead with mummification with cemeteries
and he's carrying in his left hand and
on a symbol of eternal life and that's
exactly what who nifer is after if we
continue to move toward the right we see
that jackal-headed God again Anubis this
time crouching and adjusting a scale
making sure that it is exactly balanced
and the left side we see the heart of
the dead so the heart is on one side of
the scale on the other side of the
feather the feather belongs to my two we
also see at the very top of the scale we
can see a feather coming out of her head
now my aunt is a deity associated with
divine order with living an ethical
ordered life and in this case that the
feather is lower the feather is heavier
Huna fir has lived an ethical life and
therefore he's brought into the
afterlife so he won't be devoured by
that evil looking beast next to Anubis
that's almond who has the head of a
crocodile the body of a lion and the
hindquarters of a hippopotamus he's
waiting to devour hoon effers heart
should he be found to have not lived an
ethical life not lived according to Maya
the Egyptians believed that only if you
live the ethical life only if you pass
this test would you be able to have
access to the afterlife it's not like
their Christian conception where you
have an afterlife for everybody no
matter if they were blessed or sinful
that is you either go to heaven or you
go to
here you only go to the afterlife if you
have been found to be ethical the next
figure that we see is another deity this
time with the head of an Ibis of a bird
this is Thoth who is recording the
Proceedings of what happens to Hoonah
fur and in this case reporting that he
has succeeded and will move on to the
afterlife
I love the representation of Thoth he is
so upright and his arm is stretched out
rendered in such a way that we trust him
he's going to get this right next you
see who never yet again this time being
introduced to one of the supreme gods in
the Egyptian pantheon Osiris and he's
being introduced to Osiris by Osiris his
son Horus Horus is easy to remember
whose Horus is associated with a falcon
and here has a Falcons head Horus is the
son of Osiris and holds in his left hand
and ankh which we saw earlier and again
that's a symbol of eternal life he is
introducing him to Osiris as you said
who is in this fabulous enclosure speaks
to the importance of this deity he's
enthroned he carries symbols of Egypt
and he sits behind a lotus blossom a
symbol of eternal life and on top of
that lotus blossom Horus is for children
who represent the four cardinal points
north south east and west the children
of Horus are responsible for caring for
the internal organs that would be placed
in canopic jars so they have a critical
responsibility for keeping the dead
preserved we see Horus again but
symbolized as an eye now remember Horus
is represented as a falcon as a bird and
so here even though he's the symbol of
the eye he has talents instead of hands
and those carry an ostrich feather also
a symbol of eternal life the
representation of the eye of horus has
to do with another ancient Egyptian myth
the battle between Horus and Seth but
that's another story now behind Osiris
we see two smaller standing female
figures one of whom is
this of Cyrus's wife other is her sister
Nephthys who is a guardian of the
afterlife and sister of Anubis though
figure who we saw in the very beginning
leading une affaire into judgment notice
the white platform that those figures
are standing on that represents Natron
the natural assaults that are deposited
in the Nile and they were used by the
ancient Egyptians to dry out all of the
mummies that are in this room so that
they could be preserved
actually the word preservation is really
key to thinking about Egyptian culture
generally because this is a culture
whose forms whose representations in art
remain remarkably the same for thousands
of years even though there are periods
of instability or even just before this
we had the are marna period where we saw
a very different way of representing the
human figure what we see here these
forms look very familiar to us because
this is the typical way the ancient
Egyptians represented the human figure
even though this is a painting from the
New Kingdom these forms would have been
recognizable to Egyptians thousands of
years earlier in the Old Kingdom and we
see that mixture that we see very often
in ancient Egyptian art of words of
hieroglyphs of writing and images left
the mix in our modern culture we really
make a distinction between written
language and the visual arts and here in
ancient Egypt there really is this
closer relationship this greater sense
of integration