The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)"I come with my heart bearing truth, and there are no lies in it..."
This is a visually and poetically beautiful book. The images from the papyrus are well imaged, the computerized restorations of the artwork were not (to me) obvious and did not detract from its beauty.
The translation is lyrical, and while not matched word for word with the original, the content is odd enough that I think it must be fairly close--no modern mind would make up this stuff. The papyrus text itself is clearly legible for anyone who wants to get obsessive about it (amazon also sells some books that allow you to learn middle egyptian--from which I gather that the word order in the language is very different from that in english. A word for word translation would therefore be very difficult to understand).
For someone with little familiarity with Middle Egyptian culture, the stories are a little difficult to understand on the first reading, but, inexplicably, they make more and more sense on re-reading. For example, the various afterlife characters have multiple 'epithets'--nicknames or titles--that can be difficult to keep straight, and there are references to stories that everyone in ancient Egypt probably knew but we today do not. (eg: 'He who is on his mound' probably evokes the egyptian tale of the beginning of the world--a mound rising out of a primordial ocean, upon which a falcon alighted--I'm guessing the expression refers to either Horus or Amun). Reading the text more than once allows you to pick up on some of the nicknames and blurring-together (syncretion) of the characters of the egyptian pantheon, which reduces the sense of 'having walked into the movie halfway through'.
The unusual verbal imagery is a property of the original work, and this translation does not attempt to 'interpret' these expressions for us, but leaves their ambiguities for our own minds to resolve, in my opinion making the text that much more interactive.
The commentaries at the end of the book do a good job of explaining how all this fit into the ancient Egyptian culture. The 'spells' meant to give power to the dead in the next life reveal what the ancient Egyptians valued in this one: truthfulness, 'effectiveness'/getting the job done, good food (and beer), and a safe and loving home (exemplified by the field of reeds). The basic values expressed in the text make these mysterious ancient people seem like people who could live next door today.
My only complaint is that the binding has proven not to be very secure; while I have not actually lost any pages from the book, some are loose and I fear that at some point soon, a few of them will fly out when someone opens the text. (My copy is about a year old.) Also note that the book is oversized, so you need more than a foot in height between your bookshelves in order to store it upright.
I would recommend this book for any coffee-table, because of its visual impact and beauty. I would also recommend it for anyone seriously interested in Egyptology, because of the excellent translations it contains. I recommend it for people who, like me, are new to Egyptology, because of the commentary it contains. Definitely worth the 20-odd bucks they charge for it--just don't manhandle the book spine.

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