271
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_29
Chapter 29
Book of the Dead
29.1 Zoomorphic Perplexities
The Papyrus of Ani, or Book of the Dead, was composed c. 1250 BCE, the period of
the nineteenth dynasty of the Egyptian New Kingdom, and rediscovered in 1888 by
Sir E. A. Wallis Budge (1857–1934). Budge was a Keeper of the Egyptian and
Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum, a man who could read handwritten
hieroglyphs. But he experienced a strange problem, upon endeavoring to translate
the manuscript of Ani.
1
Known to some of his friends as “Father of the Skulls,”
2
Budge’s fluency in multiple ancient human languages in Sudan, Egypt, Syria,
Ethiopia, and Mesopotamia, among others, brought him into a confluence, alien in
his time, of zoomorphic ensembles unlike any other linguistic and philosophical
puzzle in human history. In chapter CLXXV, a dying man asks the god (of) Anu,
“How long have I to live?” to which the god replies, “Thou shalt exist for millions
of millions of years…,” and all signified by birds conducting themselves in various
situations. In chapter LXXXIV, a deceased individual thinks himself Shu, who
embodies the belief in the eternal life of the soul, enshrined in motifs of other species
3
(Fig. 29.1).
The myriad hymns, Heart-souls, signs of life, funeral passages, solar mounts,
doorways, dead bodies, raised hands, gods and goddesses, sun-disks and horns,
shrines and mummies are all dominated by a celestial ensemble of— predominantly—
1 See Budge, E. A. Wallis (1920). By Nile and Tigris: A Narrative of Journeys in Egypt and
Mesopotamia on Behalf of the British Museum Between the Years 1886 and 1913. Main 4th floor:
London, J. Murray.
2 https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.
aspx?bioId=93650
3 The Book of the Dead: The Hieroglyphic Transcript of the Papyrus of Ani, the Translation into
English and an Introduction by E. A. Wallis Budge, Late Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian
Antiquities in The British Museum, University Books, New Hyde Park, New York, University
Books, Inc., 1960, pp. 67–68.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_29
Chapter 29
Book of the Dead
29.1 Zoomorphic Perplexities
The Papyrus of Ani, or Book of the Dead, was composed c. 1250 BCE, the period of
the nineteenth dynasty of the Egyptian New Kingdom, and rediscovered in 1888 by
Sir E. A. Wallis Budge (1857–1934). Budge was a Keeper of the Egyptian and
Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum, a man who could read handwritten
hieroglyphs. But he experienced a strange problem, upon endeavoring to translate
the manuscript of Ani.
1
Known to some of his friends as “Father of the Skulls,”
2
Budge’s fluency in multiple ancient human languages in Sudan, Egypt, Syria,
Ethiopia, and Mesopotamia, among others, brought him into a confluence, alien in
his time, of zoomorphic ensembles unlike any other linguistic and philosophical
puzzle in human history. In chapter CLXXV, a dying man asks the god (of) Anu,
“How long have I to live?” to which the god replies, “Thou shalt exist for millions
of millions of years…,” and all signified by birds conducting themselves in various
situations. In chapter LXXXIV, a deceased individual thinks himself Shu, who
embodies the belief in the eternal life of the soul, enshrined in motifs of other species
3
(Fig. 29.1).
The myriad hymns, Heart-souls, signs of life, funeral passages, solar mounts,
doorways, dead bodies, raised hands, gods and goddesses, sun-disks and horns,
shrines and mummies are all dominated by a celestial ensemble of— predominantly—
1 See Budge, E. A. Wallis (1920). By Nile and Tigris: A Narrative of Journeys in Egypt and
Mesopotamia on Behalf of the British Museum Between the Years 1886 and 1913. Main 4th floor:
London, J. Murray.
2 https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.
aspx?bioId=93650
3 The Book of the Dead: The Hieroglyphic Transcript of the Papyrus of Ani, the Translation into
English and an Introduction by E. A. Wallis Budge, Late Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian
Antiquities in The British Museum, University Books, New Hyde Park, New York, University
Books, Inc., 1960, pp. 67–68.