Death Flashcards
1
Q
Aspects of the dead Egyptian
A
- The akh - the spirit which reflect the deeds of the person in life - can interact with this world
- The ka - created at the same time as the person themselves, a kind of double or twin which survives death and gets sustenance between the world - magic formula and offerings directed to this
- The ba - human headed bird - form of the spirit that could interact with the physical world
- The shadow - role unclear and is part of the spirit
- The body - must be preserved to reach the afterlife - earthbound conduit
- The name - as long as name survives on earth, they cannot be completely obliterated
2
Q
ḥtp-dỉ-nsw formula
A
- Magically produces food and drink
- End ‘for the ka of X’
- Sometimes around false doors
- False doors are public part of the tomb where the two worlds come together and offerings can be placed
3
Q
Egyptian ‘Book of Coming Forth by Day’ (AKA ‘Book of the Dead’)
A
- 16th C BC onwards, second intermediate period
- Guidebook to being dead
- Takes one through the process - riddles to be answered at various gateways from death to the judgement hall
- In judgement hall, heart (intelligence and memory) is weighed against a feather by Maat, goddess of justice and truth, and the result is recorded by Thoth
- Presented to Osiris who lets them into the afterlife
- If it is not lighter, Ammit will eat your heart and the spirit will be left to wander the earth
- If it is written down, it has happened so everyone who depicts this goes through
- Heart scarabs used to keep guilt hidden
- Book of the Dead - shows field of Iaru - where commoners end up -bigger and better Egypt with better crops etc.
- Dead person lives on their existing life, just better
4
Q
Pyramid Texts
23rd/22nd C BC
A
- Old Kingdom
- Only for kings at this place
- To aid in guiding the spirit to the next world
- Predates book of dead
5
Q
Coffin Texts
21st/17th C BC
A
- Middle Kingdom
- Parts are incorporated into the Book of the Dead
6
Q
Predynastic burial
A
- Naqqada culture
- Crouched bodies in the desert sound
- Surrounded by sparse grave goods e.g. pottery - pottery much higher quality here than in later periods
- Natural preservation - desiccation from sun and sand
- May have inspired mummification
7
Q
Mummification process
A
- Depends on what people could afford
- Peak in the New Kingdom
- Evisceration - removal of all organs apart from the kidneys and heart
- Brain removed via nostrils
- Dessiccation - body buried in Natron - natural salt
- Natron needs to be changed at least once over the month it is buried in
- Wrapping - Organs are separately dessicated, wrapped and put in canopic jars
- The Catafalque - put in coffins and taken to the tomb in a procession
- Earliest mummies have same pose as predynastic burials but are later fully extended
8
Q
The Funeral
A
- Opening the Mouth - funerary ceremony working as a magical reanimation practice
- Body held up and made to eat with various implements, e.g. Weekend at Bernies
9
Q
Canopic Equipment
A
- Varies over time
- Start of as simple functional things, then have human heads, then four sons of horus atop each jar - protective deities of the dead
- May be placed in a Canopic chest
- Royalty have much richer canopic jars - solid gold miniature coffins with a stone canopic chest
- Baboon
- Hawk
- Jackal
- Human
10
Q
Mummies: external treatment
A
- Stretched out in a position of sleep - lying on side with right leg over the left
- Body on it’s side in the coffin until the Middle Kingdom
- Outer wrapping soaked in plaster so the features of the body can be modelled
- After Middle Kingdom - replaced by a stretched out body with a helmet mask over head and shoulders
- Masks go in and out of fashion
- Bead nets sometimes draped over body, without a mask, with deities depicted in beads
11
Q
Early Coffins
A
- Earliest are short and fat, reflecting the crouched position of the mummies
- Many are simple wooden boxes but some have nice rounded lids and paneled exteriors, to represent a chapel or high status building
- Rectangular coffins remain the standard for 1000 years until the Middle kingdom
- Some kings coffins more simple than private ones
- Eye panels designed to allow the deceased to look out - hence lying on left side - sometimes looking at pile of offerings - sometimes a depiction of what he can see on the inside -Eye panels still found on coffins even when body is lying on its back
12
Q
Sarcophagi
A
- external rectangular container, not always made of stone
- range from simple to panelled, then elaborately decorated in the New Kingdom - deities, sons of horus, eye panels regardless of position of bodies and extensive texts
- Wooden ones also exist, mostly from 18th dynasty
- New Kingdom Dyn XIX - more elaborate, pictures of the kings body on the lid
13
Q
Shabtis
A
- Magical servants of the deceased
- Corvee labour still happening after you die - could be conscripted so need someone to do the work for you in the afterlife
- Initally just one, then eventually one for every day of the year and overseers
- Could be over 400
- Design changes over time - end up as little blue statues
14
Q
Offering Stelas
A
- Found in the offering place - depicts person and offerings being made
- Depictions of things that should be bought - assumed real food would be bought but not always the case
- Eventually evolve into offering formulae
15
Q
Saqqara: Step Pyramid
A
- First monumental tombs
- Built on top of the burial place itself
- Dynasty III, 2600 BC
- Built for King Djoser by Imhotep
- Combination of the offering place and burial chamber
- First underground gallery to have decoration - after this, not kings burial passages are decorated for a few centuries
16
Q
Medium Pyramid
A
- Dashur, 4th Dynasty
- Pyramid of Sneferu, along with the Red and Bent Pyramids
- Step pyramids don’t last long
- Looks strange as it started as a step pyramid, was converted to a pointed pyramid, then partially collapsed
- Gives up on rectangular enclosure approach in favour of a simpler one - from here on pyramids have a small temple on the Western face and a causeway which leads to the edge of the desert - becomes the standard plan for a pyramid
17
Q
Giza Pyramids
A
- Great Pyramid - 4th Dynasty, Khufu
- Followed by Pyramid of Khafre and the smaller modest-sized Pyramid of Menkaure nearby
18
Q
Rock Tombs
A
- Tombs for private individuals in areas where topography doesn’t allow mastabas to be built e.g. at Aswan
- offering places cut out of living rock
- New Kingdom- rock cup chapels with a view, overlooking processional ways
- Decoration of private individuals surrounding food production and activities people want to continue e.g. hunting, cooking etc - associated with food
- Burial chambers typically undecorated
19
Q
Memorial Temples
A
- Old and Middle Kingdoms - temple dedicated to the deceased King
- New Kingdoms - main temples are dedicated to the King of the Gods Amun, with the King only a subsidiary - separation of spaces in the temples
- Burial chamber once again moves some distance away from the memorial temple
20
Q
Valley of the Kings
A
- Tomb chamber moves way away from the memorial temples - couple of kms away
- In the New Kingdom, moved into the valley of the kings, on the other side of a rock ridge where ‘secret’ tombs were built to avoid tomb robbers
21
Q
Mesopotamian Underworld:
A
- From texts - no funerary texts, just references in other texts
• Ruled by goddess Ereshkigal & her husband Nergal
• Inhabited by the etemmu of the dead
• Underground, below the world of the living
• Dark, damp and dreary:
• ‘The place where they live on dust, their food is mud, and they see no light …’. - not desirable like Egyptian afterlife
• Accessed via land infested by demons, crossing the Khubur River, with the aid of its guardian, and then passing though seven gates to reach the netherworld - no equivalent book of the dead to guide them through this
• If proper offerings not made by living, dead might return as malevolent ghosts
22
Q
Ashur royal cemeteries
A
- 11th-9th century BC
- Over 1000 years after the Royal Tombs of Ur - not much evidence inbetween
- Royal Tombs of Ur are in the city but in distinct cemeteries - now the Ashur tombs are underneath houses
- Brick structures with vaulted or pointed roofs
- Private individuals buried underneath houses, royalty buried underneath palaces
23
Q
Mycenae
A
- Grave circles were initially outside the main walled structure but were later enclosed within the walls
- Main high status cemetery still outside the walls however
24
Q
Grave Circles
A
- Oldest tomb = grave circle B - contains shaft graves which are deep shafts with the body placed at the bottom with a roof over it, then filled in - at the bottom were grave markers
- MH III- LHIA 17th-16th c BC
- all burials within known by greek letters - all contain pottery from MH IIIB, some stelas and Electrum (gold and silver) alloy death masks (LH), lots of gold work
- Grave Circle A is later but was discovered earlier by Schliemann - LHI - 17th BC where he found ‘Agamemnon’ but date wrong for this
- Thought this due to gold mask - clearly v important people - large shaft graves with elaborate grave goods inc silver and gold rhyton (to pour wine) in the shape of a bulls head, stela of a chariot fight
25
Q
Chamber Tombs
A
- Shaft tombs replaced as standard high status tomb with Chamber tombs and Tholos
- Entrance passage way and chamber cut out of the rock
- Tholos is free standing equivalent - entrance passage then beehive shaped chamber for burial
- Both tomb types seem to have been used on a generational basis - reopened and reused by descendants
- Chamber tombs ubiquitos around greece, not just Mycenae
- Tholoi at Mycenae include Tomb of Atreus and Tomb of Clytemnestra, both 13th c BC - given names of Homeric heroes even though they definitely weren’t
- Triangular arch above the doorway typical
26
Q
Cretan Tombs
A
- Tholoi also found in Crete e.g. at Phourni, 14th c BC
- Some pillar crypt to one side of the Tholos - not sure what the meaning of these is but thought to be funerary, as well as in living cult centres e.g palaces
- Some other types of tombs found but their exact context remains unclear
27
Q
Cremation and Inhumation
A
- Cremation more common in Iron Age when Greece emerges from the Dark Ages - inhumation standard around the near east before this
- Cremation changes whole nature of burials - just a jar now
- Athens, 9th c BC
28
Q
The Homeric funeral
A
No written records before classical times but we have evidence during this, particularly from Homer - we assume this is what was happening at his time but we can’t be sure
1. Prothesis: laying out body
2. Ekphora: conveyance to place of interment (began before dawn on 3rd
day)
3. Kedia: deposition of cremated or inhumed remains
4. Perideipnon: ceremonial feast, conceptually hosted by the dead person
- Range of grave goods - statues (kuoros and kore), pots, etc
29
Q
Attica
A
- Area around athens
-Switching between whether Cremation of Inhumation is the standard
11th-10th C: single inhumation
9th-8th C: cremation
later 8th C: inhumation (contemporary with establishment of polis)
7th C: primary cremation
6th C: inhumation early
5th C: stone stelae banned
-Solon’s reforms in early 6th C included that lamentation in the home and in public should be restrained, dignified and restricted to the close relatives of deceased
30
Q
Book of Amuduat
A
- 15th century BC onwards
- Kings don’t need to go through the same judgement process that commoners do - don’t need to go live in the next world
- Kings join with the other gods instead
- Reflected that in the royal tombs of New Kingdom onwards, wall depictions are to do with the journey of the Sun god through the underworld (ram headed Re)
- Idea = King is fused with sun god, takes part in his death at sunset and his Resurrection at sun rise
31
Q
Later Coffins
A
-Anthropoid mummy case comes in Middle Kingdom, around 2000 BC onwards - essentially outer depictions of wrapped mummys with mask and shroud
-Later, rectangular coffin goes out of use and anthropoid coffin becomes an independent container
-Rishi (feathered) coffin - body depicted as a ba bird
-White coffins - New Kingdom - reversion to depicting a wrapped mummy
-Black coffins - design stays the same but colour changes to black in middle of 18th dynasty - black colour of dead deities skin, death and resurrection
Kings keep rishi coffins around 600 years after private individuals has stopped using it
-Stone anthropoid coffins used for high status private individuals
-Yellow coffins - late 14th c to 9th c BC but details change over same- decoration gets more and more elaborate
- 13th century - idea of depicting mummy goes out the window briefly and coffins depict person in everyday, living clothes - good for dating
-9th century - complete change in design, with kings in particular losing feathers but it being replaced by a hawks head
32
Q
Models
A
- 12th dynasty - common to have models of food production activities place in the burial chamber e.g. granaries
33
Q
Abydos
A
- Earliest royal tombs
- Simple cuttings in the desert gravel, lined with mud brick, with a wooden roof and a mound of sand or gravel on top of them
- Small graves around the kings graves are sacrificed servants - Early Dynastic Period 3000-2700 BC - workers died at the same time as the king
- Future tombs had great rectangular enclosures built where funerals were carried out, before the body was moved a few km away
34
Q
Private tombs
A
- Initially similar to royal tombs - mud lined graves cut in the desert, simple but sometimes with more elaborate paneled mud brick superstructures
- Also surrounded by graves of their servants but no evidence they died with owner like king
- Offering place in left hand niches, where living could come and place offerings
35
Q
Pyramids
A
- Earliest are the best built - get smaller and poorer after Sneferu - however mortuary temples get bigger
- 1900 - pyramids start being built of stone rather than brick
- Small pyramids around it built for Queens
- Last pyramids have complex internal arrangements with hidden passageways to dissuade tomb robbers
- Burial chambers generally undecorated in private and royal tombs until the offering stela becomes more standardised and turns into a false door
- New Kingdom - pyramids abolished for kings and are introduced for the first time for private individuals
36
Q
Mastaba tombs
A
- Old and Middle Kingdoms - Private individuals are under bench shaped mud brick Mastaba tombs
- Some free standing tombs built with little pyramids on top
37
Q
Royal Tombs of Ur
A
- Early burials in distinct cemeteries, then later within settlements and underneath houses and palaces, such as at Ur, where royal cemeteries are under the main temple
- Monumental sub structure, but no monumental superstructure
- Built structures in pits in the ground
- Most famous example PG/789 is the so called ‘Death Pit of Ur’ - huge amount of material - lots of aurochs and servants, all killed/sacrified themselves at the same time within the pit, in situ and it is then filled in
38
Q
Queen Puabi
A
- One of the Royal Tombs of Ur
- Elaborately dressed, buried with a gold crown
39
Q
Nimrud
A
- Burials of Queens in Northwest Palace, underneath courtyards
- Coffins, jewellery
40
Q
Persia
A
- Royal tombs, particularly in Pasagardae and Persepolis
- includes Tomb of Cyrus (559-529 BC) founder of Persian Empire - Tomb is a podium with a pointed roof tomb chamber on top at Pasagardae
- More typical tomb is one such as the Tomb of Darius I(522-486 BC), a tomb cut into a vertical rock face with a facade and a stereotype of the king and various subject races
- Chamber inside with a series of body cuttings
41
Q
Cist Graves
A
-Cutting lined with stone with a roof of stone and the body is placed within
42
Q
Pithos Grave
A
- Bodies buried in large pots - particularly with child burials, but also very large pots in which adults (“humans”) are buried
