The eighth meeting of the Ancient Near Eastern Seminar for the 2012-13
academic year will be:
Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Dr. Rita Lucarelli, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

Restless Dead and Ghosts in Ancient Egypt

Beliefs in ghosts and spirits of the dead are widespread in world
religions. In ancient Egypt, however, there is a certain inconsistency
in the mention of manifestations of the dead in magical and religious
texts. This paper will present and discuss the varied terminological
evidence which may indicate ghosts, revenants, and evil dead in the
spells of daily magic as well as in mortuary compositions such as the
ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. In particular, two categories of
spirits of the dead, such as the so-called akhw and mwtw-spirits, will
be analyzed in comparison to the general concept of “ghost” in world
religions, taking into account the ancient Egyptian ancestors cult and
the belief in the “glorified” (akh) or “justified” (maa kherw) dead in
mortuary religion.


The meeting will be held at the Columbia University Faculty House. We
begin gathering at 5:00 PM in the first floor lounge, and the lecture
will begin at 5:30 PM on the second floor, followed by optional dinner
with the speaker at 7:00 PM at the restaurant just outside the seminar
room. If you wish to make dinner reservations and join us (we will
need to report the number of guests), please contact our seminar
rapporteur, Hilah Loewenstein [hll2121@columbia.edu], and for those
without internet access, a phone call to me will be fine [(718)
817-3854]. The buffet dinner costs $25, and you must pay the
rapporteur in check. We must have your reservation request one week in
advance.