The belief in life after death is one of the most defining aspects of Egyptian culture, which has fascinated the outside world for millennia. The sources affording us a glimpse into notions of the otherworld are many and range in date from the early Pharaonic (~3000 BCE) to the Graeco-Roman period (332 BCE – 395 CE). Although there was no single conceptualization of death and the next life, one core notion always formed the basis of all afterlife beliefs: death was merely a temporary condition, a transition towards a new status known as akh (lit. “effective being”), which the deceased hoped to gain after overcoming a series of obstacles lying on their path to rebirth. For the ancient Egyptians, achieving immortality was of paramount importance: the alternative was a second, ultimate death, which would wipe out one’s existence in the beyond as well as any memory of them in the society of the living.

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