One of the most profound, deeply affecting questions we face as human beings is the matter of our mortality–and its connection to immorality. Ancient animist ghost cultures, Egyptian mummification, late Jewish hopes of resurrection, Christian eternal salvation, Muslim belief in hell and paradise all spring from a remarkably consistent impulse to tether a triumph over death to our conduct in life.

In After Lives, British scholar John Casey provides a rich historical and philosophical exploration of the world beyond, from the ancient Egyptians to St. Thomas Aquinas, from Martin Luther to modern Mormons.

The ancient Egyptians saw the afterlife as flowing from ma’at, a sense of being in harmony with life, a concept that includes truth, order, justice, and the fundamental law of the universe. “It is an optimistic view of life,” he writes. “It is an ethic that connects wisdom with moral goodness.” Perhaps just as revealing, Casey finds, are modern secular interpretations of heaven and hell, as he probes the place of goodness, virtue, and happiness in the age of psychology and scientific investigation.

With elegant writing, a magisterial grasp of a vast literary and religious history, and moments of humor and irony, After Lives sheds new light on the question of life, death, and morality in human culture.

Musée de la Civilisacion is located in Quebec, Canada.  Their latest exhibit takes you back to ancient Egypt to learn about the process behind mummification, and the significance of the rituals these desert dwellers engaged in to secure a blissful afterlife.

The exhibit website has a variety of features to engage the user in the learning process.  When you enter, you choose between French of English, and immediately are immersed in a world where organs are placed in jars and ancient gods assist the dead on their journey into the afterlife.

There are three stages of learning that one must go through before entering the “Sarcophagi Chamber” to earn your place in the underworld.  If you successfully complete all three stages, you will be awarded a place in the Sarcophagi Chamber, along with a cartouche of your own name in a customizable wallpaper image.

If you have an interest in Egyptian mythology, or even just a few minutes to kill on some fun, easy games, definitely check it out.

Excerpted from an article by Austin Keenan for inventorspot.com

Ancient Egyptian tombs and mortuary temples usually featured stone stelae, or markers, which were carved to resemble doors or gateways, and these seem to have had a symbolic function as ways of access to the dead. Investigation of the function of such gateways is one part of the exhibition’s remit, but the general idea is much broader than that.

There are some 370 objects on display culled from the major European museums as well as from the Louvre, and these range from sculptures made to a larger than human scale to tiny amulets and various kinds of tomb goods.

The exhibition’s first room, entitled “‘first time’: the creation of the world,” examines ancient Egyptian creation myths, looking in particular at the ways in which the ancient Egyptians seem to have carved up the cosmos into adjoining spaces and how they conceptualised the boundaries between them. The room is painted bright yellow in reference to the role played by the sun in ancient Egyptian thought. From here, the visitor moves to the second room, darkened throughout, which is given over to the world for which the ancient Egyptians are most famous, that of the dead.

The outer coffin of an official named Sepi who lived during the reigns of the Middle Kingdom pharaohs Sesostris II and III (1868- 1843 BCE) is on display, and this includes a detailed map of the afterlife showing the areas through which the dead man could have been expected to move and providing him with the various spells that could be used to charm the guardians of the different regions. This coffin, found at Deir el-Bersheh in the outer chamber of the tomb of another official named Djehoutyhotep, is now in the Louvre.

During the later New Kingdom the provision of texts about the afterlife seems to have grown into quite an industry, with individuals commissioning papyrus copies of different spells in the form of what the ancient Egyptians knew as the “Book for Going Forth by Day” and what has come down to us as their Book of the Dead. Such spells were written out on papyrus according to the needs of the individual client, and the exhibition includes many different versions of such commissions together with further examples that were carved or painted on tomb walls.

The last two rooms of the exhibition are given over to the modes of communication that could take place, mediated by religion, between the living and the dead. Once again the emphasis is on gateways, doors, and the various connecting points identified by the ancient Egyptians between this world and the next.

Excerpted from an article by David Tresilian for Al-Ahram Weekly

For ancient Egyptians, death was the easy part. Gaining eternity was, regardless of rank, a journey that makes Dante’s Inferno look like a walk in the park. And though they could not buy their way into the afterlife, those with means definitely had a strong advantage. That is the context of “To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum” at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

More than 100 objects spanning 4,000 years illustrate the evolution of a complex system of beliefs and rituals regarding the departure from this life and entry into the next.

We see how those lower on the food chain emulated as best they could the surface feeders and understand that it wasn’t just for show. How one was buried and with what accoutrements were, literally, life and death issues. Amassing the money needed to pay for a proper sendoff could take years.

Preservation of the body was paramount, as was specific identification by name. Different levels of mummification were available, and whether you got the full treatment, in which most of the organs were removed and everything encased in resin, or a simple wash-and-wrap job, depended on your budget. The heart, considered to control thought and emotion, was left in the body. The brain, not believed to have value, was destroyed.

The goal was to arrive in the netherworld beneath the earth, undertake a perilous journey by boat, avoid the onslaughts of demons and find an advantageous spot to settle down permanently.

Unlike other large shows of Egyptian antiquities I have seen, this one is not intended to inspire awe. It gives us a sense of how real people coped with the exigencies of life and aspirations in death. Because so much time is covered, we also see how many practices changed. And though it dwells on the nonrich a lot, most of the objects belonged to those with some means. The poorest people probably could not afford even a simple coffin.

The Brooklyn Museum, which organized the show from its own enormous, world-famous collection, sent few objects made of precious metals and gems. But I really like the show. It has a clear mission and makes sense of the carved stones and old statues that tend to make our eyes glaze over in many antiquities shows.

Excerpted from an article by Lennie Bennett, Times Art Critic for tampabay.com

To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum is at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 5401 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota, through Jan. 11. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily. Admission, which includes the Circus Museum and Ca d’Zan, is $19 adults, $16 seniors, $6 children 6 to 17. (941) 359-5700; ringling.org.

According to Virginia Brilliant, “…the Egyptians really loved life, they loved their life on earth, they had a very joyous life.” She has overseen the installation of more than 100 objects of ancient Egyptian art originally collected by Charles Edwin Wilbour, an amateur Egyptologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and now part of the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum. Highlights include the mummified remains of Demetrios, a wealthy citizen of Hawara at around 100 A.D.; two mummified dogs and the painted coffin of a mayor of Thebes from around 1075-945 B.C. The exhibition is touring to 10 museums across the country. The Ringling is the collection’s second stop.

“To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum” will be on display through Jan. 11, with a wide range of supporting programming, including educational ones for children and adults, and an evening of Egyptian-styled food.

Herald Tribune