Life, Death and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt
Illustrated in colour throughout.
The elaborately decorated coffin of Djehutymose, a priest of the ancient Egyptian god Horus from around 625-580 BC, is one of the central artifacts of the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology's Egyptian collection. Using the images and texts from the coffin along with related artifacts in the Kelsey Museum, Egyptologist T. G. Wilfong explores what the coffin tells us about ancient Egyptian ideas of life, death, and the afterlife. We follow Djehutymose through his life as a priest, through his death, embalming, and afterlife, examining his gods and symbols as he undertakes a voyage into the afterlife. Finally we see how his coffin journeyed from ancient Egypt to modern Ann Arbor. This richly illustrated book serves as a general introduction to ancient Egyptian religion as well as a specialised study of a single Egyptian artifact in its wider contexts.
T.G. Wilfong is Professor of Egyptology at the University of Michigan, where he is also Curator for Graeco-Roman Egypt at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. He has published and lectured extensively on topics relating to gender, sexuality and religion in Pharaonic, Graeco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt.