The British Museum and the Book of the Dead

Well, I finally got out to see the British Museum this past Thursday, courtesy of an excursion organized by the Clarendon folks.

The British Museum

The museum was holding a late programme that evening in honor of their special exhibition on the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (an exhibition supported by BP... but we'll ignore that). The event included live performances, demonstrations, and various workshops focusing on different aspects of Egyptian burial and the journey through the underworld.

The British Museum

But the main attraction was, of course, the exhibition on the Book of the Dead. The Book of the Dead is not a single book. In fact, it's not a book at all, but a long scroll of papyrus inscribed with multiple spells meant to protect the dead on their journey in the afterlife. And, boy, what a journey! The ultimate goal was to attain eternal life with the god Osiris in his land of the dead, but only the worthy would be admitted. And so, the soul had to embark on a treacherous adventure, fighting off evil beasts and facing various challenges.

The most important challenge was the weighing of the heart. On one side of the scale would be placed the departed's heart. On the other, a feather. If that person had led a righteous life, his heart would weigh the same as the feather, and he would gain entrance to Osiris' paradisal kingdom, the Field of Reeds. If, however, the departed had led a life of sin, his heart would be heavy and he would fail the test. And what happened to the poor schmucks who were deemed unworthy of eternal paradise? Their souls were devoured by a terrible beast with the head of a crocodile, the torso of a lion, and the bottom of a hippopotamus, and they would be forced to wander aimlessly in perpetuity. Because the Ancient Egyptians believed the dead would face this test in the afterlife, the heart was the one organ not removed in the mummification process.

The spells included in the Book of the Dead could be instructions for how to vanquish the snakes and the beetles, mnemonic devices to ensure the tests would be passed, or simple prayers to ensure the body would remain in tact along the way. Thus, this text had great importance as a funerary object (if you could afford it, that is).

The exhibit, as you might expect, was fantastic. It was a great introduction to Egyptian burial practice and mythology, and had a good variety of material (e.g. pages from various Books of the Dead; amulets; figurines; sarcophagi; and, yes, mummies) on display. We also had a couple of people in the group with us who can read the hieroglyphs, so I had a good time listening to them make sense of the different spells. I probably spent a good hour and a half in that exhibit alone, and I enjoyed every second of it!

By the time I resurfaced, I had just over an hour before the group had to make its way back to Oxford. Fortunately, there were only two other objects in the museum that I just had to see.

The Rosetta Stone

The world-famous Rosetta Stone, inscribed with three different scripts (Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian hieratic script, and Greek script) and two languages (Ancient Egyptian and Greek), allowed Jean-François Champollion to decipher the hieroglyphs in the early 19th century. How surreal to have finally seen it in person!

The Copan Maize God

But, no visit to the British Museum would have been complete (for me) without this guy: my main maize man! I almost missed him tucked away in this bookshelf, but I spied him out of the corner of my eye and my heart filled with joy. Not even the London soot could take away from his beauty.

And that was it, mes amis. A brief, but wonderful, introduction to the British Museum. I cannot wait to go back and see what else this amazing museum has to offer!

I hope all is well back home!
Alyce

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the museum didn't allow photography in the Book of the Dead exhibit (because it would raise mummies from the dead, or something like that), hence the lack of photos.