Walk (and Die) Like an Egyptian

For our final post on archaeology and how it helps us better understand biblical texts and the worldviews represented in them, we look at funerary relics from theCarlos Museum at Emory University. In these pictures, you see funerary masks and an excerpt from The Book of the Dead and other funeral texts. Looking at these items tells us something about how this group of ancient people experienced death. Not death as in personal death, but death as a social and communal concept and experience.

They were closer to death than we are, as were most ancient people. The amount of material explicitly related to death is astounding: funeral masks, scrolls, jewelry, artwork, coffins, tombs, and the list goes on. They had documents and rituals that prescribed behaviors and activities for those taking care of the death…and they had documents—reference materials really—for the dead people to consult in the afterlife (which is what we see in this picture).

Think about much of North American culture is dedicated to the activities around death? Very little. Businesses that make and sell coffins and headstones are usually located in out of the way places. There are few clothing items that are specially reserved for death (the dead or the mourners). Other than an occasional funerary urn for cremated ashes, there are few objects in anyone’s home that even gesture toward the reality of death or dying.

And whenwe look at the intricacies of these Egyptian death articles, one thoughtsurfaces: these things were made ahead of time. The tomb of a pharaoh beganbeing built when his or her reign began. And even ordinary people began preparationsfor death decades before it was expected.

Butironically, by being closer to death, they may have also been closer to life. Sociologistsand anthropologists note that cultures that have robust funerary practices andgrief observances also have more celebrations and festivals in general. Peoplewho do not mute the sound of death tend to not mute the other experiences inlife either.

I recently read the book Spiritual Care in African Religious Cultures by Dr. Emmanuel Lartey, and subsequently interviewed the author on our podcast (click here to watch!). In this book, Lartey traces traditional African spirituality back to these very Egyptian concepts of life and death. He describes the robust expression of grief and mourning that is a consistent thread through the diversity of African culture as an expansion of life, not an abbreviation of life.

When people get close to death, care for the dying, preparing the body, physically and socially grieving, and reverencing and remembering the dead, they see death as a part of life, not life’s opposite. This allows people to experience ongoing community with those who have died, thereby increasing life’s scope.

Those who withdraw from or deny the experience of death and refuse to mourn appropriately rob the dead of the proper emotional and communal feeling they deserve and require. They also rob themselves of feelings and experiences that keep them in touch with those they love. People who remove themselves from the natural vicinity of death actually—ironically—reduce the amount of life they recognize and so participate in.

This reality of and closeness to death helps us appreciate and learn from the Bible’s own“world-sense” (as Lartey calls it). The entire people of Israel pause their journey three times each for a month during the Exodus to grieve the deaths ofMiriam and Aaron and Moses. The female disciples go to Jesus’s tomb to anoint his dead body, to massage it with oils, to have the last touch that Jesus receives be from those who care for him.

We return to these scriptures again and again, believing that they hold wisdom about life. Perhaps one of the best lessons we might learn from the ancient world—the Bible’s world—is to draw close to life…even the death part.