book of the dead

Painting – Egyptian Beliefs beginning of afterlife

Painting – Egyptian Beliefs beginning of afterlife

Dead Roses

Painting

A big part of my art is finding ways to express what I want to, but I also love looking into peoples cultures and finding out about their arts and beliefs as I find this really interesting. One that I have really loved is looking into is the Egyptian beliefs and the stories of their gods.

I have looked in to this a lot in the past and i find their belief of the after life interesting as a lot of people believe there is nothing. I am not sure what I believe, so I do like to get very involved in others thoughts as they do help me to be more open minded.

This means my art could take two different views, as I could do a persons life through time leading to nothing and then I could do a life leading to the after life.

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The Afterlife…..

For me to fully understand the after life I feel I need to look into the reason or beginning of the belief. For this I’m going to look deeper into the first tomb we found that shows us about what they did for the afterlife

Kha and Merit…..

Kha and merit were a husband (kha) and his wife (merit) who lives within a small village that was located between the desert and the river Nile in Egypt about 35,000 years ago. Their tomb was discovered and explored within 1906, They then moved everything within the tomb to a museum in Italy.

Within the tomb was all of their belongings from food to perfumes and more, this did also include their mummified bodies. This is the easiest form of preparing for the afterlife we have found (I think).

The belief of the afterlife was so strong that most of their life the people of this belief would make sure their hearts are not full of sin, as this would be detrimental for them in the journey through the under world.

What Happens within And Before The Afterlife…..

Egyptians loved life and they believed in life after death. For this they would have to lead good lives with no sin. They believed that the afterlife was like crossing the Nile and that living after death would be life their normal life, but only perfect. This is where they would become immortal.

To be prepared for the afterlife they would be mummified and put into a tomb. This tomb would be filled with all their belongings, for them to use within the afterlife. This could be from chairs to perfume to food and wine and a lot more.

Within the funeral all their belongings will be put into the tomb but there will also be a retiral called the “opening of the mouth” this is where a family member will use a tool to touch against the dead’s mouth. This tool is called a adze. (it was a special chisel)

Other parts of the retiral would include:

  • A band playing music – to open the persons hearing.
  • Dances – to open up the persons sight.
  • Perfume and scents – presented to the persons noise to open their smell.
  • The best food/wine – to open the persons soul.

This would then prepare them for the afterlife.

Their view on dead is a temporary thing before immortality. To be able to get to the afterlife and live within the perfect immortality, they would have to take a dangerous journey through the underworld. This would involved many different tasks that the god make but the most important one is the last test “the weighting of the heart”. This is where the god Osiris tests their heart for sin.

A heavy heart is a sign of sin and that their where bad within their life, a light heart means they lead a good life. If you are found to have a heavy heart this would lead for your heart to be through to a beast.

To help a person through this journey there was a book that was made called “book of the dead” this book was full of magical spells to help someone make it to the afterlife. this book was made on papyrus

References for information…..

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2016/01-02/egypt-book-of-the-dead/

http://www.deirelmedina.com/lenka/TurinKha.html

http://www.profmcginty.co.uk/egyptadze.htm

Toilet box of flasks and jars of Merit, holding fragrances and cosmetics, from the tomb of Kha (TT8), ca. 1386-1349 BC from ArtefactPorn
Painting – How I Think I Could Use Egyptians Beliefs.

Painting – How I Think I Could Use Egyptians Beliefs.

Dead Roses

Painting

One idea I have had for this piece is the ides of Immortality. For this i have had more of the idea of generations and how someone can live on through others, rather than one single person.

This can be like how my grandma had my mum, this means that a part of her will always be within my mum weather than genetically but also habits and little things to do with my grandmas personality. Then my mum had me so not only will i have some of my mum in me but I will also have some things from my grandma, this is then how my grandma lice both though her self but also through the lower generations of the family.

so for this I am going to do a painting looking into families and also generations but also add in a Egyptian aspect to it.

cant find a link to this photo. it is off the internet.

One thing I have noticed about the way that Egyptians paint is in a story board way this then gives the look of a story I really like this idea as I could use it to show the development of the family and show that person can live on.

This could be a good way to present my work as this does have a good look of passing through time. So from this I am going to be looking in to using this positing to present my work. but I don’t think I am going to use their painting style. For the style I am going to look into abstract painters as this will develop my work with the massive black and white paintings.

Symbolisms within nature to represent Egyptian belief…..

One thing I know about the religion is there beliefs around the Nymphaea Caerulea ( the blue water lily) this lily has a very big meaning and also is link into a story behind one of their gods. the flower has a very big link to both creation and the idea of re-birth. the story of the flower is:

At the very beginning there was murky dirty water and nothing else. within this water a lotus flower grew about the water to then bloom. As the flower bloom the beautiful colours of the blue turning in to the golden yellow was said to release the God Ra (the sun god). Ra also created two Gods that swam away into the waters and this upset Ra, after a while the two gods Shu and Tefnut (Tefnut is the god of rain and moisture while Shu (Tefnut’s sister) is the god of air) came back and this feel Ra with joy. This made Ra cry and these tears became humans.

So the lotus flower looked like the sun coming out when it blooms so the lotus flower created the sun gods bringing life and light to the world through Ra.

Story of Ra…..

Ra is the god of sun within their beliefs, time has worn him down from being the greatest god at one point. As the sun god he would have to cash away the darkness and bring light. the god is a man with a falcons head. on top of his head is the sun disk. to make this better he would cross the skies and take away the darkness on his sun boat. in turn this would then light up the whole world. As everyday would pass their would always be nightfall and this is where Ra would sail into the waters and have to pass through the 12 gates of the underworld. The nights are made up of 12 hours so it was believed it would take Ra an hour to get through each of the 12 gates.

There was not only gates but their was mainly two other things he would always do one of which was seeing Osiris (the god of the underworld(he would decided if your heart was full of sin or not). Ra would visits Osiris and pay him respects. Another thing the god Ra had to do was fight Apophis (a snake god who is the god of evil and darkness). every night when Ra would make this journey Apophis would become a little closer to destroying Ra’s sun boat. One night the god manged to swallow the sun boat causing a solar eclipse. This is due to the snake not being able to hold the sun boat within her stomach so Ra got free.

There was another god called Set (God of destruction). Set was condemned to travel with Ra on the sun boat to help him defeat Apophis and travel through the underworld. The reason he has to do this is because he was lost the extreme thrown to Horus.

so I could use this within my work to show how parts of someone can be re-born within a younger generations and also how over times things can get better.(e.g how the world was just dirty dark water but over time something small grew and then changed the world for the best).

Reference Links…..

The Boat of Ra

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Egyptian-Sacred-Blue-Water-lily-Nymphaea-Caerulea-10-seeds-Not-lotus-CombSH-A58-/111686704794