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Originally published: London: The British Museum Press, 2013.
The Papyrus of Hunefer is one of the most beautiful and famous items in the British Museums Egyptian collections, illustrated with detailed coloured paintings of the highest quality. Hunefer (his name means Mr Happy Day) was an official of high rank. The papyrus was buried with him and contains his personal selection of spells from what we now call the Book of the Dead. He expected the papyrus to help him to reach a happy eternal life, in which he could continue to enjoy the many pleasures of the living world without any of its sorrows or troubles. Hunefers papyrus includes lovely, detailed images of various important stages or rites on the way, including the opening of the mouth ceremony outside the tomb, in which priests carry out rites to give the mummy back its human senses, and the weighing of the heart in which the gods put Hunefers heart is on the scales with the feather of truth to show if he had been a good person in life. This book follows Hunefer on his magical journey and, in a very simple, accessible and visual way, demonstrates Ancient Egyptian beliefs about religion, life and death.
The Rosetta Stone is one of the most popular artefacts in the British Museum. Containing a decree written in Greek, Demotic and hieroglyphics, it proved to be the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics. This concise study traces the history of `the most famous piece of rock in the world' to become a modern icon and tells the story of the race to use it to decipher Egypt's ancient script by Jean-François Champollion and Thomas Young. Also includes a translation of the text.
Richard Parkinson's Thirty Years in the South Seas was first published in 1907. In this 900-page work, Parkinson drew together and expanded on the scientific and popular papers he had been publishing since 1887, creating in the process a landmark ethnography of the Bismarck Archipelago. Parkinson moved to New Britain in 1879, only seven years after the first trader had established himself in the area. Over the next thirty years, he employed many local people on the family's expanding plantations, and travelled widely in the area, trading for produce (especially coconuts), observing traditional life, and buying artefacts for museums in Europe, USA and Australia. His travels covered the island...
Deciphering the Rosetta Stone -- Reading a text: the Egyptian scripts of the Rosetta Stone -- Towards reading a cultural code: the uses of writing in ancient Egypt -- The future: futher codes to crack.
In Reading Ancient Egyptian Poetry, Richard Parkinson explores how ancient Egyptian poems have been read and perceived across the ages. Presents an innovative and theoretically-informed account of how the most famous ancient Egyptian poems have been read over 4,000 years From a leading expert in the interpretation of ancient Egyptian literature Explores the original experience of ordinary Egyptians enjoying the poems as well as their interpretation during the Middle Kingdom and up to modern times Draws on recent discoveries in the British Museum archives to reconstruct the contexts of the poems
Examine the methods of making and conserving papyrus, the various scripts written on it, the writing practices of the scribes, and the different uses of papyrus under the Pharaohs and their successors, the Ptolelmies and the Roman Emperors.