Tuesday 9 December 2008Original look at the ancient Egyptian fascination with death
To Live Forever
To Live Forever, published by the Brooklyn Museum in association with D Giles Limited, offers an original angle on the perennially fascinating subject of ancient Egypt. In this highly accessible new book lively text and striking images combine to illustrate just how all ancient Egyptians prepared for death and the afterlife
Life after death was a primary cultural belief through thousands of years of Egyptian history. The ancient Egyptians regarded death as an enemy that could be defeated through proper preparation, the emphasis being on accumulating objects to take with them on their journey after death, including the preservation of the human body by mummification. This brand new book, with its accompanying travelling exhibition, To Live Forever, draws on important ancient Egyptian monuments from the superb collection of the Brooklyn Museum to illustrate Egyptian strategies for defeating death and living forever. The book answers the questions at the core of the public’s fascination with ancient Egypt, and explains the Egyptians’ beliefs about death and the afterlife, the process of mummification, the conduct of a funeral, and the different types of tombs.
At the same time, curator Edward Bleiberg offers a fresh take on the subject by addressing the practical, economic considerations an ancient Egyptian faced when preparing for the next life. Dr. Bleiberg deals with the afterlife preparations not only of kings and nobles, but also of the middle class and the poor. Not all ranks of society had access to the elaborate funeral preparations made for a king. Poorer people could use painted wood or clay coffins as substitutes for the hard stone and gold sarcophagi of kings. Expensive granite vessels, the property of the rich, could be cheaply reproduced in clay and painted to imitate stone for someone of more modest means.
In keeping with the book’s special focus on the practicalities of afterlife preparation, Kathlyn M. Cooney breaks new ground in her essay, entitled How Much Did a Coffin Cost?, by addressing such pragmatic, questions as the price of a coffin in relation to average salaries, and how the costs of different colours of paint affected decisions about coffin decoration. Drawing on original research on documents from the artist settlement at Deir el-Medina, Dr. Cooney discusses how Egyptians chose the objects for their tombs, how much the items cost, how they were paid for, and how the high-priced burial-goods market affected Egyptian society. She shows the ancient Egyptians as ordinary people with problems and desires often similar to those of people today.
To Live Forever presents over 120 colour photographs of beautiful objects from the Brooklyn Museum’s world-renowned Egyptian collection. Among the works are acknowledged masterpieces of the stone sculptor’s art, along with the renowned Bird Lady—one of the oldest preserved statues from all Egyptian history. With its illuminating visual comparisons across different economic levels, this book adds a new dimension to our experience of ancient Egypt.
Edward Bleiberg has been a curator of Egyptian art at the Brooklyn Museum since 1998. He was formerly the Director of the Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology at the University of Memphis from 1989 to 1998. He has curated the exhibitions Jewish Life in Ancient Egypt: A Family Archive from the Nile Valley; Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire; and Pharaohs, Queens, and Goddesses. He is the author of The Official Gift in Ancient Egypt (1996), Ancient Egypt, 2615−332 B.C.E. (2001), Arts and Humanities through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2004), and the catalogues accompanying Jewish Life in Ancient Egypt, and Tree of Paradise. Kathlyn Cooney is Research Associate at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. She has taught at Stanford, UCLA, and Howard University. She was co-curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs in 2005. In 2002, she was Kress fellow at the National Gallery of Art, where she was involved with the installation of the Cairo Museum exhibition Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt. Her first book, The Cost of Death: The Social and Economic Value of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Art in the Ramesside Period, was published in 2007.
TO LIVE FOREVER
152 pages, 8 ½” x 11” (279mm x 216mm)
130 colour and 12 black-and-white illustrations, hardback
Text: Up to 32,000 words
ISBN: 978 1 904832 52 2 (13 digit)
ISBN: 1 904832 51 2 (10 digit)
Price: US$39.95/UK£20.00
Publication date: June, 2008
Publisher: D Giles Limited, London
Distributed in the UK and Rest of World (excluding US and Canada) by
Antique Collectors’ Club
Sandy Lane
Old Martlesham
Woodbridge
Suffolk
IP12 4SD
UK
T: +44 (0)1394 389950
F: +44 (0)1394 389999
Enquiries: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Distributed in the US and Canada by
Antique Collectors’ Club
Eastworks,
116 Pleasant Street, Suite 18
Easthampton, MA 01027
Toll-free orders: 800-252-5231
For Further Information and Review Copies:
In the UK contact:
Liz Japes
20 Lockitt Way
Kingston
Lewes
East Sussex
BN7 3LG
Tel: +44 (0)1273 480225
E-mail: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
In the USA contact:
Karen Lunstead, Marketing Manager
Eastworks,
116 Pleasant Street, Suite 18
Easthampton, MA 01027
Tel: 1 413 529 0862
E-mail: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Forthcoming dates and venues of exhibition:
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Florida, October 17, 2008–January 11, 2009
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, February 13–June 7, 2009
Venue TBD, July 10–September 6, 2009
Chrysler Museum of Art, Virginia, October 9, 2009–January 3, 2010
Venue TBD, February 5–May 2, 2010
Philbrook Museum of Art, Oklahoma, June 6–September 12, 2010
Venue TBD, October 15, 2010–January 9, 2011
Norton Museum of Art, Florida, February 12–May 8, 2011
Venue Pending, June 10–September 4, 2011
Frist Center for Visual Arts, Tennessee, October 6–January 7, 2012
The Brooklyn Museum, housed in a 560,000-square-foot Beaux-Arts building, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country. Its world-renowned permanent collections range from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art, and represent a wide range of cultures. Only a 30-minute subway ride from midtown Manhattan, with its own newly renovated subway station, the Museum is part of a complex of nineteenth-century parks and gardens that also includes Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the Prospect Park Zoo.
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org
