History and Religion in Ancient Egypt Collection

Ancient Egyptian Legends, The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, Papyrus of Ani, & The Ancient History of the Near East

De: M.A. Murray, A.H. Sayce, E.A. Wallis Budge, Henry R. Hall

Narrado por: Museum Audiobooks cast

Three of the world’s great religions originated in the Middle East: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Before that, religion in ancient Babylonia and Egypt had a history of thousands of years. In Egypt, religious practice centered on the pharaohs who acted as intermediaries between their people and the gods. They were obligated to sustain the deities through rituals and offerings so that they could maintain Ma'at, the order of the cosmos. The state dedicated enormous resources to maintaining religious rituals and to the construction of temples.

The History and Religion in Ancient Egypt Collection consists of:

Book one: Legends of Ancient Egypt, by Margaret Alice Murray (1863-1963), an archaeologist, anthropologist, Egyptologist, and historian and the first woman to serve as a lecturer in archaeology in Britain. The book contains 11 stories based on ancient Egyptian legends. Each legend is stylistically adapted to English but in a way that sticks close to the original. They include "The Princess and the Demon", "The King's Dream", "The Coming of the Great Queen", "The Book of Thoth", "The Legend of Osiris", and "The Scorpions of Isis".

Book two: The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia (1903) consists of Egyptian religion in part one, including discussions of the sun god, the Ennead, Osiris, and the journey of the soul. Part two deals with animism and the beliefs of Sumeria, Babylonia, and Assyria. The book comprises the Gifford lectures on the ancient Egyptian and Babylonian conception of the divine.

Book three: The Papyrus of Ani is a papyrus manuscript created c. 1250 BCE, in the 19th dynasty of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt. The introduction by E.A. Wallis Budge is followed by reproductions of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, an interlinear transliteration of their sounds, a word-for-word translation, and a smooth translation.

Book four: The Ancient History of the Near East. The author, Henry Reginald Holland Hall (1873-1930) was an English Egyptologist and historian. His in-depth study of the ancient Near East examines the region’s civilizations and history, starting with the early Bronze Age civilizations such as that of the Minoans on Crete. He explores the history of ancient Egypt in detail and the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Iran, like Babylonia, Assyria, and Persia. In addition, Hall compares the archaeological evidence from Syria, Palestine, and Israel with the writings of the Old Testament to provide a fascinating account of the ancient Phoenicians, Philistines, Hebrews, and Aramaeans.

Public Domain (P)2020 Museum Audiobooks

Amount of literature/content and performance

I love the amount of information and scholarship here. Some of the performances are fine, but other, such as the Papyrus of Ani sound like they’re being read by the crudest of AI. This is particularly unfortunate because passages such as this are poetry and to hear them read with shrill, pointed speech is a real let down.