Skip to main content

Book of the Dead

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
  • 232 Accesses

Abstract

While the culture of Egypt’s New Kingdom—sixteenth–eleventh century BCE—reveals a profound interest in birdlife, most evident in the Papyrus of Ani, also known as the Book of the Dead, it is clear that toxic ambiguities infiltrated that human–bird relationship, confusing flight to paradise, life after death, with ecological martyrdom meted out to a multitude of living avifauna. This syndrome can be said to have continued until this very day, with no sure end in sight.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    See Budge, E. A. Wallis (1920). By Nile and Tigris: A Narrative of Journeys in Egypt and Mesopotamia on Behalf of the British Museum Between the Years 1886 and 1913. Main 4th floor: London, J. Murray.

  2. 2.

    https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=93650

  3. 3.

    The Book of the Dead: The Hieroglyphic Transcript of the Papyrus of Ani, the Translation into English and an Introduction by E. A. Wallis Budge, Late Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in The British Museum, University Books, New Hyde Park, New York, University Books, Inc., 1960, pp. 67–68.

  4. 4.

    Flight Among The Tombs: Poems by Anthony Hecht, wood engravings by Leonard Baskin, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, page prior to Table of Contents, 1996.

  5. 5.

    See the “Bestiary assida (ostrich),” in Birds in Medieval Manuscripts by William Brunsdon Yapp, Schocken Books, New York, 1982, p. 55.

  6. 6.

    See Painting in the Yamato Style, by Saburo Ienaga, translated by John M. Shields, Weatherhill/Heibonsha, New York, Tokyo, 1973, p. 44.

  7. 7.

    See The Book of Legendary Lands, by Umberto Eco, translated by Alastair McEwen, Rizzoli ex libris, New York, 2013.

  8. 8.

    Report of Explorations for a Railway Route, Near the Thirty-Fifth Parallel of Latitude: From the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, by Lieutenant A. W. Whipple, United States Pacific Railroad Survey, Washington, D.C., 1853–1854.

  9. 9.

    Oxford University Press, New York, 1964.

  10. 10.

    See “This bird’s eye view of America’s most polluted sites will break your heart,” by Marcus Baram, Fast Company, September 24, 2018, https://www.fastcompany.com/90240249/this-birds-eye-view-of-americas-most-polluted-sites-will-break-your-heart; see David T. Hanson’s Waste Land, preface by Wendell Berry, afterword by Jimena Canales, essay by David T. Hanson, Taverner Press, 2018, https://www.tavernerpress.com/wasteland.html

  11. 11.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/05/birds-fall-from-sky-amid-massive-chemical-cleanup/13609579/

  12. 12.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/23/geese-die-montana-toxic-mine-epa

  13. 13.

    https://connect.edrnet.com/s/article/EPA-Responds-to-Dead-Birds-Around-Michigan-Superfund-Site-1489082045049

  14. 14.

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/government-officials-may-have-mishandled-ddt-superfund-site/

  15. 15.

    https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2014/08/03/after-3-decades-birds-still-fall-dead-from-sky-in-st-louis/13525865/

  16. 16.

    https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/thousands-of-bird-deaths-draw-focus-on-brimming-toxic-pit/article_18521284-41ad-5142-9e28-b13c2fc0ad66.html

  17. 17.

    See The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot, Faber and Faber, London 1969, p. 79.

  18. 18.

    BirdLife International Data Zone, “Key messages and case studies,” http://datazone.birdlife.org/sowb/state/theme4

  19. 19.

    The Fifty Rarest Birds Of The World, by Blake L. Twigden, Osborne Editions International, Auckland, New Zealand, 1991.

  20. 20.

    BirdLife International Data Zone, http://datazone.birdlife.org/sowb/casestudy/we-have-lost-over-150-bird-species-since-1500

  21. 21.

    Jackson, H.; Jones, C. G.; Agapow, P. M.; Tatayah, V.; Groombridge, J. J. (2015). “Micro-evolutionary diversification among Indian Ocean parrots: temporal and spatial changes in phylogenetic diversity as a consequence of extinction and invasion”. Ibid. 157 (3): 496–510. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ibi.12275

  22. 22.

    Hugh Rees LTD, London, 1930.

  23. 23.

    ibid., Vol. 1, p. 62.

  24. 24.

    See “Montezuma’s Zoo: A Legendary Treasure of the Aztec Empire,” by Natalia Klimczak, Ancient Origins, March 18, 2020, https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-americas/montezuma-zoo-legendary-treasure-aztec-empire-005090, Accessed July 13, 2020. See also “Aztec capital falls to Cortés,” This Day In History, History.com Editors, February 9, 2010, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/aztec-capital-falls-to-cortes, Accessed July 13, 2020.

  25. 25.

    See History of the Conquest of Mexico: With a Preliminary View of the Ancient Mexican Civilization, and the Life of the Conqueror, Hernando Cortés, Volume II by William Hickling Prescott, edited by John Foster Kirk, George Routledge and Sons, London, 1884, p. 278.

  26. 26.

    “Ancient Egyptians May Have Corralled Millions of Wild Birds to Sacrifice and Turn Into Mummies,” Nicoletta Lanese, Live Science, November 14, 2019, https://www.livescience.com/ancient-egypt-millions-of-wild-bird-mummies.html, Accessed March 15, 2020. The data taken from “Mitogenomic diversity in Sacred Ibis Mummies sheds light on early Egyptian practices,” by Sally Wasef, Sankar Subramanian, Richard O’Rorke, Leon Huynen, Samia El-Marghani, Caitlin Curtis, Alex Popinga, Barbara Holland, Salima Ikram, Craig Millar, Eske Willerslev and David Lambert, PLOS One, November 13, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223964, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223964, Accessed March 15, 2020.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Tobias, M.C., Morrison, J.G. (2021). Book of the Dead. In: On the Nature of Ecological Paradox. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_29

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics