GHOSTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT
The ancient Egyptians believed that the boundary separating the living from the dead was permeable. The living had an obligation to continue offerings to the ancestors, and in return, the dead could grant favors or intercede when rogue spirits attacked their families. In the modern world, ghosts of ancient Egypt, from the uncanny to the malevolent, haunt literature. Join me in my new remote class GHOSTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT, where I will guide you through a three-thousand-year-old ghost story in translation ("Khonsuemheb and the Ghost"), alongside many other primary texts. In the second session, I will survey 19th- and 20th-century literature where ancient Egyptian spirits come to life. By the end of the course, you will experience Egyptian ghosts from the perspective of the ancient people themselves and see how they live on in the modern imagination.
Ghosts of Ancient Egypt meets live on Zoom October 27 and November 3, from 2:00-3:30PM and 8:00-9:30PM US Eastern Time. The two time slots cover the same material, but each live Q&A session is unique, and you are welcome to attend either or both. Registration is $55 and includes the Zoom link, a curated reading list of freely accessible resources, and access to the recordings for one month. Use the PayPal link above, or pay via Venmo to @vintage-egyptologist (and please include the email for registration information).
Class 1: Ancient Ghosts
Ancient Egyptian tombs were meant to be visited: viewing their images, reading their texts, and even feasting nearby brought tangible benefits to the souls of the dead. In ancient Waset (modern-day Luxor), tombs depict and describe the "Beautiful Festival of the Valley," when the veil that separates this world from the other was particularly thin. Letters addressed to the spirits of relatives (and even one communication from a dead man speaking through a literate friend) survive and teach us about the permeable boundary dividing the living from the dead in ancient Egyptian belief. This class will also dive deeply into two works of literature that belong to a genre of "ghost stories." In "Khonsuemheb and the Ghost," a kindly spirit requests that a living man re-locate and restore the ghost's tomb. The lengthy and elaborate story "Setne Khaemwaset and the Book of Thoth" includes what would be called today a "supernatural" plot twist (but no spoilers here).
Class 2: Imagining Ancient Ghosts
This class will present modern stories and works of art in which ancient Egyptian spirits play a prominent role. In 1840, Théophile Gautier published "The Mummy's Foot," in which the narrator purchases an ancient relic for use as a paperweight, then atones for his sacrilege when he meets the spirit of the princess whose foot he acquired. What would happen to an amateur Egyptologist who falls asleep in the Cairo Egyptian Museum and spends the night among the antiquities? In 1912, H. Rider Haggard answered that question in "Smith and the Pharaohs," a story that imagines the personalities of ancient kings. Among the Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft is a story "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," co-written in 1924 with famous escape-artist Harry Houdini, where unspeakable terrors dwell in the inky blackness beneath Giza. This class will end with an actual Egyptologist, Arthur Weigall, who helped originate the myth of the curse of Tutankhamun and told other stories of the malevolence of ancient Egyptian spirits.