Before presenting this side of the culture of the Greek people, it is worth recalling a very famous myth. It tells about a couple in love: Eurydice and Orpheus. The girl died from a cobra bite, and her boyfriend could not come to terms with the cruel loss. He went for his beloved to the underworld of the dead to King Hades himself in order to persuade him to return his beloved to him.

In addition, Orpheus was known for his supreme skill in playing various musical instruments, in particular the kephar. With his art, he enchanted the god Charon, and he transported him along the river of the dead to the underground ruler. But there was one condition: Orpheus could not turn back, because Eurydice was following him through the afterlife, led by Hermes. According to the condition, the lovers could return to earth only if Orpheus passed this test. But Orpheus could not resist and looked at Eurydice. From that second she disappeared, sinking into the kingdom of the dead forever.

Orpheus returned to earth. He did not live long. A couple of years later, the man met his beloved, because during one of the Greek holidays he was brutally killed. His soul came to Hades and was reunited with Eurydice.

We can conclude that since ancient times the Greeks believed that a person has a soul, that it is eternal and capable of living both on earth and in the afterlife.

Legends of the kingdom of the dead

In almost all myths concerning the life of the gods and associated with the kingdom of the dead, Hermes accompanied the deceased to the world of Hades. He led souls through holes in the earth's crust and brought them to the shores of the Styx. According to legend, this river encircled the kingdom of the dead as many as 7 times.

The Greeks placed a coin in the mouth of the deceased. It was believed that he would need to pay off Horon, who was transporting across the Acheron. This is a tributary of the Styx. The exit from the underground kingdom was guarded by the giant dog Cerberus (according to other sources, Kerberus). The dog did not let the living into the kingdom of the dead, just as he did not let the dead out of Hades.

2. Minos.

3. Rhadamantha.

These judges interrogated the deceased who came to their kingdom. Should a person live in the kingdom of the dead in goodness, be in fear or without joy? Everything depended on what kind of life a person spent on earth. The ancient Greeks believed that only a few ever experienced mercy. By the way, even today some basic burial customs have been preserved. The Greeks still place coins in the mouths of the deceased.

Disfavor awaited insidious, evil and envious people in the afterlife. No sunshine, joy, fulfillment of desires. Such souls were thrown into tartarus - the underworld itself. However, most of the people ended up in the meadow of Asphodel. It was a foggy area in which there were fields of tulips, very pale and wild. It was through these fields that restless souls wandered, finding their last abode here. It was a little easier for such souls if relatives on earth remembered them and performed various ceremonies in their honor. That's why in modern world remembering deceased relatives is considered a good deed.

Harsh Dwelling of Shadows

This is exactly how the kingdom of the dead seemed to the ancient Greeks. This is how people “see” him different nations and now. But it was in ancient Greece that ideas about this unknown, dark and terrible world were laid down.

There eternal night, the waters of the black Ocean are constantly rustling. The world of the dead is mournful, gloomy rivers flow in it, almost dead black trees grow, vile, terrible monsters live. Titan criminals are executed there. It is impossible to find consolation in the kingdom of the dead, like peace and quiet. According to legend, even the gods are afraid to go there.

However, this idea of ​​​​the kingdom of Hades did not last long among the Greeks. Over time, views changed and people found a different explanation for the afterlife. After all, all people are different, live different lives, do different things. Therefore, the outcome cannot be identical.

Of course, some residents of the policies did not even think about the kingdom of the dead and what was beyond the “line.” Scientists explain this by the lack of ideas about good and evil among other tribes. In another case, a more advantageous position in the afterlife could be occupied by a person who lived honestly, committed heroic deeds, was decisive, had a strong character, was valiant, and courageous. Over time, the doctrine of the bright Elysium became very popular among the ancient Greeks. According to beliefs, a person who lived his life honestly went to heaven.

By the way, many residents of the policies knew and believed that retribution for evil would definitely come. Underground spirits are able to see everything that happens on earth and if injustice is happening somewhere, they will definitely punish for this act.

According to other versions of the ancient Greeks, the souls of the dead remain in their graves or hide in underground caves. At the same time, they are able to turn into snakes, lizards, insects, mice, including bats. But at the same time they will never have a human appearance.

There is also a legend. According to it, souls “live” in visible form, living on the islands of the dead. At the same time, they can again turn into the image of a person. To do this, they need to “settle” in nuts, beans, fish and other foods that their future mothers eat.

According to another legend, the souls or shadows of the dead fly to the northern part of the globe. There is no sun and light. But they can return to Greece in the form of rain.

There is also this version: souls are carried away to the west. Far, far away. Where the sun sets. It is there that the world of the dead exists. It is very similar to our white light.

It is especially worth noting that the ancient and modern Greeks believed in receiving retribution for sins and bad deeds. The dead receive punishment depending on how they lived their lives on earth. In turn, there were beliefs regarding the transmigration of souls. By the way, this process could be controlled. To do this it was necessary to use magical formulas. And the science of applying these formulas was called “metempsychosis.”

The ancient Greeks hated death and were afraid of it. In life we ​​tried to have more fun and not indulge in grief.

Rituals

The burial ceremony was necessary and has been done since ancient times. The deceased thereby received the opportunity to cross the river of the dead and get to Hades. This was the only way his soul could achieve peace. The worst thing for the ancient Greeks was the absence of a burial ceremony for any of the relatives.

A relative who was not buried in the earth, who died in war, is a terrible sin for his family. Such people could even be punished with death.

Views on the existence of souls after death and the afterlife changed, but the rituals of the ancient Greeks remained unchanged, like traditions and rituals. In order to prevent the wrath of the gods on the day of the death of a relative or friend, one had to look mournful.

The deceased were buried in places specially prepared for this. These were either the basements of their own houses, or crypts. To prevent epidemics from breaking out, burial sites gradually began to be moved to islands that were uninhabited. City residents found another way out. They buried the dead behind the walls of the policies.

The Greeks chose one of the forms of funeral rites. The first involved burning the body of the deceased at the stake, the other - burying him in the ground. After cremation, the ashes were placed in a special urn, and it was buried in the ground or stored in a tomb. Both methods were welcomed and did not cause any complaints. It was believed that if you bury it in one of these ways, you can save the soul from torment and restlessness. Even in those days, graves were decorated with flowers and wreaths. If the body was interred without being cremated, all the values ​​that the person treasured during life were put into the grave with it. It was customary for men to put down weapons, and for ladies - precious jewelry and expensive dishes.

Changing priorities

Over time, the Greeks came to the conclusion that the human body is something very complex, and the soul has a higher world principle. After death, she must be reunited with this whole.

The old views about Hades slowly began to collapse in the minds of the Greeks, becoming meaningless. Only ordinary citizens living in villages were still afraid of the formidable punishment of Hades. By the way, some views about the kingdom of the dead got along well with the dogmas of Christianity.

If we look at Homer's poems, his heroes are quite individual people. All this affected the nature of death. For example, Achilles was sure that only after being put to sleep would he gain eternal glory and always openly and fearlessly walked towards his fate. But in the face of the true face of death, Homer's hero gave up. Achilles begged for mercy and mercy from fate. So Homer made it clear to his contemporaries and descendants that man is just a weak part of this world.

In later times, the ancient Greeks developed ideas of secondary and even multiple births. Allegedly, the human soul comes to earth in different periods and eras in the form of different people. But in all ideas it was the same: man is powerless before fate, the will of fate and death.

Cultural Studies of Ancient Greece

Pythagoras' unusual attitude towards women

We perceive Pythagoras as a great mathematician, but few people know that he devoted part of his time to spiritual discussions with women. His task was to instill in them a love of beauty. Remembering that a woman is the keeper of the home. It may seem strange that such famous person paid attention to family issues.

Capital of Athos Karea

Karea (Slavic name Karen) is the capital of the Athos monastic state. Founded in the 9th century, it is a settlement consisting of monastic dwellings located in the center of the Athos Peninsula. Historically referred to under various names, such as “Kareya Lavra”, “Kareya Skete”, “Royal Monastery” Holy Mother of God Kareiskaya" and others.

Storage in olive oil.

Corinthian Canal

a narrow strip of land 6 km wide, located between two gulfs - the Saronian in the east and the Corinthian in the west, uniting the Peloponnese with Megaris and the rest of Greece: “the same (isthmus) made the country inside a continent” (Pausanias).

Man knows little about the afterlife. Scientists generally cannot come to a consensus on whether it exists, because it is impossible to prove this. You can only trust those who experienced clinical death and saw what was happening beyond the line. In this article we will try to figure out whether there is afterlife, which of its secrets have been revealed to date, and what still remains inaccessible to humans.

The afterlife is a mystery. Each person has his own personal opinion about whether it can exist. Basically, the answers are based on what the person believes. Adherents of the Christian religion are unequivocal in their opinion that a person continues to live after death, because only his body dies, and the soul is immortal.

There is evidence of an afterlife. All of them are based on the stories of people who had one foot in the next world. It's about about people who have experienced clinical death. They say that after the heart stops and other vital organs stop working, events develop like this:

• The human soul leaves the body. The deceased sees himself from the outside, and this shocks him, although the state as a whole at such a moment is described as peaceful.
• After this, the person sets off through the tunnel and comes either to where it is light and beautiful, or to where it is scary and disgusting.
• On the way, a person watches his life like a movie. The brightest moments with a moral basis that he had to experience on earth appear before him.
• None of those who visited the other world felt any pain - everyone talked about how good, free, and easy it was there. There, according to them, there is happiness, because there are people there who have long passed away, and they are all satisfied and happy.

Scientists believe that people who have experienced clinical death are not truly afraid of dying. Some are even waiting for their time to depart to another world.

Each nation has its own beliefs and understanding of how the dead live in the afterlife:

1. For example, the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt believed that in the afterlife a person first meets the god Osiris, who judges them. If a person committed a lot of bad deeds during his lifetime, then his soul was given over to be torn to pieces by terrible animals. If during his lifetime he was kind and decent, then his soul went to heaven. The inhabitants of modern Egypt still adhere to this opinion about life after death.
2. The Greeks had a similar idea of ​​the afterlife. Only they believe that the soul after death definitely goes to the god Hades, and there it remains forever. Hades can only release a select few to heaven.
3. But the Slavs believe in the rebirth of the human soul. They believe that after the death of a person’s body, she goes to heaven for some time, and then returns to earth, but in a different dimension.
4. Hindus and Buddhists are convinced that the human soul does not go to heaven at all. She, freeing herself from the human body, immediately looks for another refuge.

18 secrets of the afterlife

Scientists, trying to study what happens to the human body after death, have made several conclusions that we would like to tell our readers about. Scripts for films about the afterlife are based on many of these facts. What facts are we talking about:

• Within 3 days after a person dies, his body decomposes completely.
• Men who commit suicide by hanging always experience a post-mortem erection.
• The human brain, after its heart stops, lives for a maximum of 20 seconds.
• After a person dies, his weight decreases significantly. This fact was proven by Dr. Duncan McDougallo.

• Obese people who die the same way turn into soap a few days after their death. The fat begins to melt.
• If you bury a person alive, then death will come follow him in 6 hours.
• After a person dies, both hair and nails stop growing.
• If a child goes through clinical death, then he sees only good pictures, unlike adults.
• Residents of Madagascar, every time at a wake, dig up the remains of their deceased relative in order to dance ritual dances with them.
• The very last sense that a person loses after his death is hearing.
• The memory of events that happened in life on earth remains in the brain forever.
• Some blind people who were born with this pathology can see what will happen to them after death.
• In the afterlife, a person remains himself - the same as he was during life. All the qualities of his character and intelligence are preserved.
• The brain continues to be supplied with blood if a person's heart has stopped. This occurs until complete biological death is declared.
• After an adult dies, he sees himself as a child. Children, on the contrary, see themselves as adults.
• In the afterlife, people are equally beautiful. No mutilations or other deformities are retained. A person gets rid of them.
• In the body of a person who dies, a lot of a large number of gas
• People who committed suicide in order to get rid of accumulated problems will still have to answer for this act in the next world and resolve all these problems.

Interesting stories about the afterlife

Some people who had to experience clinical death tell how they felt at that moment:

1. The rector of a Baptist church in the USA was involved in an accident. His heart stopped beating and the ambulance even declared him dead. But when the police arrived, among them was a parishioner who personally knew the rector. He took the victim of the accident by the hand and read a prayer. After this, the abbot came to life. He says that at the moment when a prayer was said over him, God told him that he must return to earth and finish worldly affairs that are important for the church.
2. Builder Norman McTagert, who was also working on a residential building in Scotland, once fell from high altitude and fell into a comatose state, in which he remained for 1 day. He said that while in a coma, he visited the afterlife, where he communicated with his mother. It was she who notified him that he needed to return to earth, because very important news awaited him there. When the man came to his senses, his wife said she was pregnant.
3. One of the Canadian nurses (her name, unfortunately, is unknown) told an amazing story that happened to her at work. During the night shift, a ten-year-old boy approached her and asked her to give him to his mother so that she would not worry about him, that he was fine. The nurse began to chase the child, who, after the words were spoken, began to run away from her. She saw him run into the house, so she started knocking on him. A woman opened the door. The nurse told her what she had heard, but the woman was extremely surprised, because her son could not leave the house because he was very sick. It turned out that the ghost of a child who had died came to the nurse.

To believe in these stories or not is a personal matter for everyone. However, one cannot be a skeptic and deny the existence of something supernatural nearby. How then can one explain dreams in which some people communicate with the dead? Their appearance often means something, portends something. If a person communicates with a deceased person in the first 40 days in a dream after death, this means that the spirit of this person actually comes to him. He can tell him about everything that happens to him in the afterlife, ask him for something and even invite him with him.

Of course, in real life, each of us wants to think only about pleasant, good things. It is pointless to prepare for death, and to think about it too, because it can come not when we have planned it for ourselves, but when a person’s hour comes. We wish you that your earthly life will be full of joy and goodness! Perform highly moral actions so that in the afterlife the Almighty will reward you with a wonderful life in heavenly conditions in which you will be happy and peaceful.

Video: “The afterlife is real! Scientific sensation"

We do not like to think and talk about death and in our Everyday life We usually avoid this topic. Perhaps it is precisely in this kind of curtaining, the artificial “switching off” of thoughts about death, that one of the most important mistakes in life lies. modern man. The truth is that by putting aside thoughts of death, we do not prolong life and do not eliminate death.Psychologists have long uncovered the phenomenon of hypocritical handling of death. When a person consciously avoids the topic of death in his thoughts, the subconscious, whether we like it or not, counts down parts of the life we ​​have lived, bringing us closer to the last minute. “We feel,” writes the famous researcher of post-clinical death G. Mowry, “at least subconsciously, that when faced with death, even indirectly, we inevitably face the prospect of our own death.”

So, a person is doomed to think about life and death, and this is his difference from an animal, which is mortal, but does not know about it.

Life and death - eternal themes reflections of humanity throughout the history of its existence. Prophets and founders of religions, philosophers and moralists, figures of art and literature, teachers and doctors thought about this... There is hardly a person who, sooner or later, would not think about the meaning of his existence, the impending death and the achievement of immortality. These thoughts come to the minds of children and very young people, as evidenced in poetry and prose, dramas and tragedies, letters and diaries. Only early childhood or senile insanity relieves a person of the need to solve these problems.

Most often, a person is faced with the triad: life - death - immortality, since all existing spiritual systems were based on the idea of ​​​​the contradictory unity of these phenomena. Highest value they focused on death and the acquisition of immortality in “another life,” and the human life was explained as “a moment allotted to a person so that he could adequately prepare for death and immortality.”

With a few exceptions, in all times and peoples, statements about life most often had a rather negative meaning: “life is suffering” (Buddha, Schopenhauer, etc.); “life is a dream” (Plato, Pascal); “life is an abyss of evil” (Ancient Egypt); “life is a struggle and a journey through a foreign land” (Marcus Aurelius); “life is a fool’s story, told by an idiot, full of noise and fury, but devoid of meaning” (Shakespeare); “all human life is deeply immersed in untruth” (Nietzsche) and etc. Proverbs and sayings of different nations speak about this, such as: “life is a penny”, “this is not life, but hard labor”, “bad life”, etc.

The famous Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset defined man neither as a body nor as a spirit, but as a “specifically human drama.” Indeed, in this sense, the life of every person is dramatic and tragic: no matter how successful life is, no matter how long it is, its end is inevitable.

People's attitude towards the mystery of death is ambivalent: on the one hand, we would like not to know or think about it at all, on the other hand, we try, on the contrary, to peer and penetrate into the mystery in order to deprive it of alienity or hostility.

The desire of people to “master” the phenomenon of death, to make it something understandable and accessible in circulation, manifested itself in a huge variety of legends, myths, rituals (funerals, orgies, sacrifices, etc.). Thus, death was included in a kind of playful action, thanks to which it began to seem included in the order and goals of the life world of people and no longer seemed so alien.

In the Babylonian religion, ideas about the afterlife were rather vague. It was believed that the souls of the dead fall into the underworld and lead a hopelessly dull existence there. The Babylonians did not expect any consolation or reward from the other world, therefore the religion of the peoples of Mesopotamia is focused on earthly life.

IN Ancient Egypt During the dynastic era, ideas of otherworldly existence received, on the contrary, hypertrophied development. According to Egyptian beliefs, when a person’s body dies, his name, his soul, like a bird flying from the body into the sky, and, finally, some invisible “ka”, a double of a person, who was assigned a special role in posthumous existence, continue to live. The fate of the “ka” after death depends on the fate of the body: it can die from hunger and thirst if the deceased is not provided with everything necessary during burial; he can be eaten by afterlife creatures if he is not protected by magical formulas. If you take good care of the deceased and mummify him or make a statue of him, then the “ka” can outlive the deceased by a long time.

In Ancient India, priests taught that the soul does not die along with the body, but moves into another material body. What new body the soul will receive depends on the person’s behavior in his present life, primarily on compliance with the rules of his caste: in posthumous rebirth one can incarnate into a person of a higher caste, and for violating them one can even turn into a lower animal. In the European tradition, metamorphosis - the transmigration of the soul into another body (human, animal, mineral) or its transformation into a demon, a deity - is called metempsychosis (the Latin synonym is reincarnation); it has become widespread in Ancient Greece, it was adhered to by the religious communities of the Orphics and Pythagoreans, and in Plato’s philosophy it played a key role.

The ideas of the ancient Jews about the afterlife of a person are reflected in the Old Testament, where two main views are presented: according to the first, the person dies after death. God created man “from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life...” (Genesis 2:7). After death, this breath of life remains, representing only an impersonal force common to all people and animals, it returns to God, and the personality as a specific form of this breath disappears. The afterlife seems doubtful to them, and from this follows the wish: “So, go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with joy in your heart, when God is pleased with your deeds... Whatever your hand can do, do it with your strength; for in the grave where you go there is no work, no reflection, no knowledge, no wisdom” (Ecclesiastes 9:7; 9:10). According to another view, the human soul continues to exist after death, but the world into which it finds itself is dark and joyless, it is a country of “the shadow of death and darkness,” “like the darkness of the shadow of death, where there is no structure, where it is dark as darkness itself.” "(Book of Job 10: 21-22).

The Slavs maintained a patriarchal clan system for quite a long time, with its characteristic cult of veneration of ancestors. The souls of ancestors were supposed to live in paradise. “Paradise” is a pre-Christian common Slavic word that meant something like a beautiful garden. To this day, the words “vyrai” and “viriy” are preserved in the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages ​​- a place where birds fly in the fall and where the dead live. The word “hell” is also pre-Christian; it meant the underworld where the souls of evil people burn. The dead were divided into two categories: “clean”, i.e. those who died a “decent” death - they were revered and called “parents” regardless of age and gender (there is still a tradition of “parental days”), and “unclean” ones, who were called “dead people” (suicides, drowned people, drunkards, etc.). P.). They were afraid of the dead; they believed that they could rise from the grave and harm people; to prevent the corpse from leaving the grave, the corpse was pierced with an aspen stake, a tooth from a harrow was driven in behind the ears, etc. Thus, according to the beliefs of the ancient Slavs, after death the activity of not only the soul, but also the body could be maintained.

Not all peoples perceived death as a sad event. Thus, the Germans (Suebi) believed in the resurrection of the dead, this allowed them not to be afraid of death; It was believed that warriors who bravely died in battle should go to the bright palace of the god Odin - Valhalla, where feasts and pleasures await them. The Dacians (Northern Thracian tribes who lived on the territory of modern Romania) believed that existence after death was much more pleasant than the present life, and therefore they greeted death with joyful laughter, and, on the contrary, mourned the birth of a person.

For centuries, the best minds of mankind have tried and are trying to at least theoretically refute the unconditional finitude of human life, to prove, and then bring to life real immortality. From this point of view, a person should live forever, being in the constant prime of life. A person cannot come to terms with the fact that he will have to leave this magnificent world where life is in full swing.

But, thinking about this, you begin to understand that death is perhaps the only thing before which everyone is equal: poor and rich, dirty and clean, loved and unloved. Although both in ancient times and in our days, attempts have been and are constantly being made to convince the world that there are people who have been “there” and returned back, but common sense refuses to believe this. It takes faith, it takes a miracle to perform Gospel Christ, "trampling death upon death." It has been noticed that a person’s wisdom is often expressed in a calm attitude towards life and death. As the leader of the Indian national liberation movement, Mahatma Gandhi, said, “We do not know which is better - to live or to die. Therefore, we should neither overly admire life nor tremble at the thought of death. We should treat both equally. This is the ideal option ". And long before this, the Bhagavad Gita said: “Truly, death is intended for the born, and birth is inevitable for the deceased. Do not mourn about the inevitable.”

A realistic expectation of death requires acceptance of the fact that our time on earth must be limited by a norm consistent with the duration of our species. Humanity is only part of an ecosystem, like any other zoological or botanical form, and nature does not recognize differences. We die and that is why the world can continue to live. A modern American philosopher from Columbia University in his book “The Death of Death” writes: “We have been given the miracle of life because trillions and trillions of living beings prepared the way for us and then died, in a sense, for us. We die in turn so that others may live. The tragedy of the individual becomes, in the balance of natural things, the triumph of continuing life.” The Greek sage Epicurus said this: “Accustom yourself to the idea that death has nothing to do with us. When we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist.”

And the Russian saint Ignatius Brianchaninov called for “mourning for yourself in good time.” In his opinion, every Christian is obliged to “remember death” every day and every hour. It is important to live life, comparing your actions and deeds with the last minute of life, which is the true measure of all values ​​in the life of every person.

In conclusion, I can only add. Almost all of the theses of this article are reflected and disclosed in numerous works of art. The theme of death in all centuries has been loved by artists and true researchers. This process of learning through art has no end. The Moscow art competition of 2008 is clear evidence that modern artists are continuing the work begun by primitive people, when they tried to depict their ideas about the afterlife with the help of rock hieroglyphs. The difference is that centuries later, the palette of artistic views about death has expanded noticeably, but the similarity is that death still remains unknown. Sergey YAKUSHIN, member of the Union of Artists of Russia, member of the Union of Journalists of Russia,
Academician of the European Academy of Natural Sciences

The afterlife according to the ideas of ancient peoples

As has already been said, at first people did not consider the soul to be an incorporeal, divine being, but endowed it with material qualities and all human needs, believing that, having moved to another world, the soul would continue to lead the lifestyle of a living person. Therefore, in burial places, relatives provided the deceased with everything he used during life, burying with the deceased food, water and things that were needed or especially dear to him.

American Indians sang at funerals:

So let's start the funeral

Choir among the graves;

We will bring a farewell gift

Everything he loved:

Place the onion at the head of the room,

And the ax is on the chest,

At the feet - fur with bear blood

To a friend on a long journey...

Karelian burial grounds from the era of the decay of the primitive communal system, discovered at the end of the last century near the Vuoksa River, indicate that household utensils and things that the deceased most often used during life were placed in the grave of a Karelian. In the men's graves, axes, horse bits, spears and arrowheads were found, in the women's graves - a spindle whorl (from a spinning wheel), sickles, and sheep shearing shears. Consequently, according to the ideas of the Karelians, in the afterlife, men will cut down trees, hunt, fight enemies, and women will spin, reap bread, shear sheep, i.e. carry out work familiar to them in earthly life.

Initially, the afterlife seemed so material to people that they quite clearly imagined how a dead person eats, how he starves and dies, i.e. may simply disappear completely if not taken care of. All ancient peoples were firmly convinced that the deceased had the same needs as the living. They considered it necessary to feed the deceased so that his hungry spirit would not bother his relatives with his visits and cause them trouble. Thus, the Mexicans placed pieces of meat on sticks across the fields, doing this out of fear that the dead would not come to them to demand the cattle that belonged to him during his life. Belarusian peasants, along with the deceased, put some food and some of the deceased’s belongings into the coffin. In remote Russian villages it was the custom to place crumbs of pie on the shelf behind the icon. It was believed that the souls of ancestors were hiding there, and therefore they were “fed.” Christian funerals are also a relic of such ideas.

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC) described the funeral customs of the Scythians. The Greeks used this name to call numerous tribes that lived from the 8th century. BC. in the steppes from the Northern Black Sea region to Altai. They lived in tribal communities, but in the 5th century. BC. there was no longer equality between them. The clan nobility was distinguished, the power of tribal leaders was inherited, and slavery had already arisen, although the labor of slaves was not widespread and the state did not yet exist.

According to Herodotus, when the Scythian leader died, his corpse was embalmed. The funeral took place with special pomp and cruel sacrifices. On the day of burial, one of the wives, several slaves and servants: a cook, a cupbearer, a groom, and a messenger were killed at the leader’s grave and placed next to him. Weapons, jewelry, precious things made of gold and silver were placed in the grave, and with joint efforts they built a huge mound over it, trying to make it higher.

A year later, a funeral service was held at the grave. They killed 50 of the deceased's most faithful servants and 50 of his best horses. The entrails were taken out of the horse carcasses, the stuffed animals were stuffed with straw and, mounted on poles, they were attached to the ground in a large semicircle; Killed servants were placed on dead horses. Having built this terrible cavalry around the grave, the Scythians left.

Excavations of the Chertomlytsky mound (20 km from Nikopol) and especially the latest interesting discoveries in the Pazyryk mounds of the Altai Mountains confirmed what Herodotus wrote 2500 years ago. Thus, recently an expedition of archaeologists from the USSR Academy of Sciences and the State Hermitage excavated a number of large mounds made of rock fragments and dating back to the 5th century in the Pazyryk tract of the Ulagan Highlands. BC. These were burial vaults of the ancient Saks (Scythians) with representatives of the tribal nobility buried in them. Despite the fact that the burial grounds were looted, they preserved many objects of art and everyday life that were interesting to scientists, the value of which was increased by their excellent preservation in the conditions permafrost, although at least 2500 years have passed since the burial. Some wooden items, leather, carpets and fabrics have not lost their original appearance, and even tattoos have survived on the embalmed bodies of buried men. The corpse of a Scythian warrior was discovered in one of the tombs. His wife and everything he needed during his life were buried with him: horses in full trim, clothes, furs, food - pieces of lamb in leather bags, cheese similar to feta cheese.

Not only among the Scythians, savage murders of people were committed on the graves of tribal elders and leaders. Many other nations also had a custom according to which, along with the deceased rich man, his wives and slaves were buried alive or killed. Here are some examples. In 1870 (!) after the death of Prince Marava (Brazil), his 47 wives were burned alive along with his corpse.

The leaders of African tribes, long before their own death, killed their slaves in order to prepare servants for themselves for the future afterlife. Even a hundred years ago, in front of the leader’s hut one could see sticking out poles with the whitened skulls of his “afterlife servants.” If it occurred to the leader to convey something to his ancestors in the afterlife, he called a slave, gave him the order, and then cut off his head. At the funeral of the mother of Chaka, the South African king of the Zulu tribe, 7 thousand people were killed, and 12 young girls were buried alive to serve the queen in the afterlife. After the death of King Guenzo in the Dahomey monarchy ( tropical Africa) his son Grere ordered the sacrifice of 1000 people. The killings of the unfortunates continued from July 13 to August 5, 1860. During the funeral of the Mongol prince, all people who came across on the road were killed with the words: “Go serve your master in another world.”

Hundreds of murdered slaves are found in the tombs of ancient China.

In ancient India, there was a custom of “sati”, according to which, after the death of her husband, the widow was burned at the grave of the deceased. This ferocious custom lasted until mid-19th V. Religion taught a woman that her husband needed her in the afterlife just as much as during life. And if she does not immediately follow him, then in the end she will still die and appear in the “other world” for eternal and cruel reprisal to her embittered husband. That is why superstitious Hindu women preferred to experience the agony of death at the stake once rather than be tortured by an angry husband for an eternity in the future.

These same superstitious ideas destroyed many blacks when in the 16th century. colonialists began to export them from Africa to America. To get rid of the unbearable torment of slavery, they resorted to suicide, being confident that after death they would return to their homeland and be resurrected there as free people.

The custom of funeral honors and sacrifices, associated with the belief in the afterlife, was also among our ancestors - the Slavs.

Nations at a low stage of development not only killed people, they also “killed” things. Thus, many African blacks have a custom after the death of a king to make all his things worthless: tearing clothes, breaking swords, making holes in boats. These “killed” things are placed in the grave to be used by the dead.

Remnants of primitive ideas about the afterlife and associated customs appeared among the peoples of Western Europe in relatively recent times. So, 200 years ago in Austria, during the funeral of one count, his horse was buried with him. Later, horses were no longer killed, but it was generally accepted to lead the deceased’s horse behind the coffin. There were cases when a needle and thread were placed in graves so that the deceased could, when necessary, repair his dress.

Thus, belief in the afterlife arose in pre-class society and by the beginning of the collapse of the primitive communal system it was widely developed. With the advent of wealth inequality, ideas about the afterlife have changed dramatically. Private property has left its mark on the “other world.” Previously, when there was no difference between rich and poor, the afterlife of all the dead seemed the same. Since all people were equal, their souls had to live in the “other world” in the same conditions, i.e. ideas about life of the dead corresponded behind the grave social order, which was among the peoples on earth. The ancient Jews and Greeks imagined the afterlife as a distant underground kingdom of shadows, where everyone is equal and everyone shares the same bleak fate, but without much torment.

With the division of society into classes, tales about the afterlife began to mention two compartments for the dead: the upper (heaven) for some, and the lower (hell) for others; and usually heaven is for masters, for the rich, hell is for slaves and the poor.

As was shown above, a noble person, a tribal leader, a prince or a king, when preparing for a “long journey,” took with him to the grave or funeral pyre everything that he owned during his lifetime. Contrary to the proverb: “If you die, you won’t take anything with you,” the rich man believed: “If I die, I’ll take everything with me.” Bulls and horses were slaughtered at his grave so that the dead prince would have something to eat and something to ride in the “other world.” His wives, slaves, and warriors were killed along with him. These are companions and servants who go with the deceased to protect him and please him in the afterlife. Finally, the dead man himself was placed in a coffin or on a pyre, fully armed and with the best jewelry. Rich relatives did not skimp on funeral feasts, feasting on the burial mound, performing abundant sacrifices and many other magical actions that provided the deceased with the opportunity to get to that happy area of ​​​​the afterlife, which is called paradise.

And whoever is not rich enough to order the killing of women and servants at his grave, who does not have things to travel to the afterlife and be protected from all disasters there, who cannot finally pay the priests for prayers and spells, will not reach the blissful edge.

Thus, representatives of the ruling classes turned the colorless kingdom of shadows into a cheerful and rich place, resounding with laughter and the clinking of glasses, where earthly pleasures continue, where you can eat and drink without fail, caress as many of the most beautiful women as you like, etc. etc. This is how an imaginary paradise arose, access to which became the property of the rich.

Hell remained for the poor man, not yet a place of torture and torment, but simply a place of sadness and sorrow. If this was retribution, it was retribution for poverty, for the fact that the whole life of a poor man is filled with worries about his existence, and too little attention and resources were given to the gods and priests.

Of course, this general picture of the development of views on the afterlife from their origin to the emergence of the first class societies, inclusive, cannot be unconditionally applied to the history of any people, cannot reflect all the originality of ideas about the afterlife, which are rooted in the material conditions of life of a particular society. There may be deviations and exceptions here, as exemplified by the peoples of the most ancient culture of mankind - Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, whose ideas about the afterlife differ sharply both from each other and from the above diagram. The views of these peoples are all the more interesting to us because their literary monuments already contain the first glimpses of free-thinking, manifested in doubt and even denial of any belief in an afterlife.

The ancient Babylonians pictured the “future” life as an abode of suffering and sadness. They had an idea of ​​the “world of the dead,” filled with disgusting spirits that tormented the souls of the dead. These spirits also come to earth, flying from the terrible desert in the west, to send illness and death to their victims. The gods sometimes descended into the underworld and emerged from there with great difficulty. But man does not have the salvation that exists for God. Death does not let him go free, cuts him down like a blade of grass, pierces him with a knife.

“The Poem of Gilgamesh,” the most remarkable work of Babylonian literature of the 2nd millennium BC, poses in a highly artistic form the eternal question about the meaning of life and the inevitability of death, about what awaits a person beyond the grave. Gilgamesh, the semi-legendary king of Uruk, “two-thirds god, one-third man,” having buried his beloved friend, tormented by sadness and fear of inevitable death, seeks the secret of immortality in difficult wanderings. His ancestor Ut-Napishtim, who received the great gift of immortality from the gods, is trying to get it for the hero using various magical techniques. eternal life. He advises Gilyamesh to at least overcome sleep - maybe then he will overcome death. But human nature takes its toll, and the hero, tired from the hike, falls asleep while sitting. heavy sleep. Everything turns out to be in vain. Gilgamesh again feels the threat of imminent death. He is asking:

What should I do, Ut-Napishtim, where should I go?

Death lurks in my bedroom.

Finally, Ut-Napishtim reveals to him that, by diving to the bottom of the ocean, Gilgamesh will be able to find a plant that gives, however, not eternal life, but constant youth. Having obtained the grass of youth with great difficulty, Gilgamesh sets off for his homeland, deciding to share the grass with his people. But chance ruins everything. When Gilgamesh was bathing in a pond, a snake stole a wonderful plant. Since then, snakes have shed their skin and become younger, while people are destined to grow old without renewal.

The saddened hero asks the gods for one last favor: to call back from the other world at least the shadow of a deceased friend. The poem ends with a dialogue between friends, in which the shadow of the deceased in the darkest colors describes the world of the dead, who “do not see the light, live in darkness, their food is dust and clay.”

Look! The friend whom you hugged in the joy of your heart -

The worms devour him like a decayed shroud.

My body, which you touched in the joy of your heart,

Turned into dust and ashes

It turned into dust and decay, into dust.

Man is powerless against nature, which for the Babylonians was personified as the will of the gods.

The words of the ancient author are permeated with deep pessimism, for even the famous Gilgamesh, “mighty, great, wise,” despite his divine origin, cannot achieve immortality. It is given only to those who, like Ut-Napishtim, fulfill the commandments of religion and the demands of the priests. This thought reflected the later ideology of priesthood, although the roots of the poem undoubtedly go back to folk art. Babylonian literature developed under the influence of a religious worldview, but it was also filled with doubts about the truth of religious dogmas, which promised the righteous immortality as a reward. In the poem, for the first time, with utmost clarity and at the same time with great artistic power, the idea of ​​the inevitability of death is expressed, to which all people are subject, even famous heroes who are ready for any feat in order to overcome inevitable death. In the end, Gilgamesh is consoled by the thought of the immortality of man's glorious deeds, which will forever be preserved in the memory of posterity.

And the question of death and immortality, which so worried man in ancient times, is resolved courageously and essentially correctly: man is mortal, but his deeds are immortal.

The idea of ​​the inevitability of death is also imbued with another work, which is usually called “Conversation between a Master and a Slave,” in which Babylonian religious and philosophical poetry reached its peak.

These are the final strong words of the dialogue, which express the author’s main idea. Disappointed in everything, the gentleman finally exclaims: “What’s good now?” The slave’s answer sounds insolent and mocking: “Breaking my neck and your neck and throwing them into the river - that’s good. Who is so high as to ascend to heaven, and who is so great as to fill the earth!” The angry master threateningly says to the slave: “O slave, I want to kill you and force you to walk in front of me.” But in response the slave’s warning is heard: “Truly, my master will live only three days after me.”

If in Babylonia they had little faith in the afterlife, knowing that, having died, a person turns into dust, into decay, into nothing, then in ancient Egypt the belief in the afterlife was very strong and had a special meaning there. No people ever cared so much about the dead and thought so much about the afterlife as the Egyptians. They did not seek immortality, like the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, because they believed that they possessed it, being confident that death is not the destruction of a person, but only his transition to another world. Such ideas were born under the influence of natural factors, primarily the geographical environment. On the western bank of the Nile, near the sands of the Libyan Desert, where Egyptian cemeteries were located, in a hot, dry climate, the body did not so much decompose as dry out, and the Egyptians managed to protect corpses from rotting.

The magnificent funeral cult of the dead in Egypt was associated with the veneration of the god Osiris, the idea of ​​which, as a dying and resurrecting god, reflected the annual flowering and withering of nature.

From generation to generation, the Egyptians told an endlessly ancient tale about the struggle between life and death - the myth of Osiris. Its content is as follows. Egypt was once ruled by the god of the sun, moisture and vegetation, Osiris. But he was killed by his evil brother Set, who tore the body of Osiris into 14 pieces and scattered it throughout Egypt. Osiris's wife, the goddess Isis, after a long search, collected the remains of her husband, put them together and resurrected the god. But Osiris did not remain on earth, but became king and judge in the afterlife.

The myth of Osiris reflected the Egyptian ideas about the change of seasons and the eternity of constantly regenerating nature: when everything dried up and died from the sultry winds of the deserts, this meant that Osiris was killed; the revival of nature was associated with the resurrection of the deity. The Egyptians believed that just as nature comes to life, so can dead people come to life in the afterlife. Osiris defeated death and came to life. This means, the Egyptians thought, that people who believed in him could rise again and gain immortality. This idea is clearly expressed in the following religious text:

As Osiris truly lives, so do you live.

Just as he truly does not die, so you do not die.

Just as he is not truly destroyed, so you are not destroyed either.

Feeling their dependence on nature, they thought that their earthly and especially future afterlife depended entirely on Osiris, the god of dying and resurrecting nature, the god of “eternal” life and the ruler of the land of the dead. The kingdom of the dead - “Amenti”, where Osiris rules, according to some legends, was in the distant blissful country of the West, where the souls of the dead fly away with the sun, according to others - in the underworld.

The 125th chapter of the “Book of the Dead” - religious and magical collections of texts from ancient Egypt - describes the terrible posthumous judgment of the soul of the deceased, which reflected in a distorted form the earthly and formidable judgment of the pharaoh. Osiris sits on a royal throne under a canopy in the great hall of justice, decorated with tongues of fire and large feathers (a feather is a symbol of truth). Behind him sit 42 monster judges (one from each Egyptian region). In the middle are the scales of justice, on which the heart of the deceased is weighed in order to find out whether he led a righteous life. If a person did not violate the will of Pharaoh and generally committed few sins, his heart should have been light, no heavier than the feather (truth) placed on the other side of the scale. The heart, according to the Egyptians, was a symbol of the soul of the deceased, the focus of his moral life, the receptacle of virtues and vices. Having appeared before the court, the soul makes a negative confession, in which the deceased declares himself innocent of committing 42 cardinal sins.

“I did not speak ill of Pharaoh, I did not rebel, I did not reduce the victims, dedicated to the gods, did not reduce the bread in the temples, did not reduce the food of the gods... did not catch fish in the ponds dedicated to the gods... did not harm the livestock that belonged to the temple..."

The class essence of ideas about the afterlife court is clearly reflected in the nature of this confession. If a person did not stain himself with sins and crimes against the pharaoh and the priests, he was acquitted and his soul was allowed to live in the kingdom of Osiris. There was a lot of water there, which was not enough on earth, and in the paradise fields of Iaru wheat grew taller than a man. The Egyptians believed that the deceased would live there forever with the gods, ride in a solar boat along the underground Nile and eat the food of the gods. But if the heart of the deceased weighed a lot, if he was burdened with vices, the scales went down, and the heart and soul of the sinner were immediately devoured by the terrible monster Amamat (half-lion, half-hippopotamus with the head of a crocodile), and the deceased was forever deprived of the right to the afterlife. It is characteristic that the concept of hell did not exist among the ancient Egyptians: losing immortality was generally considered the most terrible thing.

In the class society of ancient Egypt, the funeral cult was a means of ideological influence of the ruling class on the consciousness of the working masses in order to subjugate them. Belief in the afterlife, in the Last Judgment of Osiris, helped the ruling classes intimidate the masses, dull the consciousness of the poor, convincing them to meekly endure earthly hardships and torments, promising them an imaginary heavenly bliss beyond the grave as a reward.

Belief in the afterlife was widespread and developed in Egypt. The living had to prepare for their afterlife, and the dead demanded a complex funeral cult from their descendants on earth.

The desire to ensure eternal life for the deceased was expressed in concern for the preservation of the corpse and the method of its burial. According to the religious beliefs of the Egyptians, posthumous existence depends on the degree of preservation of the body. The Egyptians believed that the soul of the deceased flies out of the body, but then constantly returns to it, bringing food and maintaining contact with the outside world.

Therefore, in order for the soul to find the body, it must be preserved from destruction. This explains the custom of mummifying corpses and building strong tombs. Since at first the embalming methods were imperfect and the body might not be preserved, a statue of the deceased was placed in the tomb, which was supposed to serve as a replacement for the body. Believing that real life begins behind the grave, every wealthy Egyptian, long before old age, due to his means and capabilities, began to build a tomb for himself.

The Egyptians imagined the afterlife as a fantastic reflection and a kind of continuation of the earthly world, where in the country dead soul will lead the same existence as on earth. Relatives tried to provide the deceased with everything necessary, including furniture and musical instruments to ensure his well-being in the afterlife.

At first, since the time of the clan system, genuine things and food were placed in the tomb - “bread, geese, bull meat and beer” - everything that, according to the concepts of the Egyptians, had to be fed to the soul so that it would not starve in the afterlife. The nobility bequeathed their cattle and lands to the priests and temples “for the sake of their souls.” Subsequently, the Egyptians replaced real food with images, all kinds of drawings of food and drinks on funeral tables and tomb walls, firmly believing that all this would turn into real food and drink and provide for the “afterlife needs” of the deceased.

When a slave state emerged in Egypt, the funeral cult strengthened the idea of ​​the immutability and eternity of the existing class system. Pharaohs began to be buried in giant tombs - pyramids, the dimensions of which reflected the social distance between the king and the population under his control, instilled in his subjects fear of the greatness and power of the ancient Eastern despots and faith in their divinity, which was preached by the priests: during life, the pharaohs were considered earthly gods, and after death were equated with heaven. Wealthy officials and priests were buried in massive tombs that looked like huge benches (the so-called mastabas), where the body of the deceased (mummy), embalmed and swaddled in linen bandages, was lowered into several painted sarcophagi. A half-length portrait of the deceased drawn on the board was also placed there. The entrance to the tomb was walled up, but, according to the Egyptians, the deceased himself could go out invisibly or look out with large eyes painted on the wall of the coffin. On the walls of the interior of the tomb they painted the family of the deceased and in the foreground he himself, usually inspecting the possessions and wealth that belonged to him during his life - craft workshops, herds, fields where slaves worked. All this was supplied with inscriptions exalting the owner and was supposed to magically transfer the property of the deceased to the afterlife.

Taking into account the moods and desires of the candidates for the afterlife, the priests composed special prayers and spells for them to the gods, which were supposed to protect the deceased from the dangers that threatened him in the next world and ensure “union with his family in the afterlife”, “eating bread in the afterlife ”, the opportunity “not to enter the courthouse of God.”

All these funeral texts made up the later already mentioned “Book of the Dead,” which was placed along with the deceased and where one could read, for example, “Chapter so as not to die a second time,” “A saying so as not to decay,” “A saying so as not to get caught.” on God’s block”, etc.

According to the Egyptians, everyone did the same work behind the grave as they did during life. And if the poor peasant dreamed of plowing, sowing and reaping in the fields of Osiris in the kingdom of the dead, then wealthy people they weren't going to do that. For this purpose, special funeral figurines were purchased and placed in the tombs of noble people, which were small figures of servants made of stone, wood or faience with bags of grain on their backs and hoes in their hands, called “ushebti”, which means “respondents”. It was they who had to do the work for their owners beyond the grave. Sometimes up to 365 of these twin dolls were found in tombs, corresponding to the number of days in a year. The Egyptians naively believed that these figurines would come to life one after another in the afterlife and turn into slaves and peasants who would work for the deceased, and the paintings would turn into estates that he would own.

But the rich slave owners, even in the “other world,” were afraid of the possible disobedience of the servants. For this purpose, warning inscriptions were often carved on the figures: “Oh, you, ushabti! If I am called and assigned to perform various works, you answer: “I am here.” Listen only to the one who made you, do not listen to his enemy.” Wooden and earthenware dolls often have their legs broken off; This was done so that the servants could not run away from the master.

It can be assumed that ushabti dolls replaced the more ancient, already mentioned ritual, when his slaves were killed at the grave of a slave owner.

The middle class of the urban population buried their dead in small tombs with modest decoration. The mummies were prepared using a cheap method, and the ushabti placed in the graves was poorly prepared. Sometimes only one “respondent” was placed with the number 365 written on it, and magic spells cast over it ensured that it would work for the deceased throughout the year.

The Egyptian poor simply buried their dead in the sand without any embalming. But at the same time, measures were still taken so that the poor could “resurrect.” Their bodies were wrapped in mats and tied to boards with funeral prayers. The board replaced both the coffin and the tomb for the deceased. The names of dishes and drinks were written on it, which, thanks to magical spells, were supposed to ensure the afterlife well-being of the poor. For example, a funeral prayer asking Osiris to give the deceased in the next world 1000 bulls, 1000 loaves of bread, 1000 glasses of beer, etc. The relatives of the deceased could not do more for him. Sometimes a figurine representing the deceased was buried near the grave of a nobleman, so that part of the gifts brought to him would go to the poor man, who, thus, had to depend on the rich man in the afterlife.

The dead slaves did not even have their own graves: they were buried in a common pit.

We have seen that the Egyptians transferred ideas about the relations of production that existed on earth to the afterlife, where people were located in accordance with their social position on earth. The afterlife cult imperceptibly introduced into the minds of believers the idea of ​​justifying and affirming earthly inequality by the presence of heavenly inequality: for the ruler of the dead, Osiris, it was necessary to cultivate the field in the same way as for earthly masters. Although all the dead were declared equal before one master - Osiris, who could call anyone to “labor service”, the rich could get rid of work here too, replacing themselves with “defendants”.

Reduced to extreme poverty, suppressed by the severity of life, the broad masses of the population dreamed of posthumous bliss. Belief in an afterlife was at the same time an effective instrument of oppression in the hands of the ruling class: fearing the judgment of Osiris, believers patiently endured their hard life, hoping after death to receive a reward for humility.

Belief in the “other world” was strong in ancient Egypt, but even then religion could not suppress the glimmers of free-thinking and critical consciousness of people whose life experience inevitably sowed doubts about what the priests taught. Some poetic works contain notes of disbelief in the afterlife and calls for enjoying all the benefits of earthly life, which sharply contrast with the traditional religious worldview. In one feast song it is sung:

Spend your day joyfully, priest,

Inhale the smell of incense and anointings...

Leave all evil behind you.

Think only about joy until

Until the day comes when you land in the country,

loving silence.

Another papyrus describes the indignation of a pious Egyptian at hearing such songs during funeral feasts: “I heard songs in which the earthly is exalted and the afterlife is humiliated.”

In the famous “Harper's Song,” inscribed on the wall of the pyramid, the freethinking author most boldly denies the existence of an afterlife and doubts the benefits of funeral rites and magnificent tombs:

Crying will not bring anyone back from the grave...

And none of those who went there

Not back yet!

And therefore:

Multiply your pleasures even more,

Don't let your heart get sad

Follow his desire and your good,

Do your deeds on earth according to the dictates of your heart

And do not grieve until the day of mourning for you comes...

Everything will perish, the tombs will disappear, “as if it never happened,” the author concludes; only the deeds of people, the works and thoughts of the people are immortal.

In the poetic dialogue, which is usually called “The Disappointed Man’s Conversation with His Soul,” the author’s words convey the deep pessimism of a man disappointed in life and challenging the heavens. The doubt about the existence of eternal life is clearly felt in the following words: “If you remember burial, then this is grief... You will never go out to see the sun. Those who built from granite and erected chambers... they suffered the same fate as the tired ones who died on the rafts, leaving no offspring behind. The heat of the sun and the fish on the shore talk to them.”

Having lost faith in the afterlife, the author also treats funeral rites with contempt, not believing that they can provide a person with afterlife bliss, although they require great expenses. The author’s words sound confident that death will level everyone, both poor and rich, preparing for them the same fate - destruction under the rays of the scorching sun or the all-conquering power of water.

In the literary monuments of other peoples Ancient East There are also works that are skeptical about belief in an afterlife. Such, for example, are the Hebrew parables attributed to King Solomon. The Talmud, a Jewish religious collection of Bible interpretations written more than two thousand years ago, mentions sages who argued that there is no afterlife. Even in the Bible itself, the “sacred” book of the ancient Jews, which was then accepted by Christians as the Old Testament, one repeatedly comes across certain naive materialistic views that deny the afterlife and express thoughts that with the death of a person everything is over for him, he will not be resurrected. and even God himself will not create such a miracle. Thus, the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes concludes that man does not live beyond the grave, “everything came from dust, and everything will return to dust” (chapter 3, v. 20). In the “Book of the Wisdom of Solomon” it is written: “We were born by chance, and afterward we will be like those who never were: the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and the word is a spark in the movement of our heart. When it fades away, the body will turn to dust, and the spirit will dissipate like liquid air” (chapter 2, vv. 2-3). But these "dangerous places" scriptures“have been and are being hushed up so diligently by theologians and are so drowned in the sea of ​​biblical teachings about the afterlife that believers usually do not even suspect their existence.

In the religion of the ancient Greeks, based on the deification of various forces of nature and admiration for the memory and exploits of ancestors - “god-like” heroes, there was no clearly expressed idea of ​​the afterlife, of heaven and hell. In Ancient Greece, the priesthood did not develop into a special class, did not represent a strong, centralized organization and did not have much influence on the emerging views of people and folk art. It was, as Marx put it, “the childhood of human society where it developed most beautifully...” The freely developing Greek mythology left humanity with an amazing and beautiful world of wonderful tales that embodied the stubborn struggle of man with nature, glorifying the exploits of the mighty and just heroes of the people.

According to ancient Greek myths, two brothers of the supreme deity of the thunderer Zeus (Jupiter among the Romans), lord of heaven and earth, shared the world with him: Poseidon (Neptune) received power over the seas, and Hades became the ruler of the afterlife, or the underworld (Orcus). Roman Pluto), or Hades, from whose name our word “hell” comes.

The ancient Hellenes imagined the afterlife as a misfortune, and they saw the whole tragedy of people in the fact that they are mortal. There is nothing better than earthly life for a happy person, but it is short. Behind the grave, only horrors await a person. underworld Yes, the sad wandering of a homeless soul. The Greeks imagined Hades as inhabited by aimlessly wandering shadow-like, ghostly creatures, devoid of feeling, thought, or consciousness. They run around, moan, constantly tremble and cannot warm up. It is the souls of the dead who spend their sad and monotonous lives in the kingdom of shadows. The kingdom of Hades is terrible, and people hate it.

The heroic epic of the ancient Greeks tells how Odysseus once wanted to summon the souls of the dead in order to learn the future from them: he dug a hole, poured the blood of a sacrificial animal into it and began to utter mysterious words. With pitiful groans, the shadows of the dead, pitiful semblances of living people, flew down; they began to crowd towards the blood, since hot blood is life and warmth; only the soul that drinks blood can speak with the living. Among them was the shadow of the god-born hero Achilles. Odysseus asked: “What is it like for you in the underworld?” Achilles replied: “It is better to be the last farm laborer on earth than to reign here over the dead.” So hopeless, hopeless and gloomy was the existence of souls in the kingdom of shadows.

The god of death Tanat flew on huge black wings to the bed of the dying man, cut off a lock of hair from his head with a sword, tore out his soul and sent it to the king of the dead - Hades. Through bottomless abysses, abysses with a guide, the winged messenger of the gods Hermes, the soul descended - the “psyche” deep into the earth, where black, deadening rivers flow, among them the chilling Styx, separating the underworld from the real world. The terrible kingdom of the inexorable Hades is full of eternal darkness, where neither the light nor the joys of earthly life ever reach.

The deceased, according to the ideas of the ancient Greeks, had to cross the river of sadness and tears - Acheron, and the gloomy old ferryman Charon took him to the other side for a fee. To pay for the move, the Greeks placed a small copper coin in the dead person's mouth. This boatman did not transport a single soul of the deceased back to where the sun of life shines brightly. The three-headed hellish dog Cerberus, on which snakes wriggled, and the tail ended with the head of a dragon, and many other monsters guarded the exit, guarded the eternal joyless existence of the dead.

There is no return from the other world. Only once did the famous singer Orpheus, with his sweet-sounding music, manage to persuade the harsh Hades to mercy: to give him his tragically deceased young wife Eurydice. The condition was this: until they reached the surface of the earth, it was impossible to turn back. Orpheus could not stand it, looked at Eurydice, and immediately the god Hermes took her back to the underworld.

One of the rivers of the underworld in Greek mythology is Lethe, the river of oblivion, the waters of which made the souls of the dead forget all the earthly suffering they had endured. (This is where the expression “sink into oblivion” comes from, that is, to be forgotten forever, to disappear without a trace.) The gods of dreams, joyful and nightmare, also live here, over which the young god of sleep Hypnos reigns; silently he rises on his wings above the ground with poppy heads in his hands, pours a sleeping pill from the horn and puts people to sleep.

Using the example of ancient Greek religion, we see that at an early stage of social development, the idea of ​​individual immortality did not contain something comforting for all peoples: to the Greeks it seemed like an “inevitable fate” and even a misfortune. It can be assumed that the stormy economic development Greek states, the class stratification of society and the struggle of classes did not have time to be reflected in religion in a relatively short historical period, and the views on the “future life” of the ancient Greeks had not yet fully developed. But the priests, who expressed the interests of the ruling classes, used and developed existing ideas, extracting income from them and frightening the masses. At the so-called Eleusinian sacraments, for example, an image of a sepulchral kingdom of shadows was shown, from where the sounds of sobs were heard and the ringing of chains was heard - these were the tormented souls of the dead, tormented by eternal suffering and remorse.

Other mysteries, called Orphic, consisted in the fact that the priests communicated to the “initiates” mysterious rituals and the doctrine of the afterlife, allegedly brought from the underworld by Orpheus himself. The priests taught that the performance of Orphic rites would ensure those initiated into these mysteries a blissful life beyond the grave.

Thus, in Greece, ideas about the afterlife as reward for earthly deeds were just beginning to take shape.

The inquisitive mind of the ancient Greeks persistently penetrated into the secrets of nature, which became increasingly difficult to explain by the “otherworldly” world. The development of trade, crafts, and navigation moved science forward, gave birth to brave scientists, great thinkers and atheists who, with their freethinking and materialistic teaching, destroyed faith in the supernatural. Greek historian and geographer Hecataeus of Miletus, who lived at the end of the 6th and beginning of the 5th century. BC, tried to critically reconsider ancient beliefs. So, he decided to explore the cave, which in myths was told that it led to the underworld to his terrible lord Hades and that it was from here that Hercules pulled the hellish dog Cerberus from the underworld to earth, with a dragon or snake instead of a tail. “I,” Hecataeus later wrote, “was in this place myself and descended underground. The cave is shallow. Most likely, it happened like this: a snake lived in this cave, and it bit people, like all poisonous snakes. In the darkness, people mistook the snake for the tail of a dog. And since the snake’s venom was fatal, it was called the hellish dog Cerberus. Hercules actually descended, only not into hell, but into a cave. He saw a snake, caught it and brought this “dog” into the light. Then a legend arose that Hercules descended into hell and brought out Cerberus, who had a snake instead of a tail.”

The greatest materialist of antiquity, Democritus (460-370 BC), in his essay “On the Afterlife,” ridiculed belief in the afterlife as “false fables about what will happen after death,” arguing that “the soul is mortal, it is destroyed along with the body." “Many people do not know that the human body disintegrates into atoms,” Democritus taught, “but these people remember bad deeds behind them, and therefore spend their whole lives in anxiety, fear and torment, believing false fairy tales about the afterlife.”

There is a legend that when Democritus was in the cemetery, where he loved to spend time, some jokers decided to scare him by wrapping themselves in dark cloaks and posing as the dead emerging from their graves. “Stop fooling around,” said Democritus. “You will not frighten someone who knows for sure that if someone is dead, then he is dead and, therefore, cannot get up.”

With the division of society into antagonistic classes, other reasons appear religious faith to the afterlife. In an exploitative society, in addition to the spontaneous forces of nature, people are also dominated by the forces of a given social system, they experience economic and social oppression. The vast majority of society is in an oppressed position. The feeling of helplessness and powerlessness before nature, although it remains, is now receding into the background; fear arises of the incomprehensible laws of spontaneously formed social relations, about which incorrect, fantastic ideas are created. The oppressed working masses feel defenseless before the blind, inevitable and as if established from above force of social development, which, acting inexorably and mercilessly, makes some slaves, others - slave owners, some - poor workers, others - rich parasites. The main root of religion in a class society and the main reason for belief in an afterlife, and better than earthly life in the “other world”, is social oppression, the unbearable, hopeless situation of the working classes, their seeming helplessness in the fight against the exploiters, hunger, poverty, lack of rights, uncertainty about the future.

Downtrodden and forced laborers, unable to throw off the oppression of the exploiters and rebuild social orders, despairing of finding a real path to salvation, sought illusory oblivion and consolation in anticipation of a future afterlife, hoping at least in the “other world” to receive a reward for their suffering.

“The powerlessness of the exploited classes in the fight against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to faith in a better afterlife, just as the powerlessness of the savage in the fight against nature gives rise to faith in gods, devils, miracles, etc.”

These Leninist lines from the wonderful article “Socialism and Religion” reveal the social roots of the working people’s dream of posthumous bliss and heavenly reward.

The developing slave system, supporting religious views on the “otherworldly” world, began to use them as a consolation for enslaved and suffering people, which is especially clearly seen in the example of Egypt. In an exploitative society, a belief in afterlife reward and retribution for earthly deeds begins to develop; concepts of afterlife reward and punishment are developed that are completely alien to people of pre-class society. The oppressors sought not only to suppress the slave, but also to “comfort” him with faith in happiness after death, distracting him from difficult thoughts about his fate on earth and attempts at class struggle. The deceived and robbed working masses were imposed with a cheap hope of “eternal life” and “heavenly bliss” in paradise, for the sake of which they had to put up with their share of being exploited, endure and expect rewards for submission and obedience. The reactionary belief in an afterlife was zealously propagated and developed by the church, which helped the ruling classes to oppress the people and stupefy their consciousness.

From the book God Speaks (Textbook of Religion) author Antonov Vladimir

“THE CAVES OF ANCIENT PEOPLES” by Lobzang Rampa Westerners have only two questions: can you prove it? and what will I get from this? Listen to the voices of our souls. This world is a world of illusions; life on Earth is a test so that we can be cleansed of everything unclean. Listen

From the book Afterlife author Fomin A V

PETTION OF THOSE ON EARTH FOR THOSE WHO HAVE PASSED ON TO THE AFTERWORLD Everything has its own custom, a reason; there is no action without a reason. If we are sure that they will not accept our offering, that they will resolutely refuse our request, then will we ask? No! It is truth. Hence,

From the book Instructions for Immortals or what to do if you still die... author Sysoev Daniil

The afterlife, ordeals, examples of saints. The Guardian Angel, of course, meets a person after death. The Christian is greeted by two Angels: the Guardian Angel and the Guide Angel. They lead a person to the afterlife. He is also greeted by at least two evil spirit:

From the book Kingdom of the Dead [Rites and Cults of the Ancient Egyptians] author Budge Ernest Alfred Wallis

From the book Ancient Scandinavians. Sons of the northern gods author Davidson Hilda Ellis

From the book The Illusion of Immortality by Lamont Corliss

From the book The Afterlife According to Old Russian Concepts by Sokolov

From the book Afterlife author Osipov Alexey Ilyich

Understanding of death among ancient peoples So, what is death? All nations have thought about this. All religions talk about this. True, each in its own way. If we turn to pre-Christian history, we will see many different options for describing the afterlife. But you need to immediately

From the book Magic, Occultism, Christianity: from books, lectures and conversations author Men Alexander

FATE AND THE AFTERWORLD OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS From the book “Magism and Monotheism”<…>The greatest world-historical significance of the Zeus religion lay primarily in the proclamation of the primacy of Light, Reason and Harmony over Darkness, Irrationality and Chaos. In this regard

From the book Evidence of the Existence of Hell. Testimonies from survivors author Fomin Alexey V.

The afterlife messenger In 1831, on February 28, Infantry General Stepan Stepanovich Apraksin died in Moscow. In his young years, he briefly met Prince Vasily Vladimirovich Dolgorukov. Both of them served in the same regiment: the first with the rank of colonel, the second - major.

From the book of the Deities of the Ancient Slavs author Famintsyn Alexander Sergeevich

III. Fundamentals of the religious worldview of the ancient Aryans of Iran and India, the ancient Greeks and Pelasgians, the ancient Italians and the peoples of the Lithuanian tribe The first, most important reason for the poetic and musical creativity of each people, especially in its infancy

From the book Difficult Pages of the Bible. Old Testament author Galbiati Enrico

The afterlife in ancient books Old Testament 86. Researchers of the history of religions know that all peoples knew that the soul survives the body after its death. Naturally, everyone speculated about the state of souls in the afterlife and believed that the conditions of the afterlife

From the book The Explanatory Bible. Old Testament and New Testament author Lopukhin Alexander Pavlovich

VI Descendants of Noah. Genealogy of peoples. Pandemonium of Babylon and the scattering of nations. The beginning of idolatry After the flood, everyday life began again, with its usual worries and labors. Noah was an example of piety, hard work and other virtues for his children. But

From the book General History of the World's Religions author Karamazov Voldemar Danilovich

Everyone has seen films about the afterlife and Egyptian mummies. Some prefer film adaptations in the adventure genre, others prefer horror films or documentaries. But no matter what genre is closer to the viewer, stories about life on the other side of reality are invariably attractive to everyone, especially if they revolve around the secrets and legends of Ancient Egypt.

However, the true beliefs and ideas about the afterlife in Ancient Egypt are no less interesting than their interpretation by modern screenwriters and directors, and perhaps even more fascinating. Let's talk about this.

Where did a person go after death?

Every culture has a specific place where the soul is transferred after the body dies. The Egyptians are no exception. The afterlife in Ancient Egypt took place in the kingdom of Duat.

Initially, before the emergence of the first dynasties and during the Early Kingdoms, the Duat was ruled by the god Anubis. And the kingdom of the dead itself had no division into light and dark sides, all souls were in one place. However, the confidence that the afterlife continues the present one was also present in those distant times. The Egyptians believed that social status and position do not change after physical death. That is, priests do not become pharaohs, and peasants do not become nobles, or vice versa. On the gloomy fields of the Duat, under the vigilant bloody gaze of the great jackal, and it was in this image that Anubis liked to appear, each person continues to lead his usual life. In accordance with this confidence, posthumous gifts were collected - belongings that could be useful to the deceased on the other side of reality.

Peasants were buried with tools, pharaohs with luxury items and symbols of power. They did not forget about the small figurines of gods that were present in every Egyptian home. Later, the very idea of ​​the kingdom of Duat changed, as well as the entire afterlife. The rule of Anubis was replaced by the rule of Osiris. The endless expanses of the Duat were divided into a place where pure souls lived - fields called Ialu, and into a kind of purgatory for sinners. It was in the mouth of a monster, which they called Amaat. Osiris himself determined which soul should go where, and the weighing of a person’s heart helped God make a decision. On one side of the scale there was a feather, and on the other, accordingly, a heart.

Anubis, debunked by the Egyptians, remained one of the guides of souls, although this god did not lose his other functions. Changes in the perception of the Duat, a new idea of ​​the afterlife, developed during the Middle Kingdoms. At the same time, the first “Books of the Dead” arose, which began to accompany the deceased for many centuries, performing a function similar to the coins inserted by the Greeks.

A look at a person

The ideas of modern people endow human nature with two essences - the soul and the physical body in which it is contained. The Egyptians' ideas about human nature were somewhat broader.

The most important thing that makes up human nature, according to the beliefs of the Egyptians, is “Ka”. Ka is a cast of a person, his energy double. However, this is not a synonym for the term “soul”; rather, it is the content, the essence that defines personality. Ka is inherent not only to people - all living things have this component: bushes, trees, animals, flowers, even grains of sand or caterpillars. Without Ka, nothing can live in principle. If you destroy someone's Ka, the person immediately dies. The ancient magic of Egypt was based on this.

In addition to Ka, human nature consists of:

Ren has two meanings. The first is the name, the second is the memory. One logically follows from the other. In the minds of the Egyptians, memory is the self-awareness of a person, and it is impossible without a name. According to beliefs, when death came, the afterlife could not begin if the person was deprived of name and memory. That is, unless his name was put on the sarcophagus. Or they did not make the appropriate entry in the sacred writings if the sarcophagus was missing.

There is probably no person who has not heard at least once in the cinema the phrase of the film: “The sacred writings have been erased.” After this, after some time in the story, the mummy came to life. The artistic approach of the scriptwriters and directors is fully consistent with the beliefs of Ancient Egypt. By deleting or not writing Ren, the living condemned the dead to eternal residence between realities. The deceased could not enter the Duat without memory and name.

Hut is directly physical body, hypostasis, unable to live without filling Ka. Like Ka, every living thing has Hat.

Ahu means "sanctified" or "enlightened." A person does not have this component of his nature during life; it is acquired only after death. But the afterlife itself does not provide the Ahu component. The deceased receives ahu from the priests who prepare his body through a ritual called “Opening of the Mouth.”

Ba is simply the soul. However, the Egyptians understood the soul somewhat more broadly than modern people. Ba is the psyche, emotions, and consciousness. It is curious that in those times when Anubis dominated the Duat, that is, before the beginning of the Middle Kingdoms period, the presence of Ba was attributed exclusively to the pharaohs, the high priesthood and the gods themselves. But with Osiris coming to power in the Duat, everything changed, and Ba began to be endowed on every person, regardless of his social status.

What is the "Opening of the Mouth"?

The ideas about the afterlife in Ancient Egypt are very interesting. But further story is impossible without familiarization with the rituals that accompany the transition from one reality to another. The “Opening of the Mouth” ritual is one of the key rituals in the burial culture of the Egyptians; it played a very important role.

Descriptions of this ritual are found in the earliest sources discovered by Egyptologists, and images of the actions of the priests are on the walls of almost all religious buildings and, of course, the pyramids.

The ritual consists of the priests opening the mouth of the deceased. This is necessary not only so that the deceased can drink, eat, talk or breathe, but also for Ahu to enter his body. The ritual has existed since the earliest times, and the last mention of it dates back to the period when Egypt was conquered by the Romans.

When performing this ritual, the priests used a strict list of tools, including:

• a special adze similar to the one used by carpenters;
• a sacred incense burner that looks like a hand;
• peshesh-kef - a knife that was used to touch the face of the deceased;
• a stick for auxiliary purposes, made in the form of an animal's head.

The ritual consisted of 75 significant episodes. They included preliminary preparation, the process of opening the mouth itself, and the offering of gifts from the Upper and Lower kingdoms (for the pharaohs, of course). Spells confirming that the ritual had been performed were contained in the deceased's individual Book of the Dead, as well as other information that might be needed in the afterlife. The person going there did not know how they lived in the Duat, so it was customary to provide the deceased with a kind of “document,” that is, papyrus containing the necessary spells.

What is the Book of the Dead?

“The Book of the Dead” is simply a collection of texts of ritual spells, with the help of which the deceased was prepared for life in the Duat. And which, of course, could be useful to him there.

The “Book of the Dead” did not appear out of nowhere; it was preceded by earlier collections of ritual ceremonial spells:

• “Pyramid Texts” - that’s what they were called from the pre-dynastic era until the Middle Kingdom.
• "Texts of the Sarcophagi" - the name was used until the beginning of the New Kingdom.

These collections, found and studied by Egyptologists, are a completely disordered jumble of prayers, ritual addresses, sacred ritual phrases, protective spells and other things. In comparison, the Book of the Dead, which came into use at the end of the Middle Period or at the beginning of the New Kingdom, looks almost like literary work or a manual in which the entire afterlife is laid out “on the shelves”.

What is contained in the Book of the Dead?

The idea that this is something that allows you to raise a mummy from the dust is common to everyone who likes to watch adventure films. Some believe that these papyrus scrolls are a source of knowledge about the other world of Duat. However, this is not a book about the afterlife. And not a collection of some myths or tales. This is a book for the afterlife. That is, the collection is intended for the deceased himself, and not for introducing the living to the rules and procedures of the Kingdom of the Dead.

At its core, this book is a collection of Egyptian ideas about religion, morality, ethics, and magic. It contains more than 125 chapters, each of which can shed light on some aspect of Egyptian life, not only in the afterlife, but also in the ordinary one.

The name itself is quite arbitrary. The volume of contents of papyri or leather scrolls depended on what a person could afford. This is not about nobility or position, but about how much an Egyptian could pay to prepare the “Book of the Dead” for himself. Of course, the larger the book, the more confident the Egyptian felt.

However, no book could influence the purity and weight of the heart at the trial of Osiris. The afterlife depended solely on the results of this trial. Such is the paradox.

For scientists, what is of greater interest is not the sacred texts, prayers, protective spells and other phrases contained in the collection, which are so necessary for the deceased in the vastness of the Duat. Information about the culture, religion, magic and customs of the Egyptians of those distant times is provided by illustrations that are abundantly present in the scrolls found in the burials.

What happened at the trial of Osiris?

The afterlife for the Egyptians began with the judgment of Osiris. Every person knows approximately how our deceased ancestors “live,” or more precisely, what happens to their souls after death. And this knowledge is very similar to ideas about how the afterlife of Egypt was structured since the time of the Middle Kingdom. The Judgment of Osiris is very similar to the Last Judgment, and Ialu is essentially an analogue of Paradise, Amaat, accordingly, performs the functions of hell.

During the trial of the deceased, Osiris sat on a high throne, holding in his hands the symbols of supreme power - a whip and his staff. Behind him were the court witnesses - the gods of the nomes, 42 in number. In the center of the illustrations in the “Books of the Dead” and on the frescoes there were always scales - the main “character” of the court. It was on them that the heart of the deceased was placed. The gods Thoth and Anubis stood next to the scales. The measure of sinfulness and righteousness was the feather of the goddess Maat, placed in opposition to the heart.

Interestingly, the deceased could address 42 gods and Osiris himself. That is, he could be justified in committing an atrocity in earthly life.

The courtroom of Osiris was called the Chamber of mutual truth. Osiris himself was called the Lord of mutual truth. Interestingly, the earthly worldly court that Pharaoh administered was an exact copy of the court of Osiris. Of course, with the exception of the scales, hearts and feathers of Maat. The pharaoh himself presided over a panel of several dozen judges.

Who are the gods of the nomes?

Nome is the name of a territory, an administrative unit, which came into use during the Hellenic period. The primary Egyptian name sounds like “sept”.

Ancient Egypt had different times unequal number of nomes and, accordingly, their totemic patron deities.

In the “administrative lists” found by scientists dating back to the reigns of Snefru and Niuserra, that is, to the fourth and fifth dynasties of the Old Kingdom, 22 nomes of Upper Egypt and 15 of Lower Egypt are mentioned.

By the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, there were 42 such territorial units. That is how many patron gods of these regions are present at the court of Osiris.

The territories were ruled by nomarchs, who were direct representatives of the pharaoh. And totems, that is, younger gods, were considered stewards of the lands on behalf of Osiris.

How did the early idea of ​​the afterlife differ from the later one?

In addition to the fact that in the ancient concept of the Duat, the afterlife was under the jurisdiction of Anubis, and not Osiris, there were other differences.

The most important of them is the common territory of the afterlife. There was no place for righteous people, nor a kind of purgatory for sinners. That is, there was no place in which the mouth of Amaat swallowed the villains. Of course, there was no court of Osiris.

Another important difference was the presence of Ahu in the deceased. Before the accession of Osiris to the Duat, only pharaohs and the high priesthood were endowed with Ahu. Accordingly, the ritual “Opening of the Mouth” was performed only for them.

From a secular point of view, these differences meant that the funeral rite became more complicated and more expensive after the beginning of the Middle Kingdom.

Were the Egyptians afraid of death?

Death was a part of life in Ancient Egypt. It was not perceived as a grief or simply an outstanding event. Rather, death was simply a transition. A kind of move to another place of residence in the perception of the ancient Egyptians.

It is precisely this feature of the idea of ​​​​the afterlife that is responsible for what seems to most Europeans a contradiction. The point is that the Duat was headed by Osiris, that is, the functions of the patron of the dead were performed by the god of fertility, on whose will the flood of the Nile and the harvest depended.

In fact, there are no contradictions in this. Osiris gave people not only the flooded Nile and high harvests, but also deprived them of this, bringing hunger, disease and death. That is, he was both a benefactor and a punisher. If the waters of the Nile did not rise to the required level, hundreds of peasants literally died of starvation.

How important was the afterlife?

The question is not an idle one. The meaning that Christians attach to the other world is radically different from what the afterlife was for the Egyptians. Egypt lived well in this world, but in the afterlife, no reward awaited its citizens.

In the minds of the Egyptians, life in the Duat was a continuation of earthly existence. That is, if a person fished, then in the vastness of the Duat he will do the same. If he was a priest, he will remain one. It was not abstract souls that ended up in the Duat, as in Christian heaven or hell, but Ka. That is, the complete energy double of a person, his essence. The concept of Ka allows us to assert that man himself entered the Duat, leaving a shell that was temporarily not needed for earthly storage. This is precisely the difference between the ideas of the ancient Egyptians about the afterlife from those that modern people have.