Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 13.4. Akenaton
Not long after Amenhotep commanded that statues and temples of all other gods be
destroyed, the priests who had devoted their lives to the old gods (and had amassed great
wealth in doing so) conspired with others of the pharaonic elite to supplant Akenaton by
his son-in-law, Tutankhamun. The latter was no more than nine or ten years old when he
assumed the throne, presumably easily led by those at the top of the pyramid. But whether
forced, led, or merely advised, he restored the old gods, moved his capital back to Thebes,
and would someday achieve modern-day fame by the discovery of his tomb in 1922.
TO THE EGYPTIANS, WHAT IS THE HUMAN SOUL?
Although the concept of the soul is freely used in western discourse, such use masks a
long history of dispute over its ultimate meaning and significance. What, for example, is
the soul's substance? Its purpose? Its origin? Its relationship to the body? Where does it
reside? What is its connection to God? What happens to the soul after death? Where stands
the soul between life and death (the Psychopannychia controversy)? Is the concept of soul
completely equivalent to life force?
No one can now say how closely the words used by the Egyptians to denote “life force”
were equivalent to our concept of soul. Nor can we know very much about theological con-
troversies that may have attended their life-force-soul words. We do know, however, that
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