Hermeneutics of death. Methodological challenges and opportunities in translating Egyptian funerary texts

A Collaborative Research Grant with Emory University, Atlanta.

The ancient Egyptians had a long cultural tradition of placing religious texts in tombs. Sealed away and thus never meant to be seen again, such texts pose significant interpretive challenges, while also offering a rich source of knowledge of concepts in Egyptian funerary culture. The project brings together a variety of perspectives on the translation of ancient Egyptian funerary texts in a broad sense, ranging from the meaning of individual words to the ways the practice of transmitting and depositing such texts can be interpreted by modern observers. In doing so, the project focuses on the intersections between, and mutual implications of, methods and choices of translation at each of these levels. By applying these perspectives to concrete inscribed objects in the two universities’ museum collections and presenting the results to a wider audience through a combined virtual exhibition, the impact of the work is maximized while also putting questions of museum interpretation at the center of the research. In addition, the results will be published in a scholarly volume of proceedings and will in turn serve as a pilot project for a larger proposal for a joint research project on the hermeneutics of death in Ancient Egyptian funerary texts.