The Scroll was brought from Egypt in 1887 by a Museum curator, Doctor Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge. He was a prolific author ... Yet there are those who say Budge was a second-rate scholar, a poor archaeologist and a cultural thief acquiring antiquities by any means possible. ibid.
In the autumn of 1887 the Museum sent him to Egypt on an artefact collecting expedition. ibid.
When Wallis Budge arrived in Egypt in 1887 the country was controlled by a European coalition. Following a nationalist rebellion in 1882 Great Britain and France shared control of the country and the vital Suez Canal. Their coalition would control the politics and economy of Egypt for decades. But it was an uncomfortable union. And men like Budge didn’t make the alliance any easier. ibid.
Whether Budge was a scholar, an adventurer or even a thief, the Scroll of Ani was his greatest contribution to the world of Egyptology. He never made a greater find. Nor has anyone ever discovered any other scrolls as artistic or complete as Ani’s Book of the Dead. ibid.
Ultimately, the Egyptian Book of the Dead is a guide to living, a guide as to how one should live life on Earth. A life of morals. And ethics. In order to obtain an afterlife. ibid.
We all die. And we all wonder what happens after our heart stops beating. Few have imagined a more terrifying and elaborate afterlife than the ancient Egyptians. Their vision of death required an arduous journey. A struggle to make it through a dangerous underworld. Their only guide – collections of powerful spells called the Book of the Dead. ibid.
The idea of being challenged by demons in the afterlife is very old. It represented the belief that there would be a final reckoning after death. It’s an idea that still resonates down the centuries. ibid.
Many believe it is the only example of religious writing in the world. ibid.
There’s even a case to be made that the Egyptian Book of the Dead influenced New Testament and Christian imagery. ibid.
Most of the Ten Commandments can be found in the Negative Confessions. ibid.
The Book of the Dead is a kind of guide book for the deceased. And a book of spells to aid the deceased in his journey in the afterlife. And the process of becoming immortal. Professor Stuart Tyson Smith
The Book of the Dead is the modern name that we give to a collection of spells that the Egyptians actually called the Book of Coming Out By Day. They were to facilitate your transition to the next life. Nostradamus Effect: Doomsday Hieroglyphs, History 2009
We all die ... Their vision of death required an arduous journey, a struggle to make it through a dangerous underworld. Their only guide: collections of powerful spells called the Books of the Dead. Egypt Underworld, National Geographic 2009
Each gate is guarded by writhing serpents. ibid.
A person who had no-one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart. Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Hades is the realm of the dead, and the Greeks believed that when they died they went down into Hades. Hades most likely could be seen as a kind of literal place underground. Dr Marvin Meyer, Chapman University
The real bad sinners go to Tartarus. Dr Marvin Mayer
Nearly four thousand years ago the Sumerians believed in a Great Below where the dead resided. Ancient Greeks wrote of an Abyss so deep that a soul could fall for a year and not reach the bottom. In the Hebrew book of Job the underworld is called Sheol and is described as a dark pit beneath the Earth. In fact almost all ancient cultures accepted the idea of an underworld, a universe of dead beneath the Earth. Gates of Hell, National Geographic 2003
Life is a moment. There is no hereafter. So make it burn always with the hardest flame. Dorian Gray 2009 starring Ben Barnes & Colin Firth & Ben Chaplin & Rachel Hurd-Wood & Johnny Harris & Rebecca Hall & Emilia Fox & Fiona Shaw & Maryan d’Abo & Caoline Goodall et al, director Oliver Parker
Now every mortal has pain
and sweat is constant,
but if there is anything dearer than being alive,
it's dark to me.
We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing
(whatever it is) that glitters on the earth –
we call it life. We know no other.
The underworld’s a blank
and all the rest just fantasy. Anne Carson, Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides
‘And as for what happens to you after death, it’s a thing I believes in leavin’ till you comes to it – there’s no sense in meetin’ trouble ’arfway. All the things they tells us may be true or they may not, but it takes me all my time to look after this world.’ Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, Newman
But supposing that bodily death was not the end. Suppose there was some kind of a God? If there were, it wasn't unreasonable to think that the Being who was capable of creating such a world as this and who seemed so callously indifferent to the unhappiness of His creatures, would also be capable of devising and creating the other Hell that most people believed in. ibid.
What happens when we die? Do we simply cease to be? Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole s2e1: Is There Life After Death? Science 2010
What is consciousness? Where does consciousness come from and where does it go when we die? ibid.
Some people have a certainty that helps them cope with grief: they are certain they will see their loved ones again in Heaven … It’s the greatest question we ask ourselves – what happens when we die? Morgan Freeman, The Story of God s1e1: Beyond Death, National Geographic 2016
The hope for life beyond death seems to be an almost universal instinct. ibid.
What’s going to happen if we create eternal life in this life? ibid.
There was nothing at all. Game of Thrones s6e3: Oathbreaker, HBO 2016
If you had the chance to come back to life even if it meant spending decades immersed in liquid nitrogen, would you take it? Frozen: Cryonics, Channel 5 2018
With more Brits signing up, is this really the ticket to eternal life? Can the science of cryonics really awaken the dead? ibid.
The practice of cryonics divides the scientific community. ibid.
There is no scientific evidence that patients will ever stand a chance of being brought back. ibid.
In some cases they have amazing stories to tell about what it is like on the other side … The medical definition of death has been challenged by the advance of science. In Search of s1e19 … Life After Death, History 1977
Frozen alive to one hundred degrees below zero, a three-day-old embryo is held in suspended animation. As temperatures approach absolute zero all chemical and biological activity ceases. In this state frozen life might be preserved for ever. In Search of s3e6 … Cryogenics
For men in war death is an ever-present possibility and terror. Soldiers who experience near-death encounters suggest that death may not be something to be feared. At what point does life fade into death? Is it possible to scientifically prove that there is life after life? In Search of s5e5 … Life After Life, 1980
Eerie recollections of somebody else’s memories. Two people who share one mind. Or people who have been able to see their own bodies while at the point of death. What happens to us after we die? Do our memories, our personalities, everything that makes us who we are, does it all just disappear? Or do we have a conscience, a soul, that lives on? The UnXplained with William Shatner 1e6: Life After Death, History 2019
Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Isaiah 26:19
Experts estimate that 20% of Americans have had an ADC [After Death Contact]. Unexplained Mysteries, History 2004
We can certainly estimate that at least fifty million Americans had have one or more ADC experiences. Bill Guggenheim, after-death contact researcher
I don’t believe in the afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear. Woody Allen