Violence in the Afterlife
The state, as it emerged in the early third millennium bce, seems clearly committed to a detailed belief in a colourful afterlife. In stark contrast to belief systems in western Asia and south-eastern Europe in which the deceased dwelled in an uninviting, morbid twilight, Egypt conjured up from the beginning a ‘beyond', which in its minutiae is both attractive and repellent.
A clone of the mundane state and complex society, the ‘West' (the Egyptian term for the realm of the dead) was a replica of life on earth, translated into a mortuary register. The ‘King in Death', later to appear under the guise of Osiris, presided over an otherworldly court, made up of brother deities, divine courtiers and messengers.[720] As in this life, the court of the next world was intended also for litigation. The spirits of the dead carried on much as they had in life: ploughing their plots, harvesting, fishing, fowling, relaxing by the pool. When wronged, they would take each other to court before the heavenly magistrate(s). In this regard the present life slipped easily into the next: malefactors in this life could be threatened with court in the beyond.On earth, regular audits were undertaken by the central pharaonic administration, in which farm and plantation managers from all over Egypt were brought to offices in the capital to undergo examination. In the mastabas there are scenes in which police force managers to their knees in the presence of a high-ranking civil servant, and in some cases administer beatings. This kind of investigation was called the ‘Reckoning of the Great Ones'. Translated into the next life the practice becomes ‘the reckoning of crime in the presence of the Eternal Lord' (the sun-god: Coffin Texts III 314a; IV, 3oon; VI, 324g). And thus the final judgement of the dead, as a moral assessment after death, takes shape: ‘the magistrates who judge the (morally) deficient, you know they are not lenient on that day of judging the wretch, that hour of performing duty. It is difficult when the prosecutor is a wise man...
As for him that reaches [the West] without having committed sin, like a god will he exist over there, striding about like the lords of Eternity!'[721]No one believes the magistrates described will actually find them morally deficient; but the trial motif demands the addition of a description of punishment. On earth the guilty are often subjected to violent punishment, and so they are in the beyond. The concept of the fierce messenger of god who tears the dying from their earthly existence, the Paiv%oo%, ‘the soul of darkness', begins to colour the details of the afterlife. Osiris describes the underworld over which he presides: ‘Look at the way things stand! The land where I am is filled with fierce-eyed messengers who fear neither god nor goddess. I send them out and they bring back the hearts of all those who have committed sin, and they (the sinners) stay here with me!' (LES 58). The divine messenger, black and strong, develops into Death itself (BM 147): ‘Death, whose name is “Come!”, everyone whom he summons, they go to him with hearts terrified through fear of him, though neither gods nor humankind can see him. Great as well as small are in his power!' The underworld, apportioned into twelve fortified zones, corresponding to the hours of the night through which the sun must pass, becomes the place of punishment, a veritable hell:[722] ‘[God] judges the sinner and puts him into the furnace, (but) the righteous into the West' (LEM, 2: 15-16). The damned are shown suffering burning in fiery pits, decapitation and sundry other forms of punishment.[723]
More on the topic Violence in the Afterlife:
- The Afterlife
- The Afterlife
- Afterlife and Reception of Byzantine Law
- SOUL AND AFTERLIFE
- CHAPTER TEN Journey into Avernus Death, burial and perceptions of afterlife
- Violence and representations of violence abound in the literature of ancient and late antique Judaism and Christianity.
- Violence against the Self, State Violence and Interpersonal Violence
- Within the world history of violence the Bible is relevant for our reconstructions of the lived experience of violence among ancient Israelites and Judeans;
- The theme ‘religion and violence' or ‘religious violence' gained worldwide attention after the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in 2001.1
- The Interwar Moment: Violence versus Non-Violence
- The advent of the Early Historic period in northern India in the sixth and fifth centuries bce saw the emergence of monarchical and oligarchic states and the beginnings of a sustained discussion of the relationship of kingship with violence and non-violence.
- Chapter IV Growing Up with Violence in Northern Ireland: Making Meaning of Institutionalized Violence
- The archaeological evidence for violence and for the symbolic representation of violence in Iron Age Europe is abundant and complex.