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“Yearning for Immortality is groundbreaking. Carefully examining the foundations of beliefs about the ancient Egyptian afterlife, Nyord brings a desperately needed critical lens to the history of Egyptology. Nyord argues that ancient findings were made to fit into preexisting narratives, and he makes the convincing and unsettling case that contemporary ways of understanding the ancient Egyptian afterlife carry on the flawed and remarkably insidious frameworks developed before the decipherment of hieroglyphics. This book shows that the current paradigm is in a moment of crisis and in dire need of reexamination, critique, and ultimately replacement.” -- Margaret Geoga, The University of Chicago “Nyord offers a proposal for revising the way we think about ancient Egyptian funerary religion, presenting fresh ways of looking at the subject. Addressing the assumption that ancient Egypt was a society obsessed with death and eternal life, Yearning for Immortality considers how ideas of ancient Egyptian afterlife were created and traces how these ideas became deeply rooted throughout the centuries. Nyord’s is an important argument for contemporary Egyptology, for scholars working on the reception of ancient Egypt (and antiquity more widely), and for the fields of religious and mortuary studies.” -- Stephanie Moser, University of Southampton

""Nyord provides an intricate account of how Egyptian mortuary practices have been transformed in the Western imagination to fit Christian archetypes. . . . Exploring why Western misinterpretations of ancient Egyptian death practices persist, the author points to an enduring 'universal human longing for transcendent, eternal life,' as well as documentaries, film exhibits, and books that reinforce entrenched ideas about the Egyptian quest for immortality. Dense and methodical, Nyord’s history meticulously probes the challenges of cultural transmission. Serious Egyptologists will be edified."" -- Publishers Weekly “Yearning for Immortality is groundbreaking. Carefully examining the foundations of beliefs about the ancient Egyptian afterlife, Nyord brings a desperately needed critical lens to the history of Egyptology. Nyord argues that ancient findings were made to fit into preexisting narratives, and he makes the convincing and unsettling case that contemporary ways of understanding the ancient Egyptian afterlife carry on the flawed and remarkably insidious frameworks developed before the decipherment of hieroglyphics. This book shows that the current paradigm is in a moment of crisis and in dire need of reexamination, critique, and ultimately replacement.” -- Margaret Geoga, The University of Chicago “Nyord offers a proposal for revising the way we think about ancient Egyptian funerary religion, presenting fresh ways of looking at the subject. Addressing the assumption that ancient Egypt was a society obsessed with death and eternal life, Yearning for Immortality considers how ideas of ancient Egyptian afterlife were created and traces how these ideas became deeply rooted throughout the centuries. Nyord’s is an important argument for contemporary Egyptology, for scholars working on the reception of ancient Egypt (and antiquity more widely), and for the fields of religious and mortuary studies.” -- Stephanie Moser, University of Southampton

Author Information

Rune Nyord is associate professor of ancient Egyptian art and archaeology at Emory University. He is the author of Breathing Flesh: Conceptions of the Body in the Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts and Seeing Perfection: Ancient Egyptian Images Beyond Representation, and he has edited or coedited several anthologies.

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