The gods were everywhere in Ancient Egypt. Represented by statues, bas-reliefs, and funerary paintings, they even walked among the Egyptians in the person of Pharaoh, considered to be a living god, son of the divine Ra. What better way to understand that distant culture than by becoming familiar with the people who served those gods? 
Using as his sources the Egyptian texts and the testimony of classical authors, Serge Sauneron illuminates the role of the priesthood in Ancient Egypt. He re-creates the system of thought of one of the great civilizations of antiquity, addressing such topics as priestly functions, the world of the temples, holy festivals, tombs, and pyramids. 
Sauneron describes the ceremonies of daily worship, considered vital in preventing the world's descent into chaos. He takes us deep into the sacred precincts of the temples-- home to the divine statues in which a part of the god was believed to dwell. One of the duties of the priests was to maintain these sacred effigies, to nourish, clothe, and protect them from attacks by evil spirits. 
This edition of The Priests of Ancient Egypt, an augmented version of the 1957 classic, was published in France in 1988, and has been translated authoritatively by David Lorton.

The priests of ancient Egypt

History

Serge Sauneron

Middle East

Grove Press, Inc.

The Priests of Ancient Egypt

The gods were everywhere in Ancient Egypt. Represented by statues, bas-reliefs, and funerary paintings, they even walked among the Egyptians in the person of Pharaoh, considered to be a living god, son of the divine Ra. What better way to understand that distant culture than by becoming familiar with the people who served those gods?
Using as his sources the Egyptian texts and the testimony of classical authors, Serge Sauneron illuminates the role of the priesthood in Ancient Egypt. He re-creates the system of thought of one of the great civilizations of antiquity, addressing such topics as priestly functions, the world of the temples, holy festivals, tombs, and pyramids.
Sauneron describes the ceremonies of daily worship, considered vital in preventing the world's descent into chaos. He takes us deep into the sacred precincts of the temples― home to the divine statues in which a part of the god was believed to dwell. One of the duties of the priests was to maintain these sacred effigies, to nourish, clothe, and protect them from attacks by evil spirits.
This edition of The Priests of Ancient Egypt, an augmented version of the 1957 classic, was published in France in 1988, and has been translated authoritatively by David Lorton.

David Lorton

Jean-Pierre Corteggiani

Ancient Civilizations

Cornell University Press

Excerpt from Priests of Ancient Egypt, Vol. 12There are two outstanding features of ancient Egypt, both of which are strikingly evident on the banks of the Nile. First, its art, as the Cairo Museum reveals, is as old as history and as beautiful and perfect in its way as all that Greece and more recent civilizations have been able to produce in their greatest periods. Second, one sees that Egypt's monuments are nearly all products of religious preoccupations. From the plateau of Gizeh to the boulders of the cataract, in the shade of the Memphis palms and in the scorching inferno of the Valleys of Kings, in the calm of the Elephantine and in the white feluccas, there is the same striking evidence at each monument, on each visit to the pyramids, temples, tombs, that everything constructed for eternity - everything which has successfully by-passed the centuries - was conceived for the worship of the gods and for the immortality of man.In no country, perhaps, has the desire for eternity been more eloquent, never more effectively realized. Houses, towns, palaces, all the architecture destined for daily life was essentially provisory: crude brick was sufficient.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Priests of Ancient Egypt (Classic Reprint)

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