Extinction of Gods and Spirits: Impact of the Climate Change on the Ancient Egyptian Religion Lecture

Dr. Jiří Janák, Associate Professor at the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University, Prague.

27 November 2023

01:00 PM

Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Conference Center, the Delegates Hall

The Antiquities Museum and the Zahi Hawass Center for Egyptology, affiliated to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Cultural Outreach Sector, in coordination with the Embassy of the Czech Republic, organize a lecture entitled “Extinction of Gods and Spirits: Impact of the Climate Change on the Ancient Egyptian Religion”, on Monday, 27 November 2023; 1:00 pm, at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Conference Center, the Delegates Hall. The lecture will be delivered by Dr. Jiří Janák, Associate Professor at the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University, Prague.

The lecture sheds light on the Ancient Egyptian culture and religion that were very closely connected to the world of nature, natural landscape and both flora and fauna. The Egyptians used, for example, images of animals, or even plans in their depictions which in reality were rather descriptions of gods, goddesses, other divine beings and the dead. Thus, an inseparable link between the world of nature and the world of the gods was created and strengthened. But when the natural world was changed due to a climate change, for instance, it must have had an impact on the divine world as well. In this lecture, we will focus on two key concepts of ancient Egyptian religion: the akh and the ba. The Egyptians connected both these terms with ideas of divine and of the afterlife, and for both they used hieroglyphs in forms of birds.