Avoiding the “Second Death”: the necessity to feed the dead in order to maintain him alive in Ancient Egypt

Abstract

Among the various funerary destinies in Ancient Egypt, we can highlight the solar/celestial and osiriac/chthonic, where many forms of maintaining life in the afterlife are possible; such as the continuity of existence in a parallel world expressed as a double inverted of the everyday life. In order to treat the maintenance of life in the Egyptian afterlife we will approach issues related to their food and agricultural work, as well as the definitions of the “beyond” and the rituals associated to departing the world of the living and arriving at the world of the dead. Furthermore, we will explain at the same time the need to keep one alive in the afterworld and how these concepts relate to life and death according to ancient Egyptian religious texts.