Egyptian Amduat: The Book of the Hidden Chamber

by Erik Hornung

In the Amduat, the night-journey of the Egyptian Sungod is divided into twelve hours, each of them containing an enormous amount of insight into the human psyche. The entire Amduat could be called the first 'scientific publication' of humankind describing or mapping the dangers, but also the regenerative capabilities of the night-world, providing answers to basic human questions. The synopsis of the different scenes of the Amduat, all in colour, together with its explaining text, is unique. This book is a treasure for all those who want to explore the archetypal structure of the objective psyche, with its helpful but also with its dangerous forces.

Genres: Egyptology, Egypt, History, Classics

446 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2007

About the author

Hornung was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1933 and gained his PH.D. at the University of Tübingen in 1956.
He was Professor of Egyptology at the University of Basel from 1967 to 1998.
His main research field has been funerary literature, the Valley of the Kings in particular.
He published the first edition of the Book of Amduat in three volumes between 1963 and 1967.
J. Gwyn Griffiths described Hornung as the foremost authority in such literature.
His book Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt, The One and the Many has become his best-known work, in which he concludes, whilst acknowledging previous work by Henri Frankfort and his "multiplicity of approaches" and John A. Wilson's "complementary" treatment of Egyptian modes of thought, that "Anyone who takes history seriously will not accept a single method as definitive; the same should be true of anyone who takes belief seriously".
Hornung became Vice-President of the Society of the Friends of the Royal Tombs of Egypt in 1988. His books have been published in German, but many have been translated into English.