Funeral Wisdom of the World

In many religious belief systems and funeral traditions, there is a feature that is called funerary literature or in other words funerary texts.  Funerary literature existed for thousands years since the dawn of ancient civilizations.  

Specialists do not really know when funerary texts first appeared but obviously it was thousands of years ago.  Obviously a magnificent example of funeral literature comes to us  from the ancient Egypt like the famous Book of the Dead that archeologists unearthed in many mausoleums and tombs in the Valley of Kings. 

After decoding this funerary text, we learned that the Book of the Dead was created toguide the deceased through the various trials that would be encountered before being allowed into the underworld. Specialists think that this peace of funeral literature was created as far as 26th century B.C.  

In the times of New Kingdom, from 16th to 11th century B.C. three more funeral texts were found in the burial sites of pharaohs and aristocrats from the upper nobility.  Their burial places became ornamented with “supplamental” funeral books such as  Book of Gates, Amduat and Litany of Ra.  It became a standard to cover the walls of the tombs with these texts.

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