CD1-track13

The Book of the Dead

1. What is the main topic of the lecture?

A Three Kingdoms inAncient Egypt.

B Burial ritual and The Book of the Dead inAncient Egypt.

C Mummification and pyramids in Ancient Egypt.

D Funeral inAncient Egypt and modern religious rituals.

(B)

2. What is the main method that the professor uses for the explanation?

A Comparing.

B Giving examples.

C Quoting researchers’ words

D Telling related fables.

(A)

听力原文：

CD1-track13

The Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead is the name given by Egyptologists to a collection of chapters

made up of groups of spells, incantations, and mummification techiniques. This book

was designed to help the deceased live a happy afterlife in "heaven". The book was

supposed to be read by the deceased during their journey into the Underworld.It is

New Kingdom text, which is similar to many texts found in the pyranmids. The texts

found in the pyramids are classified as the Old Kingdome text, and the text found in

Egyptian coffins are classified as the Middle Kingdom text.Both texts outline the

ceremony performed at the funeral of an important person. The movies have led us to

believe that we should not read from The Book of the Dead, but in fact ,the book

needed to be read by ancient Egyptians interested in an afterlife. To put it in modern

terms, think about how modern religious rituals are run.You go to your place of

worship, and rituals and holy texts are read out to you from a book. In Ancient Egypt,

these burial rituals weren't immediately read from a book. At first ,they were read

directly off the walls of their chambers of a pyramid and later were read directly off

the sides of the coffins. The Book of the Dead was read off of papyrus sheets, much as

religious rituals today are read out of books. Like some modern day holy books, The

Book of the Dead was meant to be relatively cheap to purchase, unlike buying a

pyramid or a coffin. This would ensure that any fairly well-off person could buy a

hand-written copy of the book and use it on a loved one. if you were an Egypian with

a fair bit of money in the Neq Kingdom, you would buy a copy of the book that would

have blanks where the name of the loved one should be placed. Then all you had to do

was hire someone called a scribe to write the name in all the blank spots.