The Egyptian religion viewed the whole world as divine and inhabited by both gods and men. Concepts such as death was therefore explained through myths. The ancient society feared death but desired an eternal life. The Egyptians saw death as a physical dismemberment of the body as had happened in the myth of Osiris when death was first introduced to the world. Osiris functioned as a prototype for all men as he had overcome death by finding a new existence in the netherworld. He was not viewed as a resurrected deity but as a god who had found a way to live forever after death. Funerary texts were developed to help the Egyptians navigate the netherworld, overcome trials and dangers, and to become Osiris. These were an extensive corpus of texts which was placed in the grave with the deceased. By analyzing the New Kingdom’s Book of the Dead the Egyptians’ fear of death can be clearly interpreted in the spells which the book contains. In the Book of the Dead there are 189 spells which functions to secure an eternal life after death by protecting the dead from a number of horrible fates. The book depicts a number of dangerous animals and beings in the netherworld which the spells would offer protection from. There are also incantations for things taken for granted on earth such as breathing, walking upright, not eating faeces or drinking urine. The need to formulate these spells shows an underlying fear of death, and deliverance came by using the Book of the Dead. To preserve the body of the deceased in the grave was of the outermost importance since eternal life could only be achieved if the remains worked as a link between the living world and the land of the dead. That is why the Egyptians developed such a complex funerary ritual and mummified the remains, preserving it forever. Fear of death is derived from the descriptions of it as an isolation, total destruction, dismemberment, and decomposition. The purpose of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead was to counteract this fate as it assured the deceased of an eternal life.

The Book of the Dead-Project Bonn started in the early 1990s. Prof Ursula Rößler-Köhler, who had previously laid the foundation for modern Book of the Dead studies by her work on BD chapter 17 applying the method of textual criticism, achieved a 10-year funding from the German Research Society (DFG). In 2004 the project was granted another 9-year funding by the Academy of Sciences and Arts of North Rhine-Westphalia. One aim of the project was to gather all available evidence of Book of the Dead manuscripts spread across collections around the world. Today, the archive comprises approximately 3000 records of BD sources. In 2012 the corresponding database, after undergoing a transfer from FileMaker to XML format in collaboration with the department of e-Humanities at the University of Cologne, was launched and made publicly available online. The data sets include various different kinds of information about the objects and the sets of BD spells and vignettes found on them. These are now easily accessible for statistic analyses such as evaluations of neighbouring spells and sequences or occurrences in specific locations or time periods. Furthermore, the database includes several metadata such as bibliographical information, translations of spells and a motif index. It is cross connected with other Egyptological databases such as Trismegistos and the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae. After the project was completed at the end of 2012, the online database has been operating for a considerable amount of time with scholars using it and trying the several opportunities it provides. Now is the time for a first evaluation to actually see which functions of the database work well, which might have been ignored by users and what information the database could provide scholars with for their actual research. Naturally, there is a need for a continuous maintenance and update on new findings and the latest research. Furthermore it is important to understand which possibly missing functions or information the users wish to be included and if this is actually realisable. On the other hand, there might be opportunities for analyses that have not been fully understood and therefore have not been made use of. This presentation aims to address some of these issues concerning the BD online database and to gather ideas and possible collaborators for future BD project plans.

Cette thèse est une étude diachronique des deux divinités ophidiennes Nâou et Néhebkaou, essentiellement centrée sur les Textes des Pyramides et les Textes des Sarcophages. Les textes mettent en avant leur lien avec Héliopolis ainsi qu’avec le créateur Rê-Atoum et les autres figures de la théologie locale. Leur rôle dans le jugement des défunts est évident et bien attesté. Néhebkaou est chargé de donner des kaou au défunt, une fois que ce dernier a été prononcé juste. Ce concept, attesté dès la IIe dynastie, semble désigner à la fois l’offrande funéraire et les défunts qui en bénéficie. / This PhD is a diachronic study, mainly focused on the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin Texts, of the two ophidian deities Nâou and Nehebkau. The texts highlight their relationship with the creator Rê-Atum and the other figures of the local theology. Their role in the judgement of the dead is obvious and well documented. Nehebkau is responsible for providing kaou to the deceased, once he has been justified. This concept, documented since the IInd Dynasty, seems to refer to both the funerary offering and to the deceased who benefits.

Ce travail vise à démontrer le caractère essentiel du référent de la naissance dans les croyances funéraires de l’Égypte ancienne, ainsi que les modalités de sa mise en œuvre. Les grandes compositions funéraires égyptiennes, depuis les Textes des Pyramides jusqu’aux livres royaux du Nouvel Empire, sont riches d’allusions à une destinée post-mortem envisagée comme une seconde naissance, calquée plus ou moins fidèlement sur le processus biologique de la première. Roi ou particulier, le mort est porté en gestation par une ou plusieurs mères divines, puis est remis au monde dans l’au-delà, son cordon ombilical est coupé, il est lavé, allaité et soigné à l’image d’un nouveau-né. À ces aspects pragmatiques se mêlent de nombreux éléments mythiques, le modèle biologique étant parfois largement réinterprété, ce qui témoigne de l’interpénétration du plan individuel et du domaine cosmique. Grâce à ce procédé cyclique, le défunt accède non seulement à l’autre monde, mais il y est aussi vivant éternellement. / This work aims at demonstrating that referring to birth and its practical modalities is an essential aspect of Ancient Egypt’s funeral beliefs. From the Pyramid Texts to the royal books of New Kingdom, the great funeral writings of Egypt are full of allusions to post mortem fate viewed as a second birth, the latter copying more or less exactly the biological process of the first. Be he king or ordinary man, the dead is carried in gestation by one or several divine mothers and is born again in the other world ; there, his umbilical cord is cut, he is washed, fed and cared for like a new born child. Numerous mythical elements add to the purely practical, however, thus reinventing the biological model and showing the intermingling of both the worldly and cosmic levels. Thanks to this cyclical process, the dead not only reaches the other world but, also, accesses to eternal life.

Le seul ouvrage dédié exclusivement à ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler « les scarabées de cœur » est signé du Professeur Michel Malaise et date de 1978. Ce livre est depuis cette date la référence en la matière mais, en l’absence d’un corpus, les critères de datation proposés n’y peuvent être ni exhaustifs ni très précis. L’objectif de cette étude était de remédier à ces lacunes.Les scarabées de cœur étaient des amulettes disposées dans la région du cœur de la momie d’un individu, juste après son décès, afin de le protéger contre la trahison possible de son propre cœur. En effet, le défunt devait subir l’épreuve de la pesée du cœur devant un tribunal de dieux présidé par Osiris, mais c’est son cœur qui était interrogé pour savoir quelle avait été la conduite de son propriétaire lors de son passage sur la terre. Les réponses à ces questions conditionnaient l’avenir du défunt dans l’au-delà : la vie éternelle ou l’anéantissement. Pour se concilier les bonnes grâces du cœur, d’autant plus que celui-ci pouvait mentir, les amulettes étaient inscrites d’une prière choisie dans un des chapitres 26 à 30 B du Livre des Morts, suppliant le cœur d’avoir des réponses favorables devant le tribunal.La présente étude a pris huit années pour rassembler un corpus de 1400 scarabées de cœur et autres amulettes ayant la même fonction rituelle, soit probablement plus de 85% de ceux qui sont conservés dans les musées, qui sont désignés ici sous le nom générique d’« amulettes de cœur ». Ce corpus a donné lieu à l’établissement d’une typologie permettant de déterminer des séries d’amulettes présentant des caractèristiques plastiques et épigraphiques semblables qui, croisées avec celles des amulettes de date connue, qui sont soit celles dont les propriétaires sont des personnages historiques soit celles provenant de fouilles bien datées, ont conduit à la détermination de critères de datation objectifs. L’étude présente aussi les clichés de plus de 1200 amulettes avec description, une traduction des textes inscrits et une proposition de datation. / The only book dealing specifically with the so-called “ Heart Scarabs” was written by Professor Michel Malaise and published in 1978. It has remained since the reference on the subject but, due to the unavailibility of a corpus, the datation criteria could not be exhaustive nor accurate. The target of this dissertation was to fill these gaps. The heart scarabs were amulets to be laid on (or in) the mummy of a person just after his death in the heart area, in order to protect him from the possible treachery of his own heart. In effect, the Dead was to be put to the test of the weighing of his heart, in front of a court of gods presided by Osiris, but it was his hesart which was interrrogated in order to know whether its owner had behaved well during his life. The answers to these questions would determine whether he would be granted an eternal life or the nothingness. In order fo gain the heart’s goodwill, especially when it might lie, the amulets were inscribed with a prayer chosen in one of the chapters 26 to 30B of The Book of the Dead. This prayer was begging his heart to make favorable answers to the court.It took eight years to gather a corpus of 1400 heart amulets and others amulets with the same ritual function, called “heart amulets” in this dissertation, a number representing likely more than 85% of the total in existence. The gathering of these amulets made possible an adapted typology to be built, which lead to the determination of series of amulets with similar shape or epigraphic characteristics to be compared with the characteristics of amulets with a known date, which are the ones the owners of which are historical persons or those originating from well dated excavations. This comparison allowed for the determination of objective datation criteria. This memoire finally presents photos of more than 1200 amulets with a description, a translation of the texts and an estimated datation.

Popular literature on Tibetan Buddhism often overemphasizes the psychological dimension of the religion's beliefs and practices. This misrepresentative portrayal is largely traceable to the writings of the psychoanalyst C.G. Jung. By employing distinctly psychological terminology and interpretive strategies in his analyses of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and mandala symbolism, Jung helped to establish precedents that were adopted in subsequent analyses of the religion. Imposing a psychological lens on Tibetan Buddhism obscures other essential elements of the tradition, such as cosmology, physiology, and ritualism, thereby silencing the voices of Tibetans in analyses of their own practices. Jung's imposition of his own voice in place of that of Tibetans has commonly been criticized as an act of intellectually imperializing Orientalism that furthers Jung's personal aims of solidifying his system of analytical psychology. This thesis supports and demonstrates the validity of that critique through close analyses of Jung's commentaries on Tibetan Buddhism. However, Jung’s psychoanalytic perspective and qualifying comments found elsewhere in his corpus ultimately contextualize his commentaries and reveal that his writings on Tibetan Buddhism should not be treated as shedding light on the religion. Rather, they offer an additional lens for understanding analytical psychology. Furthermore, Jung's perspective as a psychoanalyst demonstrates the inherent instability of Orientalist epistemology that attempts to make sense of Eastern cultures on Western terms. Derridean deconstruction of Jung's commentaries reveals that the laws of psychoanalysis subvert those of Orientalism, thus allowing us to undermine the Orientalist episteme in which Jung writes and creates the possibility for appropriating foreign cultural content differently

Le papyrus du Vatican n° inv. 38603 est un Livre des morts hiératique daté de l’époque tardive, provenant vraisemblablement de la ville de Thèbes et contenant un certain nombre d’originalités iconographiques et textuelles. Son étude exhaustive est entreprise à l’aide d’une présentation détaillée, d’une traduction complète, d’un commentaire de chacun des textes qui le composent, d’une mise en contexte au sein de la documentation tardive du genre et d’une paléographie. Ces éléments permettent de mettre en valeur divers aspects des croyances funéraires des égyptiens de cette époque. D’autre part, ils autorisent à resserrer la datation du papyrus autour de 300 av. J.-C. et à replacer le document dans un contexte précis en forte relation avec la religion et les cultes osiriens qui se développent à Thèbes à partir de laTroisième Période intermédiaire. / The Papyrus Vatican inv. No 38603 is a hieratic Book of the Dead dated of the late period, coming probably from the city of Thebes and containing a number of textual and iconographic peculiarities. His comprehensive study is undertaken using a detailed presentation, a complete translation, a commentary on each of its component texts, a contextualization within the late documentation of the type and a paleography. These elements can highlight various aspects of Egyptian funerary beliefs of that time. On the other hand, they allow for closer dating of papyrus around 300 BC. and put the document in a specific context in strong relationship with religion and cults of Osiris that develop at Thebes since the Third Intermediate Period.

The Book of the Dead-Project Bonn started in the early 1990s. Prof Ursula Rößler-Köhler, who had previously laid the foundation for modern Book of the Dead studies by her work on BD chapter 17 applying the method of textual criticism, achieved a 10-year funding from the German Research Society (DFG). In 2004 the project was granted another 9-year funding by the Academy of Sciences and Arts of North Rhine-Westphalia. One aim of the project was to gather all available evidence of Book of the Dead manuscripts spread across collections around the world. Today, the archive comprises approximately 3000 records of BD sources. In 2012 the corresponding database, after undergoing a transfer from FileMaker to XML format in collaboration with the department of e-Humanities at the University of Cologne, was launched and made publicly available online. The data sets include various different kinds of information about the objects and the sets of BD spells and vignettes found on them. These are now easily accessible for statistic analyses such as evaluations of neighbouring spells and sequences or occurrences in specific locations or time periods. Furthermore, the database includes several metadata such as bibliographical information, translations of spells and a motif index. It is cross connected with other Egyptological databases such as Trismegistos and the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae. After the project was completed at the end of 2012, the online database has been operating for a considerable amount of time with scholars using it and trying the several opportunities it provides. Now is the time for a first evaluation to actually see which functions of the database work well, which might have been ignored by users and what information the database could provide scholars with for their actual research. Naturally, there is a need for a continuous maintenance and update on new findings and the latest research. Furthermore it is important to understand which possibly missing functions or information the users wish to be included and if this is actually realisable. On the other hand, there might be opportunities for analyses that have not been fully understood and therefore have not been made use of. This presentation aims to address some of these issues concerning the BD online database and to gather ideas and possible collaborators for future BD project plans.