Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Rune Nyord

Arthur Urbano @arturoviaggia.bsky.social · 14d

A double sided icon from Egypt with St Paul on one side and an unidentified saint on the other. (honestly, I'm not sure which side this is.). 7th-8th c. Housed in the Benaki Museum, #Athens.

📷🇬🇷 flic.kr/p/2rvYZMo

#photography
#Byzantine
#Greece
#saints
#museum

Double sided icon (Athens, Greece)

A double sided icon from Egypt with St Paul on one side and an unidentified saint on the other. 7th-8th c. Housed in the Benaki Museum, Athens. For more photos, travel, and religion, follow me on Blu...

flic.kr

2 5 16

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · 13d

Yes, he does indeed look very unusual. As you can see, Drandaki does cite a couple of parallels, suggesting that the scrolls are a reference to the Pauline epistles. But if it wasn’t for the inscription, I probably wouldn’t have guessed this identity!

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · 13d

Thank you for sharing this piece! The inscription on the side shown here identifies the figure as St Apa Stephanos, so St Paul must be on the other side. There is more information on the icon in this article: dx.doi.org/10.26247/aur...

Two early icons from Egypt in the Benaki Museum | Drandaki | Athens University Review of Archaeology (AURA)

Two early icons from Egypt in the Benaki Museum

dx.doi.org

1 1 2

Reposted by Rune Nyord

Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · Jul 10

In 1529, Georg Hartmann of Nuremberg made this woodcut, a cruciform #sundial, establishing a market for #DIY paper instruments.

For those interested in assembling Hartmann's paper cruciform sundial at home or in a history seminar, here is a link:

www.kartonmodellbau.org/cgi-bin/boge...

The full woodcut of 1529 of the cruciform sundial can be seen.

A finished version of the cruciform sundial.

7 29 76

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Jun 26

Have you looked at Ricardo Caminos’s overview of 19th- and 20th-century methods in Egyptological epigraphy in this book? www.metmuseum.org/met-publicat... — it probably doesn’t mention eyebrow pencils, though!

Ancient Egyptian Epigraphy and Palaeography - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy.

www.metmuseum.org

1 2

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Jun 20

Delighted to see Yearning for Immortality featured in Nature’s “Books in brief” this morning: doi.org/10.1038/d415...

Stories that are out of this world: Books in brief

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.

doi.org

2

Reposted by Rune Nyord

Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry @foxcenteremory.bsky.social · Apr 15

Check out these new #OpenAccess books by @emorycollege.bsky.social authors 🌸 bit.ly/4ijKCd8

"Yearning for Immortality" - @runenyord.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social
"Unsettling Acts" - Jieun Lee @ohiostatepress.bsky.social
"Living and Dying in São Paolo" - Jeff Lesser @dukepress.bsky.social

3 9

Reposted by Rune Nyord

Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · Apr 5

@yaelrice.bsky.social and I co-authored this piece precisely to combat misguided work like this so people don't have to constantly rehearse the arguments about why it's specious. We laid it all out here for you!

hyperallergic.com/604897/how-s...

27 220 530

Reposted by Rune Nyord

Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry @foxcenteremory.bsky.social · Apr 3

Happening today at 4pm! RSVP now to join us in celebrating "Yearning for Immortality" by @runenyord.bsky.social: forms.office.com/r/D6eAJ7vtAm

1 1

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Mar 29

In this @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social interview, I had the pleasure of speaking with Miranda Melcher about my book “Yearning for Immortality: The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife”. You can listen to it at newbooksnetwork.com/yearning-for...

Rune Nyord, "Yearning for Immortality: The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife" (U Chicago Press, 2025) - New Books Network

newbooksnetwork.com

1 4

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Mar 26

For those in Atlanta, the Fox Center is organising a book launch next week where I will be discussing “Yearning for Immortality” with two brilliant colleagues:

Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry @foxcenteremory.bsky.social · Mar 24

You're invited! 🎉 Join us next week to celebrate the launch of @emorycollege.bsky.social Prof. Rune Nyord's "Yearning for Immortality." He will be joined in conversation by Prof. Roxani Margariti and @carlosmuseum.bsky.social Curator Ruth Allen.

RSVP now: forms.office.com/r/D6eAJ7vtAm

4

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Mar 15

I might be able to help with this (depending on precise timing, etc.)

1 2

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Mar 2

Yes, though I wonder just how much that impacted the European discourse directly - I would be curious to hear your thoughts on this when you’ve had a chance to read the book. Internal European schisms such as the Reformation or the rise of the anthropocentric afterlife seem more influential.

1 2

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Mar 2

The book deals with the early modern and 19th-century European discourse on interpreting ancient Egyptian mortuary religion, which ends up feeding directly into the modern (Egyptological and popular) understanding. This is the context in which I use the notion of “colonisation”.

2

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Mar 2

Ah, I understand. I am using the language here to contrast with the conceptual colonisation of the ancient religion by Christian concepts and frameworks. I don’t think the call to return to the sources here aligns particularly with nationalist agendas, but thank you for pointing out this issue.

1

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Mar 2

Thank you! Since the core issue of the discourse is ancient Egyptian ideas, “indigenous” is used here to designate sources and concepts from that context (as opposed both to ancient Greek or Roman and later European ones). “Indigenous and coeval” might have been more precise, if a little unwieldy.

2

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Mar 1

Thank you!

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Mar 1

It is a great pleasure to announce that my book Yearning for Immortality: The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife is now available in Open Access: bit.ly/3Xn9HfB

Please download, read, and share with anyone who might be interested in new ways of thinking about Egyptian religion.

14 66 180

Reposted by Rune Nyord

Christina Riggs @christinajriggs.bsky.social · Feb 14

Hello @theguardian.com, this isn't news about Egypt, as your website categorizes it: it's news about Western scientists using colonial collections in Western museums to do to the ancestral Egyptian dead what they have done for centuries: promote themselves and grab headlines. 🧵📜🏺🗃️

Screenshot from The Guardian's UK website this morning, under the category 'Egypt', a headline reading 'Smell like an Egyptian: researchers sniff ancient mummies to study preservation'

1 6 33

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Feb 14

It’s here! Thrilled to have just received a stack of copies of my new book Yearning for Immortality: The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife. The official publication date (also for the Open Access version) is March 5, but UCP is already filling preorders: bit.ly/41cbSVO. #acrel

An open cardboard box containing copies of Rune Nyord’s book Yearning for Immortality.

1 4 28

Reposted by Rune Nyord

Alice Stevenson @alicestevenson.bsky.social · Jan 16

In which I question the oft-repeated claim that artistic intervention puts the past and present into dialogue. But which pasts? To what ends? Based on interviews with curators & artists, and reflections on not the end product but the process.

UCL Press @uclpress.bsky.social · Jan 16

Congratulations to @alicestevenson.bsky.social ! Her #OpenAccess book Contemporary Art and the Display of Ancient Egypt published today. Read and download free at: ow.ly/Ciqp50U9bAH #AncientEgyptianArt #Curators

Contemporary Art and the Display of Ancient Egypt

Artistic interventions are now a popular means of delivering fresh perspectives on museum displays, including in galleries devoted to ancient Egypt. Installations are commonly said to put the past and...

ow.ly

1 7 16

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Jan 13

Yes, it is not entirely by accident that Egyptian afterlife beliefs seem so oddly "Victorian"! The book is currently in press, but I wrote a preliminary paper that might be of interest (though I hadn't realized at the time just how deep historical root the ideas have): bit.ly/4acz5d3

“Taking Ancient Egyptian Mortuary Religion Seriously”: Why Would We, and How Could We? - Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections

Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 17 (March 2018) Ancient Egyptian mortuary religion is full of ideas which, in their conventional Egyptological interpretation, are very difficult to take s...

bit.ly

1 1 4

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Jan 13

But by the time the Book of the Dead entered the picture, there was already a deeply entrenched tradition of understanding Egyptian mortuary religion as focused on judgement with resulting rewards and punishments in the afterlife, based on creative readings of authors like Herodotus and Diodorus.

1 1

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Jan 13

Exactly, the weighing motif looked (and still looks!) a lot like the psychostasis familiar from Christian art with St. Michael weighing the souls at the Last Judgement, so it stood to reason that the rest of the Book of the Dead similarly depicted episodes of a personal, transcendent afterlife.

1 1

Rune Nyord @runenyord.bsky.social · Jan 13

*certainly