Theories

The boy and his instructor spent the previous week in Alexandra, and some of it in Cairo, studying similar subjects. His instructor has given him numerous anthologies, mandates of philosophy and ethics, and scientific journals to read.  And once, to the boy’s surprise and bewilderment, a section of the Book of the Dead.

Filled with knowledge of myth, anatomy, and exequies, the boy tries and fails to answer his instructor’s question: “What is resurrection?”

“The Egyptians believe a person can be reincarnated into a bug, then into a bird, and with each life they are brought back as different creatures, ascending the chain of being until they are brought back as human. Then, when they die, they begin the whole cycle again,” he had said in Egypt. “And through the power of Anubis, the jackal-headed protector of the underworld, they could be resurrected in the light of Ra, the sun-god.”

Text by Lucie MacAulay