In Search of the Immortals: Mummies, Death and the Afterlife - Hardcover

Reid, Howard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747275556 ISBN 13: 9780747275558

Publisher: Headline Book Publishing, 1999

Synopsis

Egypt was not the only ancient culture that preserved its dead. As this fascinating study shows, communities across the Old and New Worlds went to often extraordinary lengths to preserve their loved ones, enemies or sacrificial victims. Other bodies, such as the Ice Man or some bog victims, were mummified by chance. All provide an invaluable glimpse into the lives and beliefs of ancient societies, many of which have left little other evidence. Reid, an anthropologist and film maker, examines bodies in Asia, Siberia, North-West Europe, the Canary Islands, Egypt, Chile, Peru and the Andes, as well as the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

About this title

About the Author:

Howard Reid is a documentary filmmaker and anthropologist who, among other things, has spent several months living with the Tuareg people of North Africa and two years with hunter-gatherers in the Amazon basin. He has a Ph.D. from Cambridge University and has made many popular and award-winning films for the BBC and Channel 4 about ancient civilizations, religions and cultures around the world.

Synopsis:

Covering every mummifying culture in history - from the ancient Egyptians to the Chichorros, from China's Takla Makan desert to the Guanches of the Canary Isles - Reid brings these ancient cultures to life and in so doing comes to represent his personal quest to find an answer to that most epic and timeless of human problems: the meaning of death.

About this edition

• Publisher: Headline Book Publishing
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0747275556
• ISBN 13: 9780747275558
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288