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The deities worshipped by this ancient civilization seem to possess an indefinable inner magnetism, a quality that makes an initial encounter with the imagery and the mythology of the culture inexplicably compelling.
Ancient Egyptians created a cosmology populated with goddesses whose stories were inseparable from the stories of the gods. Sacred Deities is an introduction to some of the major gods and goddesses in the pantheon. The mythic stories of these sacred masculine and feminine deities illuminate their unique roles in the pantheon, as well as the complex and often contradictory traditions that governed the nature of their relationship to one another. -- author's website
Written from the perspective of an artist with a deep and abiding interest in the psychoanalytic roots of symbol and metaphor, and "illustrated" with her own photographs, Sacred Deities of Ancient Egypt takes us on a personal journey to explore both the meaning-always with an eye toward contemporary relevance-and the astonishing beauty of ancient Egyptian art. With Thurston as our guide, we do not tread on familiar ground or rehash information found elsewhere, but rather participate in the artist's quest for fresh insight as we plumb the profound depths of Egyptian cosmology. Working alone, carrying her own equipment, photographing with an unobtrusive handheld camera, without access to a tripod or a flash, a woman in her late sixties, a solo traveler in a foreign land, Thurston faced daunting technical challenges. The dark interiors of tombs and grand temples of ancient Egypt, unevenly lit with fluorescent panels that cast a garish greenish glow on the lower portion of the walls, leaving the upper walls in shadow and distorting the paintings' colors, were nightmarish. Many of the photographs in Sacred Deities have never before been reproduced. -- from publisher
Contents:
1. Prelude: feminine and masculine divinities --
2. Pantheon of paradoxes --
3. Creation gods and stories --
4. Birth of the sun --
5. Ferocity and the feminine --
6. Hathor, Hatshepsut, and the divine feminine --
7. Leonine deities --
8. The lion and the lotus --
9. Duality and unity: the number two --
10. The nature of soul --
11. Eros and the sacred --
12. Fertility as a masculine principle --
13. Divine masculine in the pantheon --
14. Myth as metaphor --
15. Amulets and apotropaic images --
16. Serpents, chimeras, and fetishes --
17. Image as language --
18. Spirit of life --
19. Postlude: living stone --
FY2021
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Written from the perspective of an artist with a deep and abiding interest in the psychoanalytic roots of symbol and metaphor, and "illustrated" with her own photographs, Sacred Deities of Ancient Egypt takes us on a personal journey to explore both the meaning-always with an eye toward contemporary relevance-and the astonishing beauty of ancient Egyptian art. With Thurston as our guide, we do not tread on familiar ground or rehash information found elsewhere, but rather participate in the artist's quest for fresh insight as we plumb the profound depths of Egyptian cosmology. Working alone, carrying her own equipment, photographing with an unobtrusive handheld camera, without access to a tripod or a flash, a woman in her late sixties, a solo traveler in a foreign land, Thurston faced daunting technical challenges. The dark interiors of tombs and grand temples of ancient Egypt, unevenly lit with fluorescent panels that cast a garish greenish glow on the lower portion of the walls, leaving the upper walls in shadow and distorting the paintings' colors, were nightmarish. Many of the photographs in Sacred Deities have never before been reproduced.… (more)