Dwell with Osiris- Death and Rebirth in Ancient Egypt
What happens when you die?
The ancient Egyptians developed a rich and complex set of beliefs about death, the afterlife, and the journey beyond the horizon. Among the most vivid and influential of these is the Amduat — an Egyptian term meaning “That Which Is in the Netherworld.”
The Duat was the hidden, underground realm through which the sun god travelled each night, dying with the setting sun and being reborn at dawn. This nocturnal journey was not his alone. It was also the path taken by the spirit of the king, who hoped to dwell eternally within the Amduat alongside Osiris, the mythic first king — and yet also to emerge renewed, transformed, and reborn into a perfected next life.
This lecture follows that perilous passage: through darkness and transformation, danger and renewal, as we trace one of humanity’s earliest and most compelling maps of death, rebirth, and cosmic order.
Speaker Bio:
Dr Chris Naunton is a British Egyptologist, author, and public historian, widely respected for his ability to bring the beliefs, texts, and lived realities of ancient Egypt vividly to life. He holds a PhD in Egyptology and is particularly known for his work on Egyptian religion, funerary literature, and conceptions of the afterlife, including the Amduat, Book of the Dead, and related underworld texts.
He has served as Director of the Egypt Exploration Society, one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious Egyptological organisations, and has been closely involved with research, fieldwork, and scholarly outreach connected to major collections such as those of the British Museum. Alongside his academic work, Naunton is a prolific communicator, appearing frequently in documentaries, lectures, podcasts, and radio programmes, where he bridges rigorous scholarship with compelling storytelling.
Naunton is the author of several acclaimed books, including Searching for the Lost Tombs of Egypt and The Story of Egypt, which combine archaeology, history, and cultural analysis to explore how ancient Egyptians understood their world — and how we continue to interpret it today. His lectures are known for their clarity, depth, and narrative power, guiding audiences through complex religious ideas while remaining firmly grounded in historical evidence.
With a rare talent for making ancient texts feel urgent, strange, and profoundly human, Dr Chris Naunton is one of the leading contemporary voices interpreting Egypt’s gods, dead, and eternal landscapes for modern audiences.
Curated & Hosted by:
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience
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