Date: Saturday, July 7, 2012, 5:00 p.m.

Dr. Teodozja Rzeuska

Chapter: Illinois

Speaker: Dr. Teodozja Rzeuska, Institute for Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures; Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw

Location: La Salle Bank Room, The Oriental Institute

This free lecture is held at the Oriental Institute, LaSalle Bank Room. 1155 East 58th Street, Chicago, 60637.

For more information call 773-702-1062.

Description: At the moment of physical death, the individual unity that was a human creature was broken. Death was not the end however, but merely the beginning of and the passage to a new life: "Death is the gateway to the other world in more than literal sense." According to Egyptological theories, a man was composed of several aspects such as the body, the name, and several various spiritual elements. In order for the dead to pass into the Underworld, it was necessary to ensure the existence of all elements of the personality, without which life in the other world would not be possible. All elements required appropriate rituals to be performed which would help to rejoin and re-created the dead and eventually to pass as a "newborn" creature into the realm of the Dead.