Rune Nyord
banner
runenyord.bsky.social
Rune Nyord
@runenyord.bsky.social
Associate Professor of ancient Egyptian art and archaeology and Chair of the Art History Department at Emory University.
New book: Yearning for Immortality — The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife (2025) http://bit.ly/41cbSVO.
Pinned
It is a great pleasure to announce that my book Yearning for Immortality: The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife is now available in Open Access: bit.ly/3Xn9HfB

Please download, read, and share with anyone who might be interested in new ways of thinking about Egyptian religion.
During my visit to California this weekend, this lecture at Berkeley was recorded and is now up on YouTube. In it, I present an overview of the argument in my book “Yearning for Immortality” along with some pointers for new directions for studies of Egyptian mortuary religion.
November 13, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife - The Ancient Near East Today
anetoday.org/european-egy...
The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife - The Ancient Near East Today
We often imagine the ancient Egyptians as obsessed with death and the afterlife. But what if the familiar story of judgment and salvation owes more to modern ideas than ancient ones?
anetoday.org
October 30, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
A double sided icon from Egypt with St Paul on one side and an unidentified saint on the other. (honestly, I'm not sure which side this is.). 7th-8th c. Housed in the Benaki Museum, #Athens.

📷🇬🇷 flic.kr/p/2rvYZMo

#photography
#Byzantine
#Greece
#saints
#museum
Double sided icon (Athens, Greece)
A double sided icon from Egypt with St Paul on one side and an unidentified saint on the other. 7th-8th c. Housed in the Benaki Museum, Athens. For more photos, travel, and religion, follow me on Blu...
flic.kr
September 28, 2025 at 3:56 AM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
In 1529, Georg Hartmann of Nuremberg made this woodcut, a cruciform #sundial, establishing a market for #DIY paper instruments.

For those interested in assembling Hartmann's paper cruciform sundial at home or in a history seminar, here is a link:

www.kartonmodellbau.org/cgi-bin/boge...
July 10, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Delighted to see Yearning for Immortality featured in Nature’s “Books in brief” this morning: doi.org/10.1038/d415...
Stories that are out of this world: Books in brief
Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.
doi.org
June 20, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
Check out these new #OpenAccess books by @emorycollege.bsky.social authors 🌸 bit.ly/4ijKCd8

"Yearning for Immortality" - @runenyord.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social
"Unsettling Acts" - Jieun Lee @ohiostatepress.bsky.social
"Living and Dying in São Paolo" - Jeff Lesser @dukepress.bsky.social
April 15, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
@yaelrice.bsky.social and I co-authored this piece precisely to combat misguided work like this so people don't have to constantly rehearse the arguments about why it's specious. We laid it all out here for you!

hyperallergic.com/604897/how-s...
April 5, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
Happening today at 4pm! RSVP now to join us in celebrating "Yearning for Immortality" by @runenyord.bsky.social: forms.office.com/r/D6eAJ7vtAm
April 3, 2025 at 3:31 PM
In this @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social interview, I had the pleasure of speaking with Miranda Melcher about my book “Yearning for Immortality: The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife”. You can listen to it at newbooksnetwork.com/yearning-for...
Rune Nyord, "Yearning for Immortality: The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife" (U Chicago Press, 2025) - New Books Network
newbooksnetwork.com
March 29, 2025 at 4:11 PM
For those in Atlanta, the Fox Center is organising a book launch next week where I will be discussing “Yearning for Immortality” with two brilliant colleagues:
You're invited! 🎉 Join us next week to celebrate the launch of @emorycollege.bsky.social Prof. Rune Nyord's "Yearning for Immortality." He will be joined in conversation by Prof. Roxani Margariti and @carlosmuseum.bsky.social Curator Ruth Allen.

RSVP now: forms.office.com/r/D6eAJ7vtAm
March 26, 2025 at 11:52 PM
It is a great pleasure to announce that my book Yearning for Immortality: The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife is now available in Open Access: bit.ly/3Xn9HfB

Please download, read, and share with anyone who might be interested in new ways of thinking about Egyptian religion.
March 1, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
Hello @theguardian.com, this isn't news about Egypt, as your website categorizes it: it's news about Western scientists using colonial collections in Western museums to do to the ancestral Egyptian dead what they have done for centuries: promote themselves and grab headlines. 🧵📜🏺🗃️
February 14, 2025 at 8:37 AM
It’s here! Thrilled to have just received a stack of copies of my new book Yearning for Immortality: The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife. The official publication date (also for the Open Access version) is March 5, but UCP is already filling preorders: bit.ly/41cbSVO. #acrel
February 14, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
In which I question the oft-repeated claim that artistic intervention puts the past and present into dialogue. But which pasts? To what ends? Based on interviews with curators & artists, and reflections on not the end product but the process.
January 16, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
Just dropped: major article on the outrageous "fragments scheme" whereby (evidence suggests) D. von Bothmer, curator @metmuseum1870.bsky.social conspired with antiquities traffickers like Giacomo Medici & Robert Hecht to get around export laws by BREAKING INTACT ANCIENT VASES INTO FRAGMENTS ... 1/3
December 30, 2024 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
Sure you've seen the famous #BayeuxTapestry, but have you seen it in all its sensational high-res thread-glory?

Breathtaking online resource, a joint effort of the City of Bayeux, DRAC Normandie, Fabrique de patrimoines en Normandie, University of Caen, & CNRS:

www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeu...
Explore the Bayeux Tapestry online - Bayeux Museum
For the first time, you will be able to freely explore the entire Bayeux Tapestry scene by scene with a never seen quality of images !
www.bayeuxmuseum.com
December 29, 2024 at 7:30 PM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
It is also due to Egyptology’s instinct for self-promotion and self-preservation, which surprised even me during the Tutankhamun centenary in 2022. But museums, and academic disciplines, are never neutral. 📜🗃️🏺
‘Although a smattering of wall texts mention the colonial context in which collecting and archaeology took place, reticence to confront the politics of the past may in part be due to the politics of today’ – Christina Riggs at the Museo Egizio in Turin
Turin’s Egyptian Museum turns 200 | Apollo Magazine
One of the few institutions devoted solely to Egyptian antiquities, the Museo Egizio also tells the story of Italy’s long and complex relationship with the land of the pharaohs, writes Christina Riggs
buff.ly
December 5, 2024 at 9:59 AM
I will be speaking about my forthcoming book in two streamed talks over the next couple of weeks. The first is a hybrid talk on December 5 at 17:00 CET at the Egyptian Museum in Bonn, Poststr. 26, 53111 Bonn, 3. OG., or online with signup at uni-bonn.zoom.us/meeting/regi....
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Dr. Rune Nyord - “This secret yearning for immortality”: How European scholars created an afterlife for the ancient Egyptians. After registering, you will r...
The modern understanding of ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs has a deep and in some respects surprising history. The ways in which core concepts of the discipline of Egyptology continue to be shaped...
uni-bonn.zoom.us
November 29, 2024 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Rune Nyord
The ‘Bodies of Knowledge’ conference was fascinating- both for some incredible talks, but also for what went unsaid... As Wendy Doyen noted, Egyptology is largely a descriptive discipline & this is being replicated in histories of Egyptology: description of archives without critical analysis #NVIC24
November 22, 2024 at 3:29 PM
So here’s an article I wrote about changing mores of civility and credibility at Egyptian dig houses that I never think enough people have read (paywalled, of course…): journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
November 17, 2024 at 1:12 PM