The Otherworldly Journeys in ancient egyptian texts

Lecture at OZORA FESTIVAL 2018, 29 july - 5 Aug. 2018

Dádpuszta, HUNGARY

Website Dr. Massimo Izzo at OZORA Festival

Description:

The lecture will be about the so-called “funerary” ancient Egyptian texts from royal pyramids and tombs, from 2400 b.C. to 1300 b.C., the most ancient surviving texts dealing with the immaterial components of human beings.

In contrast with an intuitive belief, the journeys and adventures of the various “souls” that composes human unseen structure, described in those texts, doesn’t relate only to the dead, but also to the living, as Egyptians stated. In recent time, Depth Psychology recognized that the real subject of those texts is the human unconscious psyche and efforts have been made to understand the processes described in those texts. So, the lecture will explain those beliefs about the human soul and psyche, drawing comparisons with shamanism, psychology and other ancient religions. The journeys of the KA, the “Double”, a kind of astral body of living humans, to the stars between the “Gods”, and the journey of the “BA-Soul” in the in the dangerous Netherworld, is a process of immersion in the world of the Shadows of the human psyche. 

Bibliography: Erik Hornung, Theodor Abt, “Knowledge for the Afterlife: The Egyptian Amduat – a Quest for Immortality”, 2003,  Living Human Heritage Ed.

GOBEKLI TEPE: THE DAWN OF SACRED ARCHITECTURE

Lecture at BOOM FESTIVAL 2018, 22 - 29 July 2018

Idanha-A-Nova Lake, PORTUGAL

Website Dr. Massimo Izzo at BOOM Festival

Description:

In this presentation Massimo will lead us on a visual and narrative journey to reveal the secrets of this unique site, the first ever built by Homo Sapiens, the first ever to represent Human’s effort to use geometry to create a sacred site for gathering different nomadic tribes at the very early dawn of civilization.

This presentation revolves around the most important archaeological and architectural discovery of the 21th century: Gobekli Tepe. This is a hill in Turkey  which is covered with several oval monumental structures, thought to be for the ceremonial gathering of prehistoric nomad hunter-gatherers.

Its exceptionality resides in the fact that it was built around 9500 BC, in a time when people were still nomadic. The huge stone structures are fitted with monumental pillars of geometrical shape, a first in history, most of them decorated with incredibly beautiful animals of high symbolical meaning and thus providing the first example ever of nature-based representations with human-made geometrical structures.

In this presentation Massimo will lead us on a visual and narrative journey to reveal the secrets of this unique site, the first ever built by Homo Sapiens, the first ever to represent Human’s effort to use geometry to create a sacred site for gathering different nomadic tribes at the very early dawn of civilization. The presentation will show in detail the site, the different archeological interpretations and its place and meaning compared to preceding and following cultures.

Date of the Lecture : 23 July 2018, h. 21.00

Biblical Archaeology: Unveiling a false history

Lecture at the SHANKRA FESTIVAL 2018, 10 - 15 July 2018

LOSTALLO, Switzerland (CH)

SHANKRA FESTIVAL WEBSITE

Description:

The lecture will present a panoramic view of the results of the most recent findings in archaeology and textual biblical researches on the Old Testament, alleged history of the people of Israel and Judah and compilation of myths narrated in the text as historical events.

In the last 20 years, prestigious researchers from many institutions as Tel Aviv University, Collége de France, Universitè de Genève or even Hebrew theological universities, has demonstrated, using the many details and mentions of the Bible, the unhistorical contents of the main books of the biblical composition and the large cloning of mesopotamian texts, laws and myths, with any probability, during the late time of the exile in Babylon after the 586 b.C.

No hebraism or people of Israel in Egypt ever existed, nor Abraham or Moses, nor Exodus. No 12 tribes of Israel, nor huge kingdoms of David and Salomon never appeared in history. And the monotheism, that revolution in faith that generated other two of the most important religions of the modern world, appears to be a late innovation applied to a deity, Yahweh, taken straight from the pagan pantheon of the Near East. Yahweh, that once also had a feminine companion, Ashera, and a father deity.

From these studies is then coming a whole revolution on the religious view of monotheistic religions, with a clear identification of their main political and social aims of control and identity, coming originally from a small mountain kingdom with Jerusalem as his center.   

Duration: 1,30 hr