Life, Death, Power, Judgement, Evil, Good . . .

Life, Death, Power, Judgement, Evil, Good . . . are big themes in Ancient Egyptian religion and thought. They are, in fact, big themes in any religious or spiritual system. In Ancient Egypt these themes were represented by myths, stories and symbols that were used in any thing from high status objects (what we might call 'art' objects), on everyday objects, in texts and through story telling.

The language of tarot uses a number of the same symbols and imagery as Ancient Egypt and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London has been looking at the crossovers between symbology in Ancient Egypt and Tarot. This is the start of our findings and we hope to build on this over the coming year.

The research on tarot and tarot use and history is by Lena Munday and on Egypt and objects in the Petrie Museum by UCL graduate student Alice Williams. The cards used are from The Egyptian Tarot by Gordano Berti and Tibero Gonard, with art work by Silvanna Alasia.


We are hosting an event at the Petrie Museum on Thursday 3 December 6 - 8pm to discuss crossovers and ideas around symbology. Please feel free to participate by coming along or by leaving comments on this blog.

Debbie Challis (d.challis@ucl.ac.uk, Audience Development Officer, Petrie Museum)