Inside the Egyptian Underworld

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

History Hit

Serial Killers, Mystery, True Crime, Ghosts, Society & Culture, Supernatural, Folklore, Ufos, Myths, History, Murder, Paranormal

4.7 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For the Ancient Egyptians, death marked the beginning of a new chapter: a journey through a shadowy realm of trials, monsters, and divine judgment, ruled by the God Osiris. What does the Ancient Egyptian Underworld, the Duat, tell us about their culture, their society and morality?

Our guest for today is Dr. Campbell Price! Campbell is our go-to Ancient Egypt expert, he is Curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum and honorary research fellow at University of Liverpool. His newest book ‘Brief Histories: Ancient Egypt’ is out now.

Edited by Hannah Feodorov. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.

For tickets to see Anthony and Maddy talking about her new book, Hoax, click here: https://www.conwayhall.org.uk/whats-on/event/hoax/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	As night falls, a soul begins its journey to the beyond.
0:09.0	Freed from its newly deceased body, they drift into the duat, a realm of darkness, fire, and monsters.
0:20.0	Guided by spells from the Book of the Dead, they must make their
0:24.0	way across this perilous landscape. Finally, they stand before Osiris, God of the Dead, where they
0:31.6	face a test of judgment. If they pass, paradise awaits. If not, oblivion.
0:40.4	This was the path that all ancient Egyptian souls would undertake after death.
0:49.0	The ancient Egyptians, one of the most fascinating civilizations of the ancient worlds devoted to
0:56.1	gods obsessed with death and bound by ritual. For them, death marked the beginning of a new chapter,
1:04.5	a journey through a shadowy realm of trials, monsters and divine judgment, ruled by the god Osiris.
1:11.6	They preserved their dead, spoke spells from the book of the dead, and prepared for eternity with extraordinary care.
1:19.6	To the Egyptians, survival was not guaranteed. It had to be earned.
1:25.6	So now, from the depths of the ancient Egyptian underworld, welcome to After Dark.
2:18.3	The Black. Hello there and welcome to After Dark. I am Anthony and if you've been watching for the last few months, you know that Maddie is somewhere in the world at the moment trying to solve that problem with, you know when the caps come off fizzy bottle drinks, but they still attach and it's really annoying. She's just trying to solve that. It's God's work she's doing. But she will be back very soon.
2:20.3	But until then, we are treating you to some incredible after dark episodes.
2:26.3	And today is no different.
2:27.3	We are exploring the ancient Egyptian underworld.
2:30.3	And who better than friend of the pod to help us through this than Dr. Campbell Price.
2:36.9	He is an Egyptologist, as you know, if you've been listening to After Dark before, and is curator of
2:41.4	Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool.
2:46.7	And he's our go-to ancient Egypt expert. And he is also an author of a new book, by the way.
2:53.0	Well, his newest book, Brief History's, Ancient Egypt and a children's book that he's written with Greg Jenner,
2:59.0	which I advise you to go out and get all of those things and get to know Campbell, even better.
	...

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