A Map of the New World
By D. A. Robertson
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Welcome to The Duat: A New World of Gods and Monsters.
Here you will find some brief information about me and about my work, collections of links to writing and Egyptology sites, and perhaps a few samples of my work. There's not much here just yet, but patience is a virtue, they say. Suffice it to say that this site is a work-in-progress.
Duat, or Tuat, is the ancient Egyptian word for the hereafter (AKA, "the underworld"). This afterlife was a celestial locale populated with numerous gods, demons, and monsters, and many tests that the newly deceased had to pass in order to find peace with their ancestors in the field of reeds (Aaru). Some researchers believe the duat was the model for what eventually became the Greek concept of Hades, and later the Christian and Islamic hell. The Egyptians had no true concept of hell in the modern sense, yet the beings found in the duat, and the consequences of a negative judgment from the god of the dead, Osiris, could be considered quite hellish.
The rest of the web site title comes from a line in the 1935 movie The Bride of Frankenstein. In that movie Dr. Pretorius offers a toast: "To a new world of gods and monsters!"
It is my hope that in my work I am able to reveal a fresh and relevant view of the horrific, the disturbing, and the unusual: a new world of gods and monsters.
Thanks for stopping by. Please check back for site updates.
- Dan
D. A. ("Dan") Robertson is a writer living in Santa Cruz, California. Dan is also an amateur Egyptologist.
