The ancient Egyptians believed that a person might continue, in one form or another, after death. The dead belonged to a realm different from that of the living, but the two were not entirely separated. There could be, and frequently was, contact between the two realms and their inhabitants. The dead might possess superhuman powers, but they were not without their vulnerabilities too. Even the transfigured dead - the akh - did not leave behind all concerns in the human world. They relied on the living for their commemoration and cult, as well as leaving behind descendants.
As a result of these factors, the dead and the living each had considerable power to influence the existence of the other, either to help or to harm them. The purpose of this thesis is to examine certain aspects of their interaction, but only in the sphere of the private individual. The king, who served as mediator between men and the gods, is too bound up in issues of royalty and religion, and his role will not be considered here.
The sources studied here are all concerned with the ways in which the living and the dead believed that they could affect each other, and the practices that were based upon these beliefs. The primary source material under consideration here has been published before. Some sources have been published as individual pieces. Others have been included in collections of sources of a certain type, or with particular features in common. There have also been discussions of this material in the secondary literature.