NEW KINGDOM VISITS TO THE NECROPOLIS OF DEIR EL-GEBRAWI THE CASE OF TOMB S8 (IBI) (original) (raw)
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When working at Abydos during the last months of 1908, E.R. Ayrton and W.L.S. Loat were informed about a cemetery being looted at nearby el-Mahâsna. They visited the site and identified it as a Predynastic cemetery, which they subsequently excavated in January 1909. As usual for the time, only the most important finds were described or illustrated in the excavation report. The objects themselves were distributed to a number of museums, amongst them the Egyptian collection of the Royal Museums for Art and History in Brussels. Fortunately, the contents of individual tombs seem to have been kept together during the distribution, and the Brussels museum received nearly all of the objects from Tombs H17 and H41. Tomb H41 was one of the richest in the cemetery, containing among other significant objects, a very interesting human figurine. The material from Tomb H17 includes a palette with lightly engraved decoration, which was unnoticed by the excavators. The inventories of the two tombs are discussed with particular attention given to their visual presentation. For this purpose, parts of the tombs are reconstructed in drawing, using the published photographs in combination with the actual objects in Brussels. The reconstruction of the figurine from Tomb H41 is of particular interest in the context of the recent discoveries in the settlement of el-Mahâsna.
‘Visitors’ inscriptions’ refer to the ink graffiti left in the public part of funerary monuments in the New Kingdom to record individual visits. This study of the graffiti of TT 60 is part of a larger body of research on visitors’ inscriptions in the Theban necropolis. It presents a range of questions raised by this category of texts, which is here considered as a cultural practice. With these texts, individuals fashion a certain social identity and use the impact of the tomb in terms of social memory to their own benefit. The scribal identity of all the writers of graffiti is closely examined and this practice is considered as part of a specific scribal culture and social identity, which develop in this period and can be traced in the Ramesside literature with compositions such as the Late Egyptian Miscellanies and related texts. The discussion is followed by an appendix containing both published and newly recorded graffiti, along with their positions in the wall decoration
Journey to the West The world of the Old Kingdom tombs in Ancient Egypt. Prague 2012
This book is intended as a commented summary of some of the major trends and most important features that can be encountered when analysing ancient Egyptian society of the Old Kingdom. We have to bear in mind that around 3000 BCE one of the first centralised states in our recorded history rose, and the Old Kingdom represents certainly one of its apogees. Moreover, there is hardly any comparable society that left behind such a wealth of archaeological and literary evidence, a welcome companion for our journey back in time. The goal for writing this book was to outline general trends in the history of the non-royal tomb development of the period. The reason is rather simple and straightforward: ancient Egyptians considered the tomb to be their afterlife residence for eternity. In the afterlife they replicated the life they experienced during the lifetime. Thus the tomb architecture, decoration, inscriptions and equipment paradoxically represent a major tool for our understanding of the everyday life of the ancient Egyptians and enable a better comprehension of the development and dynamics of the Old Kingdom. The book is divided into nine chapters covering, step by step, the development of the Egyptian tomb and society from the Predynastic Period to the end of the first six Egyptian dynasties, a lengthy period of time which covers the Early Dynastic and the Old Kingdom periods. These six chapters are accompanied by three additional chapters on religious aspects of the Old Kingdom society, its economy and environment.
A forthcoming thoroughly revised edition of the previous version of the Visitors' graffiti; concerns visitors' texts of a New Kingdom date in the Memphite royal pyramid complexes, including history of graffiti and a systematic textual and contextual analysis of the texts. Also includes new archive material. The graffiti in the Memphite necropolis certainly pose a challenge – for new research, for a new mapping and a systematic re-editing, as well as for comparative perspectives with graffiti corpora in Assiut, Beni Hasan and Thebes. They reveal aspects of social and cultural history in the New Kingdom. It was a period that was marked by new – or newly formulated – phenomena in the Egyptian state and cultural development, and therefore may be repeatedly questioned in the context of internal changes and challenges inside Egyptian society, notably for instance, the identities of Dynasty 18 elites, the innovative archaism or tradition of the period, and also the making of skilled worker communities. Specific communities might have been characterised by graffiti making – from interested courtiers and high echelon administrators to craftsmen to apprentice administrators – “scribes”. The timing of graffiti is also not without interest, both on a macro- and micro-scale. In the larger perspective, peaks in Thutmoside graffiti production preceded major building activities of the kings; in micro-aspect, local feasts might have played a role in the actual scheduling of the visit. Graffiti were also left as a mark in the landscape – which was a combination of a memorial place and a place to be tamed – the desert and was recognised as a “memoscape” of importance for local and national memories. The spaces visitors’ graffiti were left in almost always had a degree of liminality – in macro-space a physical ambiguity of the desert, or in a micro-space the peculiar character of a doorway or a gate. There is also liminality of a cultural space – the funerary monument, the chapel where the dead meet the living. It was perhaps a daring, although in the end culturally coherent practice to commemorate oneself in this manner. The strive for personal commemoration lingered throughout the graffiti making of the New Kingdom, despite the fact that the royal identity aspect perhaps waned to be replaced by a new emphasis on local cults.
Arts (Ancient Egyptian art studies: Art in motion, a social tool of power and resistance, edited by Kara Cooney and Alisée Devilers), 2024
Monumental rock-cut tombs decorated with wall paintings or reliefs were rare in New Kingdom colonial Nubia. Exceptions include the 18th Dynasty tombs of Djehutyhotep (Debeira) and Hekanefer (Miam), and the 20th Dynasty tomb of Pennut (Aniba). The three tombs present typical Egyptian artistic representations and inscriptions, which include tomb owners and their families, but also those living under their direct control. This paper compares the artistic and architectural features of these decorated, monumental rock-cut tombs in light of the archaeological record of the regions in which they were located in order to contextualize art within its social setting in colonized Nubia. More than expressing cultural and religious affiliations in the colony, art seems to have been essentially used as a tool to enforce hierarchization and power, and to define the borders of the uppermost elite social spaces in New Kingdom colonial Nubia.
Middle Kingdom Studies 2, 2016
Marilina Betrò, Tombs in transition: MIDAN.05 and windows in the early Eighteenth Dynasty Anna Consonni, Precious finds from an early Middle Kingdom tomb in Thebes: reconstructing connections between the dead and their goods John Coleman Darnell, Colleen Manassa Darnell, Umm-Mawagir in Kharga Oasis: an Industrial Landscapeof the Late Middle Kingdom/Second Intermediate Period Vivian Davies, The tomb of a Governor of Elkab of the Second Intermediate Period Marleen De Meyer, An Isolated Middle Kingdom Tomb At Dayr Al-Barsha Nathalie Favry, The Transmission of Offices in the Middle Kingdom Wolfram Grajetzki, Gianluca Miniaci, The stela of the Thirteenth Dynasty treasurer Senebsumai, Turin Cat. S. 1303 Karin Kopetzky, Some Remarks on the Relations between Egypt and the Levant during the late Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period Ingrid Melandri, Female Burials in the Funerary Complexes of the Twelfth Dynasty: an Architectonic Approach Stephen Quirke, Diachronic questions of form and function: falcon-head utensils in Middle Kingdom contexts Mohammed Gamal Rashed, The Egg as a Metaphor for Isis: A Coffin Text Imagery Gloria Rosati, ‘Writing-Board Stelae’ with Sokar-Formula: A Preliminary Account with a note on the Archaeological Context of Tomb C 37, Asasif, by Gianluca Miniaci Ashraf Senussi, Said Abd Alhafeez Abd Allah Kheder, Two Blocks of Sobekhotep from Hawara Julien Siesse, An Unpublished Scarab of Queen Tjan (Thirteenth Dynasty) from the Louvre Museum (AF 6755) Pascal Vernus, Literary exploitation of a craftman’s device: the sandal-maker biting leather (Teaching of Chety, pSallier VIII, 12). When philology, iconography and archaeology overlap Fred Vink, Boundaries of Protection. Function and significance of the framing (lines) on Middle Kingdom apotropaia, in particular magic wands Paul Whelan, On the Context and Conception of Two ‘Trademark’ Styles from Late Middle Kingdom Abydos