Recent Discoveries and Latest Researches in Egyptology. Proceedings of the First Neapolitan Congress of Egyptology, Naples June 18th-20th 2008 (original) (raw)
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The First Neapolitan Congress of Egyptology held in Naples, Italy in 2008, constitutes one of the former international projects promoted by the Neapolitan Association for Egyptological Studies (A.N.S.E.) and was devoted to the diffusion of most recent scientific and research activities carried out by Italian and International Universities and Research Institutes. The contributions span all periods and geographic areas of Ancient Egypt, spreading from the pre-dynastic age to the Coptic era, with a particular focus on new, unpublished data. These include archaeological activities in the royal pre-dynastic cemeteries in Hierakompolis and Abydos; new investigations in the Oasis, the Delta and the Red Sea; updated studies on the chronology, art, architecture and ideology of the Old, Middle and New Kingdom; textual and philological analysis of literary sources like the Pyramid Texts; and the latest researches in some of the most important sites of Sudan. The congress was also the occasion to draw attention to some unknown archaeological and textual material which comes from the Vesuvian Area and is kept in the Archaeological Museum and the National Library in Naples.
Guardians of the Borders: An Insight on Old-Middle Kingdom Administrative Titles
«Borders are nothing other than lines drawn to demarcate states’ sovereignty […] they have to be agreed upon by each of the states whose borders they are» (Giddens 1985). The national border of Egypt belongs more to the defences of the state, and, as such, it is strictly connected with kingship and occupies a prominent place in the vocabulary of official compositions. Within a blurred and peculiar system of boundaries, already in the Old Kingdom some officials had supervision duties specifically intended at the borders of the country (i.e. “Head of the Western Door”); in the Middle Kingdom we find titles such as “Bolt of the door to foreign countries”, while a “commander of the garrison of the frontier of the Southern Lands” is mentioned in the tomb of Sarenput II. By analyzing administrative titles in connection with the borders, and thus the related defensive, security and exchange activities, this paper will explore the nature of the Egyptian system in the maintenance of the state.
‘DRYING TEARS’: ON THE USE OF THE FISHNET AS A DETERMINATIVE IN RELIGIOUS TEXTS.
The use of the fishnet as a determinative in association with tears goes back to the Pyramid texts. When employed in the word iH/aH it can be translated with “dry” and can be found combined with the weeping eye referred to Osiris (IH-rmwt “The One Who Dries Tears”) or to the primeval god in relation to the creation process (IH-rmwt “Dry of Tears”) as well as to the deceased in the Afterlife. Analyzing textual sources, the act of ‘drying tears’ seems to represent a moment of transition between death and rebirth or a way to protect from sorrow. Moreover, in all the cases the term reminds the moment following the act of weeping, when tears have been shed and wet has been dried, and the presence of a fishnet could have phonetic as well as semantic reasons. The purpose of the paper will be to investigate the net and its symbolic value, pointing out word plays and specific expressions associated with tears.
According to the Egyptian worldview, dead people were included among the supernatural causes of disease and illness. Together with gods, goddess, demons and the malevolent magic of personal enemies, they were believed to harm the living by entering and attacking specific parts of the victim's body, such as the head, the belly, the eyes and so forth. As a pathogen, the hostile dead recurs in most prescriptions, spells and incantations throughout the medical corpus. In contrast, some Letters to the Dead stress a different role for the spirits of dead people. Recently dead members of the family, such as husbands, wives or parents, were believed to intervene in the afterlife to put an end to whatever might be going wrong in the relative's life, including illness. This discussion proposes to explore the ambiguity in the conception of the deceased, both a pathogen and a vehicle for healing, trying to comprehend the place he occupied in the system of values of old Egyptian afflicted people.
Several monuments celebrate the numerous military successes obtained by Egypt during the New Kingdom, through texts and images that feature the pharaoh in the act of capturing or deporting enemies. Depicting the "triumphant pharaoh" had a strong ideological and symbolic value and a celebratory purpose; however, in practice these victories had also great effects on the economy and the administration of the country, since large amounts of prisoners and raw materials entered the country and had to be managed. By analysing six biographical texts from private tombs of the XVIIIth dynasty, this paper will track not only the propaganda aspects of the pharaoh’s celebration, but most importantly details of the capturing of prisoners and their management as workers employed by the Temple of Amun-Re at Karnak. Moreover, this investigation will show that privates used prisoners as a means to prove their own personal achievements, representing themselves as loyal and efficient public officials.
Attempts to reconstruct socio-economic life often equals striving to tackle social and economic complexity. Crucial to their success, is a methodological approach enabling systematic examination of large and diverse data sets, allowing the researcher to maintain the overview. At least since the 1970s, network analytical methods have gained some recognition within historical fields. Ancient Egypt represents a particularly well-suited case study for network approaches. Still, formal network analysis has only by exception been applied to material and texts from ancient Egypt. The current talk aims to critically discuss the applicability - and usability - of ‘Social Network Analysis’ within the field of Egyptology. In doing so, the author introduces her PhD-project, ‘Socio-Economic Relations in Ptolemaic Pathyris: A Network Analytical Approach to a Bicultural Community’. Demonstrations and visualizations are generated from preserved Greek and Demotic textual sources from the site.
13271 • Abbate, E.; Albianelli, A.; Awad, A.; Billi, P.; Delfino, M.; Ferretti, M.-P.; Filippi, O.; Gallai, G.; Ghinassi, M.; Lauritzen S.-E.; Lo Vetro, D.; Martínez-Navarro, B.; Martini, F.; Napoleone, G.; Bedri, O.; Papini, M.; Rook, L.
The Stelae Ridge cairns: A reassessment of the archaeological evidence.
Proceedings of the XI International Congress of Egyptologists Florence Egyptian Museum Florence, 23-30 August 2015, 2017
This paper presents the archaeological evidence for a new model of the development of eight cairns across two ridges at the Stelae Ridge ritual site, in the Middle Kingdom carnelian mining region of the same name. Based on a new interpretation of the archaeological and textual evidence from the site, this paper proposes that the first round cairn was constructed as a landmark, perhaps as early as the Old Kingdom, for travellers approaching the mining area, and/or some small carnelian mines actually on Stelae Ridge itself. Perhaps attracted by debris from the mines and the presence of an existing cairn, the first of seven ritual cairn-courts was constructed, adjacent to the original round cairn, during the co-regency of Amenemhat 1st and Senusret 1st in the early 12th Dynasty. This was followed by a sequence of cairn-courts running northwards across Stelae Ridge until early in the reign of Amenemhat 3rd, when the last four cairn-courts were built in the only remaining space around the periphery of the two ridges. The construction of the cairn-courts may have been facilitated by the quarrying of local stone from Stelae Ridge, perhaps exploiting former mines that were already present on the site. Mining may even have continued on Stelae Ridge north, even as the first two cairn-courts were constructed on the southern ridge. At some point, probably not much later than year 13 of Amenemhat 3rd, cairn construction either ceased entirely as the mining region was abandoned, or moved to other ridges in the area.