The First Intermediate Period tombs at Asyut revisited

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.

Windows are a very rare element in Theban tombs, present only in the Eighteenth Dynasty, mainly in its early part. The University of Pisa excavations at Dra Abu el-Naga recently added three new examples of tombs with this feature: MIDAN.05, whose investigation has been completed in 2014, and two new tombs, T1 and T2, opening onto its forecourt, not yet excavated. The first phase of MIDAN.05, a T-shaped tomb with one single window, probably dates to the true beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, when rishi-coffins were still in use. This paper suggests that the evolution of new models of funerary architecture in the New Kingdom must be slightly backdated to the very beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, before Hatshepsut. At the same time the importance of openings –both intercolumnia and windows– in saff-tombs as well in the early Eighteenth Dynasty Theban funerary architecture stresses the vitality of a tradition well rooted in the Middle Kingdom, possibly related to the solar cult.

SAK, 2015

This report refers to the different tasks of fieldwork in the necropolis of Asyut. The southern part of the first hallof Tomb I was completely cleaned. Several shafts were found, which belong to the tomb. Late Middle Kingdom vessels in shaft 3 are a hint at the veneration of Djefai-Hapi I as a saint. In addition, shafts in close vicinity to the tomb were uncovered. One of them, Tomb P10.4, shows a small cluster of pottery belonging to the Middle Kingdom and a much larger group from the late New Kingdom. In addition, the skeletal remains of ten humans found in this shaft were studied. For the first time, a Naqada I-IIa-b pottery fragment was recovered, providing evidence for the existence of the necropolis already during this period. In Tomb M12.3, epigraphic work focused on the inscriptional material, which allowed us to narrow down the date of the tomb. Late Roman and byzantine pottery from the so-called Hogarth Depot was examined. Also fragments of Old Kingdom wooden boxes and coffins were studied.

Kings of the Sun. Studies, 2020

The modern interdisciplinary exploration of ancient Egyptian burial sites represents one of the major trends of contemporary archaeological research in Egyptology. Cooperation among representatives of the natural, technical and social sciences is imperative if we are to understand the information collected during the excavation process. The ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife similar to the life they had lived on earth, and their tombs – in terms of their location, architecture, decoration, inscriptions, and burial equipment – reflected many aspects of their world, including the administration of the state, the social standing of tomb owners and their families, the realities of everyday life, religious ideas, the anthropology of the population of that time, and the state of (and changes in) the environment. Over time, four royal complexes of Fifth-Dynasty kings were built in the Abusir pyramid field during the Old Kingdom. In addition, members of the royal family and the state’s high officials constructed their tombs here. In their shadow, lower-ranking officials, along with their wives and children, would be buried. All of these monuments tell thousands of multifaceted stories, from which we can reconstruct the history of the world’s oldest territorial state. As the Abusir burial ground is so vast, it comes as no surprise that several different non-royal burial sites gradually arose independently of each other in this widespread area over the course of the third millennium BCE. While the factors influencing their position, nature and time of origin varied, key considerations would undoubtedly have been the location of the Old Kingdom’s capital, White Walls, the evolution of the network of settlements, the local cult topography, and the main communications connecting the necropolis with the Nile valley. Although much of the site remains unexplored, current knowledge and archaeological research offer a relatively detailed awareness and description of how it developed in time and space. Each of the burial sites tells, in its own specific way, the story of its time and of the owners of the individual tombs. These monuments reflect the dynamics and transformations of ancient Egyptian society. The following text provides a very limited description of some of these sites, drawing on the enormous wealth of sources known to date .

2013

The origins of ancient Egypt date from the Predynastic period until the Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt (5000-3035BC). Scattered Predynastic chiefdoms became a civilisation through the imposition of order from chaos, derived from divinely conferred kingly power. Early powerful cities were found in Lower Egypt at Maadi (Maadi-Buto culture), and in Upper Egypt at Nekhen (Nekhen culture) and Abdju (This culture) (Scarre & Fagan 2008, p. 113-115; Maps 1-2). I will test my hypothesis by investigating these themes at each of the sites, as evidence for the themes should be represented in the archaeological record.

Middle Kingdom Studies 1, 2015

Table of Contents Masahiro Baba, Ken Yazawa: Burial Assemblages of the Late Middle Kingdom, Shaft-tombs in Dahshur North Bettina Bader: Stone Objects from the Late Middle Kingdom Settlement at Tell el-Daba Helmut Brandl: Late Middle Kingdom or Late Period? Re-Considering the “Realistic” Statue Head, Munich ÄS 1622 Simon Connor: The Statue of the Steward Nemtyhotep ( Berlin ÄM 15700) and some Considerations about Royal and Private Portrait under Amenemhat III Biri Fay: Thoughts on the Sculpture of Sesostris I and Amenemhat II, Inspired by the Meket-re Study Day Biri Fay: London BM EA 288 (1237) - a Cloaked Individual Biri Fay, Rita E. Freed, Thomas Schelper, Friederike Seyfried: Neferusobek Project (I) Rita E. Freed: A Torso gets a Name: an Additional Statue of the Vizier Mentuhotep? José M. Galán, Ángeles Jiménez-Higueras: Three Burials of the Seventeenth Dynasty in Dra Abu El-Naga Wolfram Grajetzki: A Middle Kingdom Stela from Koptos (Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove HA282043) Zoltán Horváth: Hathor and her Festivals at Lahun Alexander Ilin-Tomich: King Seankhibra and the Middle Kingdom Appeal to the Living Alejandro Jiménez Serrano: A unique Funerary Complex in Qubbet el-Hawa for Two Governors of the Late Twelfth Dynasty Renata Landgráfová: In the Realm of Reputation: Private Life in Middle Kingdom Auto/biographies Eva Lange: The So-called Governors' Cemetery at Bubastis and Provincial Elite, Tombs in the Nile Delta: State and Perspectives of Research David Lorand: The Archetype of Kingship Who Senwosret I claimed to be, How and Why? Antonio J. Morales: Tracing Middle Kingdom Pyramid Texts Traditions at Dahshur Miriam Müller: New Approaches to the Study of Households in Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period Egypt Melinda G. Nelson-Hurst: The (social) House of Khnumhotep Rune Nyord: Scribes of the Gods in the Coffin Texts Mohamed Gamal Rashed: The Significance of the Hieroglyph ‘The Egg with the Young Bird Inside Patricia Rigault: The Canopic Chest of Khakheperreseneb/Iy - Louvre E 17108 Danijela Stefanovic, Helmut Satzinger: I am a Nbt-pr, and I am Independent Angela M. J. Tooley: Garstang's El Arabah Tomb E.1

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.