Community And Identity In Ancient Egypt

"This book examines a group of twelve ancient Egyptian tombs (c. 2300 BCE) in the elite Old Kingdom cemetery of Elephantine at Qubbet el-Hawa in modern Aswan. It develops an interdisciplinary approach to the material--drawing on methods from art history, archaeology, anthropology, and sociology, including agency theory, the role of style, the reflexive relationship between people and landscape, and the nature of locality and community identity. A careful examination of the architecture, setting, and unique text and image programs of these tombs in context provides a foundation for considering how ancient Egyptian provincial communities bonded to each other, developed shared identities within the broader Egyptian world, and expressed these identities through their personal forms of visual and material culture"--

This book examines an elite Old Kingdom cemetery at the southern boundary of ancient Egypt, where the local community developed a unique visual expression of texts, images, and architecture in their tombs. Deborah Vischak argues that localized communities are an important source of identity in ancient Egypt.

The wish to affiliate with a specific cultural, social, or ethnical group is as important today as it was in past societies, such as that of the ancient Egyptians. The same significance applies to the self-presentation of an individual within such a group. Although it is inevitable that we perceive ancient cultures through the lens of our time, place, and value systems, we can certainly try to look beyond these limitations. Questions of how the ancient Egyptians saw themselves and how individuals tried to establish and thus present themselves in society are central pieces of the puzzle of how we interpret this ancient culture. This volume focuses on the topic of identity and self-presentation, tackling the subject from many different angles: the ways in which social and personal identities are constructed and maintained; the manipulations of culture by individuals to reflect real or aspirational identities; and the methods modern scholars use to attempt to say something about ancient persons. Building on the work of Ronald J. Leprohon, to whom this volume is dedicated, contributions in this volume present an overview of our current state of understanding of patterns of identity and self-presentation in ancient Egypt. The contributions approach various aspects of identity and self-presentation through studies of gender, literature, material culture, mythology, names, and officialdom.

This volume challenges assumptions about—and highlights new approaches to—the study of ancient Egyptian society by tackling various thematic social issues through structured individual case studies. The reader will be presented with questions about the relevance of the past in the present. The chapters encourage an understanding of Egypt in its own terms through the lens of power, people, and place, offering a more nuanced understanding of the way Egyptian society was organized and illustrating the benefits of new approaches to topics in need of a critical re-examination. By re-evaluating traditional, long-held beliefs about a monolithic, unchanging ancient Egyptian society, this volume writes a new narrative—one unchecked assumption at a time. Ancient Egyptian Society: Challenging Assumptions, Exploring Approaches is intended for anyone studying ancient Egypt or ancient societies more broadly, including undergraduate and graduate students, Egyptologists, and scholars in adjacent fields.

Ethnic Identities in the Land of the Pharaohs deals with ancient Egyptian concept of collective identity, various groups which inhabited the Egyptian Nile Valley and different approaches to ethnic identity in the last two hundred years of Egyptology. The aim is to present the dynamic processes of ethnogenesis of the inhabitants of the land of the pharaohs, and to place various approaches to ethnic identity in their broader scholarly and historical context. The dominant approach to ethnic identity in ancient Egypt is still based on culture historical method. This and other theoretically better framed approaches (e.g. instrumentalist approach, habitus, postcolonial approach, ethnogenesis, intersectionality) are discussed using numerous case studies from the 3rd millennium to the 1st century BC. Finally, this Element deals with recent impact of third science revolution on archaeological research on ethnic identity in ancient Egypt.

Uses primary evidence to ask anthropological questions about kinship and families in ancient Egyptian society.

During the Old Kingdom, the ancient Egyptians constructed elaborately decorated mortuary monuments for their pharaohs. By the late Old Kingdom (ca. 2435-2153 BCE), these pyramid complexes began to contain a new and unique type of statue, the so-called prisoner statues. Despite being known to Egyptologists for decades, these statues of kneeling, bound foreign captives have been only partially documented, and questions surrounding their use, treatment, and exact meaning have remained unanswered. Ancient Egyptian Prisoner Statues-the first comprehensive analysis of the prisoner statues-addresses this gap, demonstrating that the Egyptians conceived of and used the prisoner statues differently over time as a response to contemporary social, cultural, and historical changes. In the process, the author contributes new data and interpretations on topics as diverse as the purpose and function of the pyramid complex, the ways in which the Egyptians understood and depicted ethnicity, and the agency of artists in ancient Egypt. Ultimately, this volume provides a fuller understanding of not only the prisoner statues but also the Egyptian late Old Kingdom as a whole.

From Single Sign to Pseudo-Script by Ben Haring presents a well-documented and illustrative example of the use and development of identity marks, whose unique and universal features are brought out by a combination of Egyptological, comparative and theoretical approaches.