Perspectives On Materiality In Ancient Egypt Agency Cultural Reproduction And Change

Growing out of a colloquium organised in São Paulo in March 2016, here Nine papers approach the potential of materiality in Ancient Egypt based on several case studies covering a wide range of topics such as Egyptian art, recent perspectives on sex and gender, hierarchies, and the materiality of textual sources and images.

The eight papers presented here stem from a conference held in Oxford in 2017 which brought together international early-career researchers applying novel archaeological and anthropological methods to ‘overlooked’ subjects in ancient Egypt and Nubia. The diverse topics covered include women, prisoners, entangled communities and funerary displays.

In this book, Richard Bussmann presents a fresh overview of ancient Egyptian society and culture in the age of the pyramids. He addresses key themes in the comparative research of early complex societies, including urbanism, funerary culture, temple ritual, kingship, and the state, and explores how ideas and practices were exchanged between ruling elites and local communities in provincial Egypt. Unlike other studies of ancient Egypt, this book adopts an anthropological approach that places people at the centre of the analysis. Bussmann covers a range of important themes in cross-cultural debates, such as materiality, gender, non-elite culture, and the body. He also offers new perspectives on social diversity and cultural cohesion, based on recent discoveries. His study vividly illustrates how our understanding of ancient Egyptian society benefits from the application of theoretical concepts in archaeology and anthropology to the interpretation of the evidence.

Papers from a seminar held at the University of Copenhagen in September 2006. Contents: A New Look at the Conception of the Human Being in Ancient Egypt (John Gee); 2) Between Identity and Agency in Ancient Egyptian Ritual (Harold M. Hays); 3) Material Agency, Attribution and Experience of Agency in Ancient Egypt: The case of New Kingdom private temple statues (Annette Kjølby); 4) Self-perception and Self-assertion in the Portrait of Senwosret III: New methods for reading a face ((Maya Müller); 5) Taking Phenomenology to Heart: Some heuristic remarks on studying ancient Egyptian embodied experience (Rune Nyord); 6) Anger and Agency: The role of the emotions in Demotic and earlier narratives (John Tait); 7) Time and Space in Ancient Egypt: The importance of the creation of abstraction (David A. Warburton); Index of Egyptian and Greek words and expressions.

This volume reflects the most recent state of research on ancient Egypt presented and discussed at the international conference Current Research on Egyptology XVII, May 2016. Nine papers are arranged chronologically covering the wide time span from the Predynastic till the Graeco-Roman Period, with the remaining five considering more general thematic, theoretical and cross-cultural topics. Papers re-examine the archives from early exacavations of pre-Dynastic tombs in the light of modern research; discuss various types of object from different periods; consider the roles of travelling artists and regional artistic schools styles and the mobility of ancient high-skilled craftsmen. Thematic, theoretical, and cross-cultural papers consider the relation of gods, cosmic sacredness and fertility beliefs; take a comparative approach to cultural identity extracted from narrative poetry of Greek and Egyptian origin; the inclusion of Egyptian musical elements incorporated into Greek traditions and the analysis of artifacts from the Egyptian collection of Zagreb, illustrating the range of information that essentially unprovenenced objects may have for future research.

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.

Violence and Gender in Ancient Egypt shifts the focus of gender studies in Egyptology to social phenomena rarely addressed through the lens of gender – war and violence, exploring the complex intersections of violence and gender in ancient Egypt. Building on current discussions in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, and on analysis of relevant historic texts, iconography, and archaeological remains by looking at possible gender patterns behind evidence of trauma, the book bridges the gap between modern understandings of gendered violence and its functioning in ancient Egypt. Areas explored include the following: differences in gendered aggression and violent acts between people and deities; sexual violence; the taking of men, women, and children as prisoners of war; and feminization of enemies. By examining ancient Egyptian texts and images with evidence for violence from different periods and contexts – private tombs, divine temples, royal stelae, papyri, and ostraca, ranging over 3,000 years of cultural history – Violence and Gender in Ancient Egypt highlights the complex intersection between gender and violence in ancient Egyptian culture. The book will appeal to scholars and students working in Egyptology, archaeology, history, anthropology, sociology, and gender studies.

Papers in this volume aim to reevaluate the importance of women as active and powerful social agents in the definition of ancient cultures, their contribution to the economic and social development of the community and to the position, reputation, and prestige of their families.