Egyptian Funerary Practices

lecture at: Second Vatican Coffin Conference (June 6-9, 2017), Museo Gregoriano Egizio, Vatican (publication in the conference proceedings will be in co-authorship with Rogério Sousa, whom I thank many new insights on this fascinating piece).

The tomb of Sennedjem (TT 1) at Deir el-Medina is a splendid example of decorated private tombs of the necropolis workmen of the early Nineteenth Dynasty (ca. 1290-1240 BC). As such it has been selected as one of the sources for the research program on hieroglyphic palaeography by the French Archaeological Institute in Cairo (IFAO). Palaeographical analysis of inscriptions in the tomb chamber, concentrating on the exact form and the orientation of the signs, reveals many peculiarities of the hieroglyphic writing system and of its use by the painter who was responsible for the decoration of TT 1.

A text composition with the modern designation ‘Embalming Ritual’ has been preserved in hieratic on three funerary papyri dating to the Roman period.  The content of the ritual is focused on the anointment and wrapping of a human corpse as well as on the glorification of the deceased.  The embalming descriptions are very detailed and more significant than the statements made by the Greek historians such as Herodotus and Diodorus.  The instructions found in the ‘Embalming Ritual’ correspond most likely to an embalming technique used in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods as attested by several individuals. However, this was not a recent embalming practice, rather, the technique described in the text is attested at least from the Old Kingdom. (State of content 2015)

Spell 103, "Being beside Hathor," one of the shortest in the Book of the Dead, is not well studied; scholars differ in their translations. My paper addresses this interpretative issue, with special attention to its Theban recension, a time of experimentation and creativity.
        Using the Bonn Totenbuch database, I made a synoptic study from the New Kingdom through Ptolemaic era, which highlighted textual transmission and revealed paleographic anomalies. I found that the ambiguity stems from homonyms, alternate writings, and unusual determinatives—a scribal technique creating multiple layers of meaning. My analysis also considered the vignettes, titles and gender of the owner, frequency of use, and roles of priests and gods alluded in the text.
        In this paper, I show how allusions to three categories of priests help the deceased: wab-priests ("pure ones"), who carry the divine barque in procession, facilitate contact with Hathor; iAs-priests ("bald ones"), who relay the words of the goddess, recall intermediary statues of "bald ones of Hathor," popular at this time; iHy-priests (sistrum-players—wearing ostrich feathers in the determinatives) pacify Hathor's dangerous side with music and dance, thus restoring Ma'at. Hathor's son Ihy (homonym of iHy-priest) adds protection and rejuvenation.
        A close reading and analysis of the writing in this deceptively simple spell show how allusions to divine contact, communication, pacification, and restoration of Ma'at create a magically powerful statement to aid the deceased in "being beside Hathor."

The site of South Abydos was home to royal mortuary complexes of both the late Middle, and New Kingdoms, belonging to Senwosret III and Ahmose.  Thanks to both recent and past excavations, both of these royal establishments are fairly well understood.  Yet, we lack a clear picture of the mortuary practices of the non-royal individuals living and working in the shadow of these institutions.  For both periods, the main question is where the tombs of the non-royal citizens might exist.  Additionally for the Middle Kingdom is the related issue of how these people commemorated their dead ancestors.  Divided into two parts, this dissertation looks at the ways in which non-royal individuals living at South Abydos during these two periods dealt with burial and funerary commemoration.  Three seasons of field work  in and around the Senwosret III mortuary complex, and the associated town of Wah-sut, uncovered a previously unexplored New Kingdom cemetery.  We excavated and analyzed the contents of six tombs belonging to this burial ground, which we dubbed the Temple Cemetery due to its proximity to the earlier mortuary temple of Senwosret III.  Further exploration of the site revealed numerous Middle Kingdom objects related to both tomb assemblages and funerary commemoration.  The discovery of the tomb of  Useribre Senebkay in January 2014 revealed numerous inscribed late Middle Kingdom chapel blocks, which had been reused to construct the Abydene Dynast’s burial chamber.  While we did not discover any tombs of the late Middle Kingdom, the results of these excavations demonstrate that tombs of this period almost certainly exist in the area.  Commemorative objects from within Wah-sut evince a complex system of domestic funerary rituals meant to commemorate the recently-deceased, which link this site with contemporary settlements at Lahun and Kom el-Fakhry.  New Kingdom vaulted tombs such as that belonging to the scribe Horemheb and the Stable master Rameses testify that South Abydos was still a highly significant burial ground during the late Eighteenth Dynasty, including the burials of individuals with significant wealth.  In short, this dissertation presents the previously unpublished results of ongoing archaeological excavation at the site of South Abydos.

One of the objects found on the mummy of Tutankhamun is a small gold bracelet with a carnelian swallow supporting the sun's disc. Archival documents prove unequivocally that the two pieces were not discovered together. No parallels are known for the motif of the solar swallow in combination with a bracelet, although the
motif is fairly frequently attested in connection with a special type of royal garment. As the find-spot of the swallow corresponds very well with the position of the accessories of such a garment on Tutankhamun's mummy, the correctness of Carter's reconstruction is questioned. It is suggested that the swallow formed an ensemble with the other accessories of the garment, i.e. a sheet-gold belt, a beadwork apron and a beaded tail. A gold dagger in its sheath probably also belongs to this group.

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, houses a group of 21st dynasty coffins, which are registered under the number E.1.1822. They were collected in Egypt by Barnard Hanbury and George Waddington and presented to the university in 1822. Since that date, they have received relatively little attention.

In 2005, the coffins were taken off display for the first time for many years, as part of the project to re-display the Egyptian collection at the museum. A catalogue of the museum’s coffins is being prepared and during preliminary study work for the catalogue, this coffin was carefully examined, conserved and photographed.

The coffins are inscribed with the names Nespawershefyt and Nesamun. The coffin owner was a God’s Father of Amun-Re king of the gods, wab-priest, supervisor of workshops and supervisors of scribes of the domain of Amun. He also had the title aA n mw n pr imn, which may be rendered “great one of the water of the domain of Amun”.

The decoration is well preserved on the inner coffin and mummy board, although fill material between sections of wood has fallen out in many places. The decoration of the outer coffin is somewhat less well preserved. The inscriptions on these coffins show evidence of having been changed, although these changes are limited to the titles, while the names remain untouched. Although there is increasing evidence that coffins were commonly reused at this date, these coffins are not examples of re-use; rather I suggest that their owner had more than one name and that his own inscriptions were modified after the decoration of the coffins was completed.

Despite their importance among ancient Egyptian funerary goods and their often prominent display in modern museums and collections ancient Egyptian sarcophagi are rarely the subjects of comprehensive studies. In the past decades only five major investigations on stone coffins were undertaken by researchers, of whom only three were subsequently printed: In 1969 A. M. Donadoni Roveri published her account on the Old Kingdom Sarcophagi, in 1959 M.-L. Buhl her study on Anthropoid Late Egyptian Stone Sarcophagi and in 1935 W. C. Hayes published his book on the Royal Sarcophagi of the XVIII Dynasty. The extensive works on Middle Kingdom Sarcophagi (1989) by A. Schwab and New Kingdom Royal Sarcophagi of the post-Amarna period by E. Brock were never printed and are only available at certain University libraries.
These fundamental studies laid the groundwork for the research on objects of the same kind. But with new finds emerging every year they not only deserve a renewed approach applying modern research methods, substantial gaps in the material of various time periods should also be filled. One such gap remains for the New Kingdom. Whereas Hayes dealt thoroughly with the royal specimens up until Amenhotep III., the later ones were left out of his study as well as the many examples owned by private officials that were produced during the five centuries of that period.
This latter group of private sarcophagi is constituted of approximately 140 examples. These stone coffins are the subject of a PhD thesis currently written at the Institute of Egyptology in Leipzig. The thesis comprises a catalogue describing each object, their find spot and history of discovery, the social status and family relations of the owner as well as a detailed translation of the accompanying texts. But more importantly it also includes a comprehensive examination of numerous aspects concerning the genesis and development of private sarcophagi throughout the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasty and their estimated decline at the end of the New Kingdom: the origin, utilisation, and arrangement of the inscribed texts and representations, the usage and preferences of certain stones as raw material and the possible implications of them in comparison to earlier times and in regard to funerary beliefs or potential restrictions to royal convention, the manufacturing process and colouring, the distribution of the objects among the various cemeteries as well as an investigation of the status of the owners in relation to each other and to private officials with the same social standing but differing burial equipment.

Naturally all objects deposited in a royal tomb are of considerable interest, especially since only a
limited number of royal tomb inventories are preserved from Ancient Egypt. Thus, it is the main aim
of the German Abydos project to gather as much as possible from the burial equipment, no matter
how fragmented the objects are nowadays. That this endeavour has its limits due to a diversity of
reasons will be discussed in this paper. On the basis of some examples it will be shown that the effort
is nevertheless worthwhile, as also tiny bits and pieces can tell a lot of information revealing the
immense quality and high standard of Early Dynastic workmanship that otherwise would be lost.

Os modelos funerários enquanto elementos do contexto tumular surgem no final do Império Antigo e estabelecem-se como importantes componentes do espólio funerário durante o Primeiro Período Intermediário e até ao final do Império Médio. A função destes artefactos tem sido convenientemente entendida no sentido de proporcionar os serviços necessários para as necessidades do defunto no Além o que, não sendo incorreto, é bastante limitativo na análise do respectivo
potencial mágico-religioso. O próprio conceito de «modelos funerários», por si só, obscurece a possibilidade de que tais objetos possam ter levado uma vida para além da morte, pelo que é necessário analisá-lo a ele também.

The figure of Tjesraperet is well known and her funerary furniture has been the subject of several studies and dedicated articles. This paper will try to shed some light on a particular, scarcely-investigated object of such funerary furniture, analysing its peculiar history and rare typological features.

There is a limestone ostracon from Thebes and in the Manchester Museum (Acc. no. 5886), which dates from the New Kingdom. An Egyptian artist drew on it an ink sketch with a scene of a funeral. In it we see the common mourners outside the tomb. we can suppose the twp professional mourners in the role of Isis and Nephthys inside the burial.

In July 2009 the National Museum in Belgrade received - as a donation - two elements of a funerary assemblage: a fragmented mask and a conjoined collar-breast covering. Although heavily damaged, those ancient Egyptian mummy trappings furnish modern analysts with valuable information about their fabrication and ritual employment. The mask is of helmet-type, made of gessoed linen which had been decorated with paint and gilded upon the face. The front of the mask is in relatively fair condition, but the top and rear have suffered considerably, being reduced to small fragments whose original position is difficult to determine. The mask is heavily affected by staining caused by deliberately over-poured resin, i.e. the traces of a ritual unguent pouring. The collar-breast covering is a conjoined type forming a single rectangular or rather slightly trapezoidal plaque. The collar design consists of a system of schematized floral decoration arranged in seven semicircular bands around a single semi-lunate zone. A decorative grid containing funerary motifs extends below the collar field. It consists of four horizontal registers separated by polychrome bands of colored rectangles. The whole forms a complex tapestry of protective imagery: deities, amuletic symbols and magical vignettes. The mask and the breast cover are datable to the late Ptolemaic Period (ca. 100-50 B.C.). The most likely place of origin is site of Hawara at the entrance to the Fayum region.

1 Introduction
1.1 The idea of Prehistory in the middle east and north-east Africa …1
1.2. Aims, scope and method of this book ……………………...............…..…. 2
2. Recensions (Reviews) ………………………………………………....................…..... 3
2.1 Translated from German ……………………………………..........................…… 3
2.2 Reviewed by Michael Brass, University College London …….......… 5
2.3 Reviewed by Robert Bates, La Sierra University …………...….…. 5
2.4 Reviewed by Steven Gregory, University of Birmingham ….… 7

Although mummification is assumed to have been a common practice during the mid-late Middle Kingdom, there are no confirmed examples of so-called " embalming deposits " – intentional deposits of waste created during the mummifica-tion process – from cemeteries of this period. The only Middle Kingdom deposits of this type date to the early Middle Kingdom and come from the The-ban necropolis. This paper examines the archaeology of a hitherto overlooked group of intentional cemetery deposits from the mid-late Middle Kingdom and explores the possibility that the deposits might represent an alternative tradition of embalming or deposition of embalming waste.

Continuing and refining ideas first proposed in my undergraduate work, this dissertation aims to redefine the approach to syncretism in Egyptology. By developing a new methodology, based partly on the writings of Homi K. Bhabha, Jacques Derrida, and Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley, this dissertation works to reconstruct the cultural identity and context of hybrid material. As Egyptologists, we naturally deconstruct the evidence, and miss out on how the original intended audience of such material may have received and perceived it. By applying Reconstruction to the cases of two Graeco-Roman Period tombs, both by the name of Petosiris, the socio-political context of hybridity can be observed. If deconstruction is our traditional approach to this material, what would happen if we took the cultural component parts identified (i.e. Greek, Roman and Egyptian iconography) and reconstructed them, to form a more accurate profile of the evidence? This dissertation aims to explore this.

We usually think that there is a strong lack of documents on the subject about mourning in ancient Egypt. However, the more we visit museums all over the world, the more examples we find. The point is that we need to look even at the smallest pieces and watch at them.

This is the case of fragment of coffin in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is small, with incomplete decoration and with no inscriptions, so it could be of no relevance.

Probably visitors ignore it, but it is extremely important for our subject about mourning women in ancient Egypt and their mourning ritual in the Egyptian funerary ceremony.

Through its three overlapping perspectives - practices, transmission, and landscape - the Walking Dead project aims to better understand religion at Saqqara, with particular focus on the New Kingdom. This paper pursues this aim by attempting to contextualise textual transmission in ancient Egyptian society, and by attempting to sketch, rather broadly, the importance of social and performative contexts to understanding the transmission of the Book of the Dead.

The paper aims to shed some further light on the decoration of monumental tomb-chapels with Book of the Dead texts and the decorative purposes of such scenes, which have traditionally been taken to magically provide for the deceased as a kind of ‘back-up’, or  to function as a kind of speech-act, as argued elsewhere by Lara Weiss.

Drawing on recent work on the Pyramid Texts by Susanne Bickel, and on Egyptian funerary religion in the Old Kingdom by Mark Smith, as well as recent research on the performative context of literature and the material authority of written texts by Christopher Eyre, the paper argues in favour of understanding the Book of the Dead, like the the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin Texts, and leave aside other, more cosmological works, as a limited materialisation of religious practices which took place as part of spoken, performed, and ephemeral life in ancient Egypt.

The question of how we conceive of the Book of the Dead is absolutely central to the question of how we understand its transmission. Apparently ‘incorrect’ or variant texts may reflect differing contexts of use or origins for recensions, for instance, but the question is much broader, and the oral-performative context is at once extremely difficult to reconstruct, if this is at all possible, and absolutely central to considering the texts, their variations, and their transmission.

Las estructuras funerarias estaban conformadas por espacios (patios, cámaras, pasillos y pozos) que fueron concebidos para servir de soporte para el programa iconográfico, albergar los restos de los individuos inhumados, colocar las ofrendas y realizar los rituales durante el enterramiento o posteriormente a este. Pero como han demostrado los trabajos arqueológicos llevados a cabo en muchas de estas estructuras funerarias, la reutilización de estos espacios constituyó un fenómeno frecuente. Estas reutilizaciones fueron en su mayoría de carácter funerario, usando la tumba para un nuevo enterramiento o bien alguno de los espacios que la conforman para la realización de diferentes rituales. Sin embargo, en ocasiones encontramos ejemplos del uso de los espacios que trasciende el carácter funerario y están más vinculados con actividades de hábitat o lugares de trabajo. En el año 2016, durante la decimoquinta campaña del Proyecto Djehuty en Dra Abu el-Naga (Luxor), se excavó una estructura funeraria, datada en torno a la Dinastía XVIII-XIX y designada como SMDAN 1030. Esta mostraba algunos ejemplos de reutilizaciones en sus espacios funerarios. En este trabajo se presenta un estudio del fenómeno de las reutilizaciones desde una perspectiva del análisis del registro arqueológico apoyándose en el trabajo realizado en esta tumba.

This paper focuses on the symbolism of the materials used in funerary amulets from the Egyptian collection of the Musée du Louvre. The project’s main goal is to raise awareness of the materiality of the relationship between amulets and funerary rituals, such as mummification and the “opening of the mouth” ritual.

Review of the article "From Representation to Reality: Ancient Egyptian Wax Head Cones from Amarna" by Anna Stevens, Corina E. Rogge, Jolanda E.M.F. Bos, Gretchen R. Dabbs, in Antiquity 93 372 (2019), pp. 1515–1533.
De Standaard, December 17, 2019

https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20191216_04770365

An unusual find in Badari 4964, a crucible of clay with traces of
repeated use, calls in question Seidlemayer's assumption on the
meaning of the funerary practice, 'insensitive' at the deceased's
occupation in life and urges us to reconsider general patterns in light
of minor evidence. A detailed analysis of the material record,
supported, in turn, by written and visual sources between late O.K.
and early M. K., sheds light on the possible agency of the person
buried with this object. Broader considerations on the degree of
specialization, the scale of production and the organization of labour
in ancient Egypt, show the importance of considering the flows of the
objects circulation as major factors determining value, and meaning,
in the multilayered realm of the social network. A qualitative and
quantitative analysis of such 'anomalies' or minor evidence, like in
the case of UC18146, is finally proposed for future research, as a
valid approach for investigating the mechanisms which contributed to
reproduce identity in the realm of death.