Egypt played a crucial role in the Roman Empire for seven centuries. It was wealthy and occupied a strategic position between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds, while its uniquely fertile lands helped to feed the imperial capitals at Rome and then Constantinople. The cultural and religious landscape of Egypt today owes much to developments during the Roman period, including in particular the forms taken by Egyptian Christianity. Moreover, we have an abundance of sources for its history during this time, especially because of the recovery of vast numbers of written texts giving an almost uniquely detailed picture of its society, economy, government, and culture. This book, the work of six historians and archaeologists from Egypt, the US, and the UK, provides students and a general audience with a readable new history of the period and includes many illustrations of art, archaeological sites, and documents, and quotations from primary sources.

This student-friendly introduction to the archaeology of ancient Egypt guides readers from the Paleolithic to the Greco-Roman periods, and has now been updated to include recent discoveries and new illustrations. Superbly illustrated with photographs, maps, and site plans, with additional illustrations in this new edition Organized into 11 chapters, covering: the history of Egyptology and Egyptian archaeology; prehistoric and pharaonic chronology and the ancient Egyptian language; geography, resources, and environment; and seven chapters organized chronologically and devoted to specific archaeological sites and evidence Includes sections on salient topics such as the constructing the Great Pyramid at Giza and the process of mummification

This book provides the first edition with an extensive introduction and full commentary of a unique land survey written on papyrus in Greek which derives from that area of southern (Upper) Egypt known as the Apollonopolite (or Edfu) nome and is now preserved in Copenhagen. Dating from the late second century BC, this survey provides a new picture of both landholding and taxation in the area which differs significantly from that currently accepted. The introduction sets this new evidence in its contemporary context, drawing particular attention to what it reveals about the nature of the relations of the Ptolemaic royal administration with local grandees, Egyptian temples and the army. No student of Hellenistic Egypt can afford to ignore this text, which importantly extends our knowledge of Upper Egypt under the Ptolemaic kings and involves some modification to the prevailing picture of landholding in Hellenistic Egypt.

The Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires are usually studied separately, or else included in broader examinations of the Hellenistic world. This book provides a systematic comparison of the roles of local elites and local populations in the construction, negotiation, and adaptation of political, economic, military and ideological power within these states in formation. The two states, conceived as multi-ethnic empires, are sufficiently similar to make comparisons valid, while the process of comparison highlights and better explains differences. Regions that were successively incorporated into the Ptolemaic and then Seleucid state receive particular attention, and are understood within the broader picture of the ruling strategies of both empires. The book focusses on forms of communication through coins, inscriptions and visual culture; settlement policies and the relationship between local and immigrant populations; and the forms of collaboration with and resistance of local elites against immigrant populations and government institutions.

This discussion will be centered on one ubiquitous and rather simple Egyptian object type - the wooden container for the human corpse. We will focus on the entire 'lifespan' of the coffin - how they were created, who bought them, how they were used in funerary rituals, where they were placed in a given tomb, and how they might have been used again for another dead person. Using evidence from Deir el Medina, we will move through time from the initial agreement between the craftsman and the seller, to the construction of the object by a carpenter, to the plastering and painting of the coffin by a draftsman, to the sale of the object, to its ritual use in funerary activities, to its deposit in a burial chamber, and, briefly, to its possible reuse.

What was life like for ordinary people who lived in Roman Egypt? In this volume, Anna Lucille Boozer reconstructs and examines the everyday lives of non-elite individuals. It is the first book to bring a 'life course' approach to the study of Roman Egypt and Egyptology more generally. Based on evidence drawn from objects, portraits, and letters, she focuses on the quotidian details that were most meaningful to those who lived during the centuries of Roman occupation. Boozer explores these individuals through each phase of the life cycle - from conception, childbirth, childhood, and youth, to adulthood and old age - and focuses on essential themes such as religion, health, disability, death, and the afterlife. Illuminating the lives of people forgotten by most historians, her richly illustrated volume also shows how ordinary people experienced and enacted social and cultural change.

Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom offers a new history of the field of Egyptian monastic archaeology. It is the first study in English to trace how scholars identified a space or site as monastic within the Egyptian landscape and how such identifications impacted perceptions of monasticism. Brooks Hedstrom then provides an ecohistory of Egypt's tripartite landscape to offer a reorientation of the perception of the physical landscape. She analyzes late-antique documentary evidence, early monastic literature, and ecclesiastical history before turning to the extensive archaeological evidence of Christian monastic settlements. In doing so, she illustrates the stark differences between idealized monastic landscape and the actual monastic landscape that was urbanized through monastic constructions. Drawing upon critical theories in landscape studies, materiality and phenomenology, Brooks Hedstrom looks at domestic settlements of non-monastic and monastic settlements to posit what features makes monastic settlements unique, thus offering a new history of monasticism in Egypt.

Of all the enormous monuments throughout Egypt and Nubia that Ramesses II (the Great; ca. 1279-1212 BCE) left behind, his temple at Abydos, built early in his reign, stands as one of his most elegant monuments, with its simple architectural layout and dramatic and graceful painted relief scenes. Though best known for its dramatic reliefs depicting the battle of Kadesh, the temple also offers a wealth of information about religious and social life in ancient Egypt. It reflects, for example, the strenuous efforts of the early Ramessides to reestablish the Osiris cult in Egypt-and particularly at Abydos-in the aftermath of the Amarna period. Over a seven-year period, the authors of The Temple of Ramesses II in Abydos conducted a field project with the aim of producing an up-to-date and comprehensive architectural, photographic, and epigraphic record of the temple. The result is a masterpiece of modern epigraphic research and publication.This volume - Volume 2, Pillars, Niches and Miscellaea - is the second of two volumes documenting their results. It presents more than two hundred illustrations including detailed line drawings - accurately rendered according to modern epigraphical standards - of elements of the temple as well as translations of the inscriptions found in the temple. .

Volume 3 of Ancient Records of Egypt opens on the chaotic aftermath of King Akhenaten's religious revolution. Breasted chronicles the precarious reigns of Akhenaten's successors and the political and legal reforms of King Horemheb, who succeeded to the throne after the passing of the last members of the royal family. This volume contains the important edict of Horemheb, intended to prevent the oppressive abuses connected with the collection of taxes from the common people, and the inscriptions of Roy, high priest of Amon, showing the first transmission from father to son of the office of the high priest. In the context of a long history of mutilating and altering reliefs for political purposes, Breasted discusses the insertion into a relief of the figure of Ramesses II in order to reinforce his claim to the throne. This volume also includes the treaty of alliance that sealed peace with the Hittites under Ramesses II; a series of documents that record the invasion of Libyans and Mediterranean Sea people during the reign of Merneptah; and the Great Temple of Abu Simbel, the most remarkable of the rock-cut temples of Egypt. This first complete paperback edition of Breasted's five-volume Ancient Records of Egypt makes available to a new audience a milestone in Egyptology and in the compilation of documentary histories. Clearly annotated for the lay reader, the documents provide copious evidence of trade relations, construction activities, diplomatic envoys, foreign expeditions, and other aspects of a vigorous, highly organized, and centrally controlled society. Breasted's commentary is both rigorously documented and accessible, suffused with a contagious fascination for the events, the personalities, the cultural practices, and the sophistication these records indicate

A History of World Egyptology is a ground-breaking reference work that traces the study of ancient Egypt over the past 150 years. Global in purview, it enlarges our understanding of how and why people have looked, and continue to look, into humankind's distant past through the lens of the enduring allure of ancient Egypt. Written by an international team of scholars, the volume investigates how territories around the world have engaged with, and have been inspired by, ancient Egypt and its study, and how that engagement has evolved over time. Chapters present a specific territory from different perspectives, including institutional and national, while examining a range of transnational links as well. The volume thus touches on multiple strands of scholarship, embracing not only Egyptology, but also social history, the history of science and reception studies. It will appeal to amateurs and professionals with an interest in the histories of Egypt, archaeology and science.

Deserts, the Red Land, bracket the narrow strip of alluvial Black Land that borders the Nile. Networks of desert roads ascended to the high desert from the Nile Valley, providing access to the mineral wealth and Red Sea ports of the Eastern Desert, the oasis depressions and trade networks of the Western Desert. A historical perspective from the Predynastic through the Roman Periods highlights how developments in the Nile Valley altered the Egyptian administration and exploitation of the deserts. For the ancient Egyptians, the deserts were a living landscape, and at numerous points along the desert roads, the ancient Egyptians employed rock art and rock inscriptions to create and mark places. Such sites provide considerable evidence for the origin of writing in northeast Africa, the religious significance of the desert and expressions of personal piety, and the development of the early alphabet.

An indispensable companion to any of the other volumes of Ancient Records of Egypt, the Supplementary Bibliographies and Indices facilitates direct access to specific information on the people, places, and inscriptions catalogued by James Henry Breasted. Exhaustively compiled and intelligently arranged, these indices include the kings and queens, temples and geographical locations, divine names, and titles and ranks encompassed by three thousand years of Egyptian history. Also provided are indices of all Egyptian, Hebrew, and Arabic terms mentioned in the texts, as well as a complete listing of the records with their location in Lepsius's Denkmaler. This first paperback edition of Ancient Records of Egypt features the important addition of bibliographies by Peter A. Piccione, together with an introduction that puts Breasted's historical commentaries into modern perspective. These bibliographies offer valuable guidance on new translations and modern treatments of the inscriptions included in Ancient Records of Egypt. Professor Piccione points the reader toward recent studies of Egyptian chronology and modern scholarship on Egyptian and Nubian history. He also provides information on anthologies of Egyptian texts in translation and topographical bibliographies that suggest further reading on specific ancient Egyptian monuments, texts, and reliefs.

The wadis which lie to the west of the main Theban mountain were last officially explored by Howard Carter in 1916 and 1917. He suggested in a subsequent article that these wadis might contain the burial ground of the XVIIIth dynasty royal family members whose burials were then missing. The granting of the concession to excavate the Valley of the Kings to the Earl of Carnarvon, and the subsequent discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, meant that Carter never returned to the Western Wadis to test his theory. The burials of many members of the XVIIIth dynasty royal family remain missing to this day. Since Carter's exploration of this area the evidence in these wadis has been examined by many people, both officially and unofficially, but this report represents the results of the first Ministry of Antiquities-approved attempt to re-address Howard Carter's hypothesis.

Around the turn of the last century, James Henry Breasted took on the challenge of assembling all the available historical documents of ancient Egypt and translating them into English. This prodigious undertaking involved traveling to the monuments extant in the Nile valley and in outlying areas of Egyptian conquest, as well as to museums throughout Europe where Egyptian relics were housed. Breasted made his own copies of hundreds of Egyptian records inscribed on papyrus or leather or carved in stone and engaged in a thorough study of the published records of Egyptian history in conjunction with his own transcription of the documents themselves. This five-volume compendium is the result. Breasted's monumental work, originally published from 1906 to 1907, encompasses twenty-six dynasties spanning more than three millennia: from ca. 3050 B.C. to 525 B.C. For each document, Breasted provides information on location, condition, historical significance, and content. Beginning with the earliest known official annals of Egypt, the Palermo Stone, Breasted catalogs the realm's official activities, including royal succession, temple construction, property distribution, and foreign conquest. He tracks the careers of scores of kings, queens, government officials, military leaders, powerful statesmen, and influential courtiers, reproducing their autobiographies, letters of favor, paeans, mortuary gifts, and tomb inscriptions. Clearly annotated for the lay reader, the documents provide copious evidence of trade relations, construction activities, diplomatic envoys, foreign expeditions, and other aspects of a vigorous, highly organized, and centrally controlled society. Breasted's commentary is both rigorously documented and accessible, suffused with a contagious fascination for the events, the personalities, the cultural practices, and the sophistication these records indicate. A herculean assemblage of primary documents, many of which have deteriorated to illegibility in the intervening century, Ancient Records of Egypt illuminates both the incredible complexity of Egyptian society and the almost insuperable difficulties of reconstructing a lost civilization. This first paperback edition of Ancient Records of Egypt features a new introduction and supplementary bibliographies by Peter A. Piccione. Setting Breasted's work in the context of the development of American Egyptology, Piccione discusses Breasted's establishment of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, with corporate support by John D. Rockefeller and other benefactors, and surveys the ambitious body of publications with which Breasted laid the foundation for future Egyptian studies.

With volume 4 of Ancient Records of Egypt, James Henry Breasted brings us to the end of the self-governed era of ancient Egyptian civilization. Chief among the documents contained in this volume are the inscriptions from the Medinet Habu Temple, one of the most completely preserved temples of Egypt, and the great Papyrus Harris, the largest (133 feet long) and most sumptuous papyrus extant, 95 percent of which Breasted was the first to study closely. Together these documents present a detailed record of the reign and benefactions of Ramesses III, whose reign lasted more than thirty years. Volume 4 includes intriguing records of the harem conspiracy and legal documents that indicate the extent of robberies of royal tombs. Records of the Nile levels at Karnak provide important chronological landmarks, while the Stela of Piye (Piankhi), which documents the Nubian kingdom already in existence as a full-fledged power, provides information on the internal political climate of Egypt during a time when no aggressive monarch controlled the whole country. Breasted also notes where these ancient Egyptian records intersect with accounts of the same events from other sources, such as the mutiny of Psamtik I's troops as inscribed on the alabaster statue of Nesuhor and as narrated by Herodotus. In effect, Ancient Records of Egypt offers a valuable dual record. On the one hand, Breasted presents the events and personages of ancient Egypt as recorded in the documents. On the other hand, he presents a history of the documents themselves. Fragmentary or partially destroyed, carved on temple and tomb walls or written on fragile scrolls of leather or papyrus, even inscribed on the coffins and temple linens of the royal and priestly mummy wrappings, these records offer an irreplaceable primary source on a fascinating civilization.

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.

In this book, Lisa Sabbahy presents a history of ancient Egyptian kingship in the Old Kingdom and its re-formation in the early Middle Kingdom. Beginning with an account of Egypt's history before the Old Kingdom, she examines the basis of kingship and its legitimacy. The heart of her study is an exploration of the king's constant emphasis on his relationship to his divine parents, the sun god Ra and his mother, the goddess Hathor, who were two of the most important deities backing the rule of a divine king. Sabbahy focuses on the cardinal importance of this relationship, which is reflected in the king's monuments, particularly his pyramid complexes, several of which are analysed in detail. Sabbahy also offers new insights into the role of queens in the early history of Egypt, notably sibling royal marriages, harem conspiracies, and the possible connotations of royal female titles.

In this book, Aaron A. Burke explores the evolution of Amorite identity in the Near East from ca. 2500-1500 BC. He sets the emergence of a collective identity for the Amorites, one of the most famous groups in Ancient Near Eastern history, against the backdrop of both Akkadian imperial intervention and declining environmental conditions during this period. Tracing the migration of Amorite refugees from agropastoral communities into nearby regions, he shows how mercenarism in both Mesopotamia and Egypt played a central role in the acquisition of economic and political power between 2100 and 1900 BC. Burke also examines how the establishment of Amorite kingdoms throughout the Near East relied on traditional means of legitimation, and how trade, warfare, and the exchange of personnel contributed to the establishment of an Amorite koine. Offering a fresh approach to identity at different levels of social hierarchy over time and space, this volume contributes to broader questions related to identity for other ancient societies.

This book gives a structured account of Egypt's transition from Ptolemaic to Roman rule by identifying key relationships between ecology, land tenure, taxation, administration and politics. It introduces theoretical perspectives from the social sciences and subjects them to empirical scrutiny using data from Greek and Demotic papyri as well as comparative evidence. Although building on recent scholarship, it offers some provocative arguments that challenge prevailing views. For example, patterns of land ownership are linked to population density and are seen as one aspect of continuity between the Ptolemaic and Roman period. Fiscal reform, by contrast, emerges as a significant mechanism of change not only in the agrarian economy but also in the administrative system and the whole social structure. Anyone seeking to understand the impact of Roman rule in the Hellenistic east must consider the well-attested processes in Egypt that this book seeks to explain.

A comprehensive archaeological study of the ceramic finds from a house in Amheida The House of Serenos: Part I: The Pottery (Amheida V) is a comprehensive full-color catalog and analysis of the ceramic finds from the late antique house of a local notable and adjacent streets in Amheida. It is the fifth book in the Amheida series. Amheida is located in the western part of the Dakhla oasis, 3.5 km south of the medieval town of El-Qasr. Known in Hellenistic and Roman times as Trimithis, Amheida became a polis by 304 CE and was a major administrative center of the western part of the oasis for the whole of the fourth century. The home's owner was one Serenos, a member of the municipal elite and a Trimithis city councillor, as we know from documents found in the house. His house is particularly well preserved with respect to floor plan, relationship to the contemporary urban topography, and decoration, including domestic display spaces plastered and painted with subjects drawn from Greek mythology and scenes depicting the family that owned the house. The archaeology from the site also reveals the ways in which the urban space changed over time, as Serenos's house was built over and expanded into some previously public spaces. The house was probably abandoned around or soon after 370 CE. The pottery analyzed in this volume helps to refine the relationship of the archaeological layers belonging to the elite house and the layers below it; it also sheds light on the domestic and economic life of the household and region, from cooking and dining to the management of a complex agricultural economy in which ceramics were the most common form of container for basic commodities. The book will be of interest to specialists interested in ceramology, Roman Egypt, and the material culture, social history, and economy of late antiquity.

Ancient human bodies, melted from their glacial time-capsules, present unique sources of highly detailed information of lives spent long ago. One example of particular note has been dubbed by the world's media 'OEtzi the Iceman'. Deservedly celebrated from the moment of his incredible discovery, his fame has only increased with the realisation of his murder. Found high in the Alps shot in the back by an arrow, OEtzi lived some 5,200 years ago and represents the oldest and coldest of cold cases. The hectic and violent last few days of his life have been revealed by various analyses of his gut contents which can be likened to an encoded diary and a map. Pollen and coarse remains of plants including mosses have been crucial in these respects. DNA analysis has revealed details of his diet. Stable isotopes have indicated two homelands. This is a detective story unparalleled in scientific archaeology. In this engaging and fully illustrated new book, one of the world's foremost authorities on glacier mummies explores their curious preservation and unravels the clues they have left for us locked in ice, frozen in time. As one the most mysterious and best preserved examples, OEtzi and his story are given special attention.

The Old Kingdom of Egypt (Dynasties 4-6, c. 2600-2180 BC) is famous as a period of the builders of the largest Egyptian pyramids. It is generally accepted that the evidence on the use of copper alloy tools from this era is meagre. Martin Odler gathers the textual, iconographic and palaeographic evidence and examines Old Kingdom artefacts in order to revise this view on the use of copper alloy tools and model tools. Furthermore, he provides updated definitions of tool classes and tool kits, together with the context of their use. Besides rare specimens of full-size tools, the largest corpora of the material have been preserved in the form of model tools in the burial equipment of the Old Kingdom elite and were most probably symbols of their power to commission and fund craftwork. Moreover, the size and elaboration of the model tools were probably connected to the social status of the buried persons. The long-standing division in the Egyptological literature between full-size tools and model tools is questioned. The ancient sources also enable to show that the preservation of material culture from the Old Kingdom was largely dependent on a conscious selection made within the past culture, with completely different settlement and funerary contexts and a conspicuous absence of weapons. The volume is completed by co-authored case studies on archaeometallurgy of selected Old Kingdom artefacts in the collection of the Egyptian Museum of Leipzig University, on morphometry of Old Kingdom adze blades and on the finds of stone and ceramic vessels associated with the findings of so-called Old Kingdom model tools.

The 4th British Egyptology Congress (BEC 4) was held in September 2018 at the University of Manchester, allowing scholars from around the world to present their latest and ongoing research to their peers. Eighty-two papers were presented, including four keynote speeches, covering the full spectrum of Egyptology, archaeology, museology, and the history of travel along the Nile. The 13 papers included in this volume are representative of the wide variety of research discussed during BEC 4, reflecting the current studies of their authors. It is hoped that providing a publication platform through these Proceedings will stimulate further dialogue and investigation.

This book examines the interplay between astronomy and dynastic power in the course of ancient Egyptian history, focusing on the fundamental role of astronomy in the creation of the pyramids and the monumental temple and burial complexes. Bringing to bear the analytical tools of archaeoastronomy, a set of techniques and methods that enable modern scholars to better understand the thought, religion and science of early civilizations, Giulio Magli provides in-depth analyses of the pyramid complexes at Giza, Abusir, Saqqara and Dahshur, as well as of the Early Dynastic necropolis at Abydos and the magnificent new Kingdom Theban temples. Using a variety of data retrieved from study of the sky and measurements of the buildings, he reconstructs the visual, symbolic and spiritual world of the ancient Egyptians and thereby establishes an intimate relationship among celestial cycles, topography and architecture. He also shows how they were deployed in the ideology of the pharaoh's power in the course of Egyptian history.

Sacrifice is not simply an expression of religious beliefs. Its highly symbolic nature lends itself to various kinds of manipulation by those carrying it out, who may use the ritual in maintaining and negotiating power and identity in carefully staged 'performances'. This Element will examine some of the many different types of sacrifice and ritual killing of human beings through history, from Bronze Age China and the Near East to Mesoamerica to Northern Europe. The focus is on the archaeology of human sacrifice, but where available, textual and iconographic sources provide valuable complements to the interpretation of the material.