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The book delivers a history from below for the first half of
Egyptian history covering the earliest settlements, state formation
and the pyramid age. The focus is on the Wadjet province, about 350
km south of modern Cairo in Upper Egypt. Here archaeological
records provide an especially rich dataset for the material culture
of farmers. Histories of Ancient Egypt have focussed heavily on the
kings, monuments and inscriptions, while the working population is
hardly mentioned. The book investigates the life of people far from
the centres of power. One main aim of the book is the interaction
between farmers and the ruling classes at the centres of power and
locally. How did decisions at the royal centre affect the life of
ordinary people? The Introduction offers a critical survey of
Egyptologists and their attitudes towards the working class. The
social and cultural background of these researchers is analysed to
assess how heavily they are influenced by time and their political
and cultural background. The First chapter then describes the
location and gives a history of previous research and excavations.
The archaeological sites and the recorded ancient place names of
the province are presented to provide a geographical framework for
the book. The following chapters are arranged in chronological
order, mainly according to the archaeological phases visible in the
province. It appears that in phases of a weak central government,
people in the provinces were much better off, while in phases of a
strong central government burials of poorer people are almost
absent. The reasons for this are discussed. A substantial part of
the book comprises descriptions of single burials and the material
culture in the province. The archaeology of the poorer people is
the main focus. Burial customs and questions of production are
discussed. For a fuller picture, evidence from other parts of Egypt
is also taken into account. Thus settlement sites in other regions
are presented to provide contemporary evidence for living
conditions in particular periods. As the book will focus on the
lower classes, the Tributary Mode of Production will be used as the
main theoretical framework. The Tributary Mode of Production
(previously known as the Asiatic Mode of Production) is a term that
goes back to Karl Marx, but was mainly used in the 20th century to
describe ancient societies whose economies were not based on
slaves. A constant question will be the status of the working
population. Were they slaves, serfs or free citizens? It will be
argued that they were most often in a dependent position comparable
to that of serfs, while there is little evidence for slavery. The
numerous burials presented in the volume are important for
highlighting the diversity of burials in the different periods.
Many will be placed in special subchapters. Readers can skip these
chapters when they prefer to concentrate on the main text.
Death on the Nile deepens our understanding of the lives and
concerns of ancient Egyptians as they prepared themselves for death
and burial. Building on the growing trend in Egyptology to use
scientific analysis and imaging to examine artefacts, this new
volume focuses on one hundred objects from the Fitzwilliam Museum's
renowned Egyptian collection. In addition to shedding new light on
the workshops of ancient Egypt, Death on the Nile traces the
religious beliefs, economic concerns and political allegiance of
the people for whom the coffins were created. Behind these
remarkable objects is a human story of daily concerns, aspirations
and practical realities.
Grajetzki explores a number of both published and unpublished
sources to uncover the lives and work of two treasurers of the
mid-13th Dynasty and the people around them. Evidence taken from
stelae reveals a picture of administration and different levels of
responsibility and authority among the officials of this period.
During the late Middle Kingdom (about 1850-1700 B.C.E.), ancient
Egyptian women of high standing were interred with lavish
ornamentation and carefully gathered possessions. Buried near the
pyramids of kings, women with royal connections or great wealth and
status were surrounded by fine pottery and vessels for sacred oils,
bedecked with gold and precious stones, and honored with royal
insignia and marks of Osiris. Their funerary possessions include
jewelry imported from other ancient lands and gold-handled daggers
and claspless jewelry made only to be worn in the tomb.Extensively
illustrated with archival images and the author's own drawings,
"Tomb Treasures of the Late Middle Kingdom" describes and compares
the opulent tombs of eminent and royal women. In addition to the
ornaments, many of which are considered masterpieces of Middle
Kingdom craft, Egyptologist Wolfram Grajetzki examines the numerous
grave goods, artifacts of daily life, and markers of social status
that were also placed in tombs, presenting a more complete picture
of funerary customs in this period. By considering celebrated
examples of female burials together for the first time, "Tomb
Treasures of the Late Middle Kingdom" sheds new light on the role
and status of women in the royal court and explores how the
gendered identity of those women was preserved in the grave.
This Element provides a new evaluation of burial customs in New
Kingdom Egypt, from about 1550 to 1077 BC, with an emphasis on
burials of the wider population. It also covers the regions then
under Egyptian control: the Southern Levant and the area of Nubia
as far as the Fourth Cataract. The inclusion of foreign countries
provides insights not only into the interaction between the centre
of the empire and its conquered regions, but also concerning what
is typically Egyptian and to what extent the conquered regions were
culturally influenced. It can be shown that burials in Lower Nubia
closely follow those in Egypt. In the southern Levant, by contrast,
cemeteries of the period often yield numerous Egyptian objects, but
burial customs in general do not follow those in Egypt.
Greeks and Parthians is an innovative, archaeologically based
investigation into urban life in Mesopotamia and the northern part
of what is now the Persian Gulf, from the arrival of Alexander the
Great to the end of the Parthian Empire. With detailed coverage of
the cities of Seleucia-Ktesiphon, Babylon, Uruk, Susa, Spasinou
Charax, Ikaros (Failaka) and Tylos (Bahrein), Wolfram Grajetzki
shows that for most people in the region, life and material culture
were not, as is commonly stated, transformed by the coming of the
Greeks. The Parthians have tended to receive a negative press from
historians, but their supremacy lasted some 350 years and the
archaeology of their cities reveals innovations in architecture and
decorative arts, with lavishly equipped houses showing a high
standard of living.
Building on the latest research, Wolfram Grajetzki here looks in
detail at the circle of officials that surrounded the king in the
Middle Kingdom of ancient Egypt (Eleventh to Thirteenth Dynasty,
also including the Second Intermediate Period; c. 2040-1550 BC).
Describing the history of the principal offices of state, he takes
into account inscriptions, monuments and the few preserved tombs,
and traces the careers of some individual officials. The holders of
these offices were the men chosen by the king to be his close
advisers. They received strings of important titles, and their
monuments are among the finest works of art and architecture of the
time. Over all the other officials and second only to the king
stood the 'tjaty', or vizier, while alongside him and of only
slightly lower status, the treasurer was in charge of the resources
of the country. From the evidence for these men, a new, more
precise image emerges of ancient Egyptian civilization in its
monumental accomplishments and its daily operations. "Court
Officials of the Middle Kingdom" is essential reading for all
scholars and students of the period. The text is copiously
illustrated with drawings by Paul Whelan.
The pyramids at Gizeh and the tomb of Tutankhamun are two
spectacular examples of the legendary energy that the Ancient
Egyptians devoted to their tombs. Contrary to popular belief, this
energy was not confined to the highest classes of society. This is
the first book to use the tens of thousands of tombs excavated
across Egypt to build up a broad picture of burial as practiced
throughout society over the millennia, from 5000 BC to AD 200. In
the course of his investigation Wolfram Grajetski removes some
popular misconceptions. Many imagine that there are few undisturbed
tombs, but this is not the case. In addition to the richest finds,
there are numerous other tombs which, lacking gold, never caught
the attention of ancient robbers or, till now, that of modern
readers. Many also argue that we can only know the richer classes
in ancient society because the burials of ordinary farmers or poor
people do not survive. As this book shows, this is not true of
Ancient Egypt, where such graves are key sources for reconstructing
burial customs and Egyptian culture as a whole.
For the ancient Egyptians, the Middle Kingdom (c. 2000-1700 BC) was
a classical period of art, history and literature. The Twelfth
Dynasty was one of the strongest ever to rule on the banks of the
Nile: some of its kings were later worshipped as local gods, and
were made famous by classical Greek authors. Yet Egyptologists tend
not to look beyond the extraordinary royal sculpture and literary
masterpieces of the time. Although the picture is fragmentary, as
with any archaeological record, the last two hundred years of
exploration and excavation have revealed much of the splendour of
the period. This book examines the evidence for the culture,
history and society of both central and provincial Egypt at the
time, revealing the wealth of the entire country. Too often
overshadowed by the better-preserved architecture of other periods,
"Middle Kingdom Egypt" emerges for the reader as a fascinating age
in its own right.
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