Old Kingdom, New Perspectives: Egyptian Art and Archaeology 2750-2150 BC

Recent research on all aspects of the Old Kingdom in Egypt is presented in this volume, ranging through the Pyramid Texts, tomb architecture, ceramics, scene choice and layout, field reports, cemetery layout, tomb and temple statuary. The contributions also show how Egyptology is not stuck in its venerable traditions but that newer forms of technology are being used to great effect by Egyptologists. For example, two papers show how GIS technology can shed light on cemetery arrangement and how 3D scanners can be employed in the process of producing facsimile drawings of reliefs and inscriptions. The authors cover a wide range of sites and monuments. A large part of the work presented deals with material from the great cemeteries of Saqqara and Giza of the Old Kingdom capital city of Memphis but all the smaller sites are discussed. The book also includes a paper on the architecture of mastabas from the lesser-known site of Abu Roasch. The provinces are by no means overlooked, with articles on material from Deir el-Bersha, el-Sheikh Said and Akhmim. Between them, the authors discuss material from the milieu of the king right down to that which concerned the tomb workmen and those who supplied their basic needs, such as bakers, brewers and potters. Containing papers presented at a conference at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge in May 2009, this book continues a series of publications of the latest research presented at previous meetings in Paris, Berlin and Prague. Much new material is published here and the papers are fully illustrated, with over 200 photographs and drawings.

Table of Contents

1. A new Old Kingdom rock-cut tomb from Abusir and its Abusir-Saqqara context (Miroslav Bárta)
2. Mastaba core structure: New data from fourth dynasty elite tombs at Abu Rawash (Michel Baud and Eric Guerrier)
3. The art of Egyptian hieroglyphs as seen by the Akhmim painters V.G. Callender)
4. Two cemeteries for one provincial capital? Deir al Bersha and al-Sheikh Said in the fifteenth Upper Egyptian nome during the Old Kingdom (Marleen De Meyer)
5. Blocks from the Unis causeway recorded in Cerný’s notebooks at the Griffith Institute, Oxford (Andrés Diego Espinel)
6. A spatial metaphor for chronology in the secondary cemeteries at Giza (May Farouk)
7. The decorative programmes of the pyramid complexes of Khufu and Khafra at Giza (Laurel Flentye)
8. Reading the Menkaure Triads: Part II (Multi-directionality) (Florence Dunn Friedman)
9. Recent work in the tomb of Nebkauhor at Saqqara (Abdou El-Kerety)
10. The Death of the Democratisation of the Afterlife (Harold M. Hays)
11. A new specific tomb type in Abusir? (Jaromír Krejcí)
12. An afterworld for Netjerykhet (Kamil O. Kuraszkiewicz)
13. Re-examining the Khentkawes Town (Mark Lehner, Daniel Jones, Lisa Yeomans, Hanan Mahmoud and Katarzyna Olchowska)
14. Searching for an undistorted template (digital epigraphy in action) (Jolana Malatkova)
15. The ‘Reserve Heads’: some remarks on their function and meaning (Massimiliano Nuzzolo)
16. The concept of xprr in Old Kingdom religious texts (Joanna Popielska-Grzybowska)
17. And where are the viscera…? Reassessing the function of Old Kingdom canopic recesses and pits (Teodozja I. Rzeuska)
18. Twisted Kilts: Variations in Aspective Representation in Old Kingdom Mastaba Chapels (Ann Macy Roth)
19. Fixed rules or personal choice? On the composition and arrangement of daily life scenes in Old Kingdom elite tombs (Nico Staring)
20. Village, town and barracks: a fourth dynasty settlement at Heit el-Ghurab, Giza (Ana Tavares)
21. An Old Kingdom bakery at al-Sheikh Said South: preliminary report on the pottery corpus (Stefanie Vereecken)
22. Why was the Fifth Dynasty cemetery founded at Abusir? (Miroslav Verner and Vladimír Bruna)
23. The economic connection between the royal cult in the pyramid temples and the sun temples in Abusir (Hana Vymazalová)
24. The Ancient Egypt Research Associates settlement site at Giza: The Old Kingdom ceramic distribution (Anna Wodzinska)
25. zšš wAD scenes of the Old Kingdom revisited (Alexandra Woods)