Saqqara Mastabas


Book Description




The Architecture of Mastaba Tombs in the Unas Cemetery


Book Description

A group of multi-roomed mastabas in the Unas Cemetery at Saqqara form the basis for a study of tomb architecture in the late Old Kingdom that takes a close look at masonry, doorways and the arrangement of rooms.




The Iconography of Family Members in Egypt’s Elite Tombs of the Old Kingdom


Book Description

In The Iconography of Family Members in Egypt’s Elite Tombs of the Old Kingdom, Jing Wen offers a comprehensive survey of the depiction of family members and provides a new perspective to explain its meaning.




The Strange World of Human Sacrifice


Book Description

The Strange World of Human Sacrifice is the first modern collection of studies on one of the most gruesome and intriguing aspects of religion. The volume starts with a brief introduction, which is followed by studies of Aztec human sacrifice and the literary motif of human sacrifice in medieval Irish literature. Turning to ancient Greece, three cases of human sacrifice are analysed: a ritual example, a mythical case, and one in which myth and ritual are interrelated. The early Christians were the victims of accusations of human sacrifice, but in turn imputed the crime to heterodox Christians, just as the Jews imputed the crime to their neighbours. The ancient Egyptians rarely seem to have practised human sacrifice, but buried the pharaoh's servants with him in order to serve him in the afterlife, albeit only for a brief period at the very beginning of pharaonic civilization. In ancient India we can follow the traditions of human sacrifice from the earliest texts up to modern times, where especially in eastern India goddesses, such as Kali, were long worshipped with human victims. In Japanese tales human sacrifice often takes the form of self-sacrifice, and there may well be a line from these early sacrifices to modern kamikaze. The last study throws a surprising light on human sacrifice in China. The volume is concluded with a detailed index




Pyramid Quest


Book Description

The Egyptologist acclaimed for re-dating the Great Sphinx at Giza sets his sights on one of the true mysteries of antiquity: the Great Pyramid of Giza. What is the Great Pyramid of Giza? Ask that basic question of a traditional Egyptologist, and you get the basic, traditional answer: a fancy tombstone for a self-important pharaoh of the Old Kingdom. This, Egyptologists argue, is the sole finding based on the data, and the only deduction supported by science. By implication, anyone who dissents from this point of view is unscientific and woolly-minded-a believer in magic and ghosts. Indeed, some of the unconventional ideas about the Great Pyramid do have a spectacularly fabulous ring to them. Yet from beneath the obvious terms of this controversy, a deeper, more significant question arises: how is it that the Great Pyramid exercises such a gripping hold on the human psyche- adding cryptic grace to the back of the one-dollar bill and framing myriad claims of New Age "pyramid power"? In Pyramid Quest, Robert M. Schoch and Robert Aquinas McNally use the rigorous intellectual analysis of scientific inquiry to investigate what we know about the Great Pyramid, and develop a stunning hypothesis: This ancient monument is the strongest proof yet that civilization began thousands of years earlier than is generally thought, extending far back into a little-known time. In tracing that story, we come to understand not only the Great Pyramid but also our own origins as civilized beings.




Ancient Cities


Book Description

Well illustrated with nearly 300 line drawings, maps and photographs, Ancient Cities surveys the cities of the ancient Near East, Egypt, and the Greek and Roman worlds from an archaeological perspective, and in their cultural and historical contexts. Covering a huge area geographically and chronologically, it brings to life the physical world of ancient city dwellers by concentrating on evidence recovered by archaeological excavations from the Mediterranean basin and south-west Asia Examining both pre-Classical and Classical periods, this is an excellent introductory textbook for students of classical studies and archaeology alike.




The Mastaba of Mereruka


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Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur Band 41


Book Description

H. Altenmüller: Bemerkungen zum Architrav und zur Scheintür des Felsgrabes des Anchi unter der Südumfassung der Djoseranlage in Saqqara R. Assem: The God @w – A Brief Study L. Baqué-Manzano: Beyond the Offering Table: Cairo Stela, JE 45626 M. Bommas: First Intermediate Period tombs at Beni Hassan: Problems and Priorities (including BH no. 420 and the unpublished box coffin fragment BH3Liv). A. Brawanski / H.-W. Fischer-Elfert: Der 'erotische' Abschnitt des Turiner Papyrus 55001: Ein Lehrstück für das männliche Ego? F. Breyer: Zwerg-Wörter und ägyptisch-kuschitischer Sprachkontakt bzw. -vergleich. Zur sprachlichen Situation im mittleren Niltal des 3.–2. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. G. P. F. Broekman: On the administration of the Thebaid during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty G. Gabra: Ein vergessener Naos Nektanebos I. in Alt-Kairo B. Haring: Stela Leiden V 65 and Heri hor's Damnatio Memoriae A. Jiménez-Serrano: On the Construction of the Mortuary Temple of King Unas J. Kahl: Regionale Milieus und die Macht des Staates im Alten Ägypten: Die Vergöttlichung der Gaufürsten von Assiut J. Kahl / M. El-Khadragy / U. Verhoeven / M. Abdelrahiem / H. Fahid / A. Kilian / Ch. Kitagawa / M. Zöller- Engelhardt / M. van Elsbergen / T. Rzeuska: The Asyut Project: Ninth Season of Fieldwork (2011) M. Lehmann: Die Verwandtschaftsbeziehungen in den Felsinschriften des Mittleren Reiches in der Region Aswân J. Moje: Der Domänenschreiber der Gottesgemahlin Nes-pa-qai-schuti B und seine Familie in der 25./26. Dynastie M. Panov: Two Coffins of the Late Period. H. Satzinger / D. Stefanovic ́: The Middle Kingdom xnmsw A. Spalinger: Nut and the Egyptologist M. Tarasenko: The Vignettes of the Book of the Dead Chapter 17 during the Third Intermediate Period (21st-22nd Dynasties) V. Vasiljevic ́: Female owners of carrying chairs: Sitzsänfte and Hocksänfte M. Verner: Pyramid towns of Abusir




Studies on Old Kingdom Reliefs and Sculpture in the Hermitage


Book Description

The book is the first complete publication of a relatively small but interesting collection of Old Kingdom monuments in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Twenty-two pieces are reproduced as black-and-white photographs and line drawings. Among them are two statues, fourteen reliefs and relief fragments, five offering stones and a fragment of an ointment tablet; several objects in museums of Cairo, Copenhagen, and Cambridge belonging to the same people are published as well. Most of these monuments were never published or are known only through books and periodicals in Russian that usually are not available in Egyptological libraries. Although the Hermitage pieces were acquired at antiquities dealers without any documentation, their modern history is traced and in a half of cases either their provenance is reconstructed or related monuments are found. A limited number of monuments allowed the author to discuss them to a much greater extent than it is common in museum publications and, thus, the book in spite of its structure of a catalogue virtually is a detailed study of various problems of Old Kingdom history and ideology.




Ancient Egyptian Tombs


Book Description

This book explores the development of tombs as a cultural phenomenon in ancient Egypt and examines what tombs reveal about ancient Egyptian culture and Egyptians' belief in the afterlife. Investigates the roles of tombs in the development of funerary practices Draws on a range of data, including architecture, artifacts and texts Discusses tombs within the context of everyday life in Ancient Egypt Stresses the importance of the tomb as an eternal expression of the self