The study of Meroitic personal names reveals the simple, but nevertheless important, fact that they are not mere meaningless words but that they can, in most cases, be divided into recognizable components that, though mostly of unknown meanings, can yet be parsed. Owing to the liberty scribes enjoyed in spelling, each one of these component parts was found written in more than one form, and consequently even the name of one and the same person, when found more than once, sometimes had variant spellings. As is the rest of the language, Meroitic personal names are built by the agglutination of one word to another, a, word to a compound or one compound to another, yielding longer complexes. This is described in the present thesis as Permutation. In this process one notices a remarkable Mobility of Components, Association between one component and another, or others, in appearing often together, Parallelism between one or more components in occurring with the same additional components, and Versatility of Components in performing more than one function. The two featured of Mobility of Components are a mere change of position by one component, or two, and a complete change of order by reversal of the sequence of all or the main components, or rearrangement of the entire structure, of a complex. According to content, the Meroitic personal names may be classified into two categories: names of a religious content and names of a secular content. The relationship between the names of each category and Meroitic funerary and other inscriptions indicates that the personal names must reflect the people's culture. About a tenth of the names are theophorous, containing names of Egyptian deities. These and a few versions of recognizable Egyptian names connect the Meroitic personal names with the Egyptian.

The 21st to 25th Dynasties (1076-664 BCE) have previously been characterised by political and social changes based upon the introduction of Libyan social and cultural influences. Studies so far have focused primarily on the chronology, funerary practices, and ceramics of the period, at the expense of the settlements and their associated material culture, while the term used to define this period of Egyptian history ‘Third Intermediate Period’, suggests preconceived biases relating to negative aspects of culture after the unified period of central rule in the New Kingdom. To analyse transition and continuity within the cultural and societal environment of Egypt during the 21st to 25th Dynasty, this research develops a methodology through the assessment of settlement patterns and their development, the built environment of the settlements, and their associated material culture, in order to redefine the ways in which we view chronological phases of Egyptian history pertaining to the title ‘Intermediate Period’, specifically relating to the early first millennium BCE. Through this research several interconnected themes have been identified within the culture and society of the 21st to 25th Dynasties that relate to the political and economic powers of regions, the nucleation of settlements and people, self-sufficiency at a collective and individual level, defence, both physical and spiritual, regionality in terms of settlement development and material culture, and elite emulation through objects. Ultimately, this study provides a more nuanced view of the 21st to 25th Dynasty in which there were significant changes in the socio-economic conditions of the country in which new powers had to adapt, including the development of new political structures, economic conditions, aspects of culture, elite emulation, and a more multicultural society with both self-sufficiency and isolationism at both the state and local levels.

The need for a collation ef the mass of published material echoing the structure of Egyptian social and economic organization might at first sight appear somewhat questionable. There are excellent works which deal very satisfactorily with pairtioular sectors of the social structure and administration of ancient Egypt at periods near to or including that under stufly. Indeed their treatment of these particular aspects of the wider subject is far more thorough than anything which can be attempted here. However, though no doubt scholars who have worked on the problems posed by ancient Egypt at this period have their ideas fully evolved regarding the salient oharaeteristics of and changes undergone by Egyptian society, the present writer believes that there i s a clear case for attempting to treat the subject as a whole i n a single written work.

The thesis explores the extant evidence concerning the transmission of traditional sacerdotal lore by Egyptian priests into the wider Mediterranean during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. I focus on the following research questions. 1) What does the fragmentary evidence tell us about the activities of Egyptian priests concerning the transmission of sacerdotal lore? 2) What is the range of information disseminated by Egyptian priests into a Greek cultural milieu? 3) How influential was the literary output of Egyptian priests upon subsequent Greek writers? 4) Should we distinguish sharply between literary personae impersonating Egyptian priests and historical priestly individuals? 5) How do notions of the Egyptian priesthood in Graeco-Roman literature from the Hellenistic and Roman periods compare with earlier Greek literature? 6) How have modem scholars interpreted the notion of Egyptian priestly transmission and what role does this notion play in hypotheses concerning magical traditions such as characteres'l 7) How does priestly agency affect current beliefs about Greek and Egyptian cultural interaction? The thesis may be divided roughly into two distinct parts. The first, comprising chapters one to four, focuses on literary texts while the second, comprising chapters five to seven, analyses a variety of Late Antique magical artefacts. Chapter one compares the Osiris myth of Plutarch and Diodorus with native Egyptian sources in light of the influence of Manetho. Chapter two explores the influence of Chaeremon on subsequent Greek authors on animals and religious practices. Chapter three examines the relationship between Greek zoological notions of Egyptian animals and the allegorical interpretation of hieroglyphics. Chapter four reassesses the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo in light of sacerdotal presentation strategies in Iamblichus' De Mysteriis and other texts. Chapter five explores priestly influence on iconography found in Late Antique magical gems and papyri. Chapters six and seven reassess the purported Egyptian background and Egyptian priests' contribution to the magical characteres. - 2-

The aim of this research project is the study, theoretical development and reconstruction of the physical, religious and cultural landscape of the southern area and the first part of the northern area of Dra Abu el-Naga as well as its evolution from the 18th to the 20th Dynasties (1550-1069 BC). In order to do so, the methodological approach derives from theories relating to Landscape Archaeology, which efficiently manages to compile and to link prosopographical-genealogical, archaeological and Geographical Information System (GIS) data, meaning that the area of Dra Abu el-Naga can be studied as a "ritual landscape". The advantages of this type of research include the creation of a holistic conception of the Theban necropolis, especially of Dra Abu el-Naga, by reconciling textual and archaeological perspectives. The ancient landscape of the study area and its surroundings have been remodelled and the palaeorelief reconstructed by establishing a connection between the geological-geomorphological and topographical data with GIS visibility analyses, all of which were surveyed according to the historical, cultural and religious context. GIS is an essential tool for the study of the sacred space and can be used to offer a detailed cartography. For the first time, the tombs have been recorded by precise geographic coordinates, which are offered in this research. The research model created in this work has shown the chronological development of the study area, the clear visual relationship between the tombs of a specific reign and the key monuments contemporary to them. Kinship, political marriages and attempts to acquire a higher rank, as well as the professional and family links between many of the owners of these tombs, demonstrate that they also wanted to be connected in the afterlife. The work undertaken at Dra Abu el-Naga opens up new lines of investigation into the wider landscape of the necropolis. Therefore, this model could be productively applied to future studies of other ancient Egyptian tombs, necropolises and funerary landscapes. The resulting wider insight into the Theban necropolis, including the position played by the Dra Abu el-Naga cemetery within the Theban funerary context, is essential since the aim of this research project is to approach to the actual funerary landscape of Thebes as an inseparable complex of diverse components.

No description available.

This thesis investigates mortuary evidence from 3,207 Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egyptian tombs (ca. 4000-2686 BC) by means of the taphonomy-laden methodology Archaeothanatology. My research shows that Archaeothanatology coupled with a solid analytical framework including statistical analysis of large datasets, is fundamental to develop strong archaeological correlates to theoretical discussions over past bodies and agency, and obtain significant insights into the socio-ritual organisation of ancient Egypt. By using the burial evidence from Predynastic Egypt as a case study, I also contribute to the advancement of the archaeothanatological method, originally developed in the European temperate environment, by providing new insights into the taphonomy of cadavers decomposing in dry and hot climates. The fine-grained analytical tools offered by Archaeothanatology are essential to make inferences on the past gestes funéraires that influenced archaeological formation processes in the graves considered. In particular, I propose crucial insights into how bone distribution in tombs is influenced by taphonomic processes or anthropic actions; the onset of natural soft tissue desiccation; the use of now-decayed disposal types including reed mats and coffins; and the existence of different looting patterns and modalities. I also shed new light on less common and less investigated gestes funéraires, including plural tombs, secondary burials, and funerary body manipulations resulting in apparently inexplicable bone arrangements. Overall, the micro-scaled investigation of burial taphonomy and body treatments proposed in this thesis emphasises the dynamic and creative character of many Predynastic funerals within a common underlying framework. It also discloses Predynastic people’s multi-faceted attitudes to death, the body and the reproduction of social relations, which often involved the close engagement between the living and the corpse. This work also corroborates the role of Archaeothanatology in bridging between science-based and theory-laden approaches to past bodies, suggesting that it should be implemented more consistently in funerary archaeology.

The domestic architecture of Fustat, Egypt’s first capital under Muslim rule, has been revealed through various large-scale archaeological excavations over the preceding century. The archaeological remains represent an exceptional resource for understanding urbanism and daily life in one of the foremost cities of the early Islamic world. This thesis explores the potential use and meaning of domestic space in the excavated houses of Fustat. An assessment of previous scholarship on the houses reveals that their form has principally been understood as a style of architecture imported to Egypt by foreign élites. While certain assumptions about life in the houses have been made based on generalised notions of the traditional ‘Arab house’, there has been little critical consideration of the activities and agency of inhabitants by archaeologists. This study therefore aims to re-interpret the architecture in terms of how inhabitants conceptualised and used the space. Fustat represents a highly problematic dataset due the circumstances of its excavation and recording, its vast size and longevity, and the extensive modern depredation of the archaeological remains. Thus, the potential of a range of archaeological approaches to the social interpretation of architectural space is assessed, considering the limitations of the available data. The analytical approach taken consists of exploratory spatial analysis of archaeological features across two of the excavated areas. These spatial patterns are considered in light of the evidence for daily life and domestic architecture from the Cairo Geniza, the collection of documents from the city’s medieval Jewish community.

No description available.

This thesis addresses the question of the transmission of knowledge in Egypt through the dynastic to the Islamic period. It begins by describing the problem of how knowledge is conceptualized and structured within academic discourse, creating false dichotomies that have shaped a narrative of total loss and destruction. Transmission and continuity are instead proposed to take place within a dynamic model of transformation, and the study of a traditional locus of knowledge within the dynastic period, the House of Life, is juxtaposed with the long-term biography of the Egyptian tomb. The House of Life is recognized as a problematic entity, particular issues being the nature of the 'knowledge' it maintained, and how much of the textual knowledge was eventually expendable. The investigation of biographies of the tomb leads to the study of the transmission of knowledge through practice, which can be traced through to the present day.