EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Bookshelf
Wolfram Grajetzki, Tomb Treasures of the Late Middle Kingdom. Penn Press, 2013 (ISBN 978 0 812 24567 7). Price: £ 52 Tomb Treasures builds on the work of Harco Willems, Gianluca Miniaci and others including the author, who explore categories of late Middle Kingdom elite burials: courttype or Osirification burials, with especially made grave goods; and a second group with more variable grave goods, most of which were used in everyday life. Grajetzki’s focus on female burials is new. He clarifies that court-type burials were usually those of king’s daughters and adds that the noncourt-type burials can be divided into two sub-categories along a continuum. Grajetzki writes clearly and knowledgeably, providing useful endnotes for those wishing to dig deeper. The black and white line drawings and photographs are likewise clear and sufficient, though had they been reproduced in colour, the lavish ‘gewgaws’ described in the volume could have made for a successful ‘coffee table’ volume. T he volu me beg i n s w it h selec t ive comparisons between ancient Egyptian funerar y practices and those of other cultures, encouraging an uncritical reader to question the evidence. Chapter 1 discusses court-type burials; burials of elite women, several having the title ‘King’s Daughter’. Grave goods include staves and weapons, mirrors, gilded coffins, and jewellery made especially for the tomb. Hair ornaments and floral headdresses, broad collars and necklaces, cowrie shell girdles, pectorals, armlets and anklets and claw amulets (which Grajetzki describes as a bird claw, though others might interpret as feline) are among the jewellery. The author explains that staves and weapons were linked with the Hour Ritual. Several of the items are either foreign-made or show foreign influence. Chapter 2 considers burials of ‘other
women’. Their grave goods appear largely to have been worn in life and include, like the court-type, cowrie shell girdles, mirrors, and similar objects. Broad collars and pectorals, staves and weapons are not included. Chapter 3 is a more detailed analysis and comparison of grave goods with related evidence, including tomb paintings and faience ‘fertility’ figurines (though not wooden paddle dolls, which Grajetzki sees as quite separate items). Court-type jewellery assemblages include gender-neutral pieces (e.g. pectorals). There follows a framing chronological description of Egyptian burial customs, including those of men. Men’s grave goods tended to include more papyri and games. In this chapter, Grajetzki divides female non-court-type burials into two sub-groups: one with some material made especially for the grave and another with only daily-life jewellery. He also briefly describes court-type ‘Osirification’, which involved the Hour Ritual, staves and other symbols of royalty. He surmises that for other burials ‘birth protection’ items such as wands may have provided an alternative means to reach the afterlife. Finally, Grajetzki suggests that the Hour Ritual was not simply a means of reviving the deceased women, but a means by which the women revived the king. Depictions of the king’s children in carrying chairs and images of a goddess (Repit) are also suggested as means of revivif ication; a tantalising suggestion. I wonder if the means of revivification of the king could not have, additionally, mirrored the sexualised Hathor reviving her aged father, as outlined in the Return of the Distant One. Certainly Grajetzki mentions the youthful, sexualised aspects of some of the jewellery in court and non-court burials. Hathoric aspects of court-type assemblages are described by Grajetzki. The goddess is depicted on some of the pieces and several women included her na me in their s. Additionally, Grajetzki notes, the king’s children were associated with Hathoric Repit. One might also add to that the youthful Hathoric rejuvenation symbolism in the use and context of floral headdresses, mirrors, etc. Floral headdresses shown in art, for example, were often worn by practitioners of Hathoric ritual. Could this be taken further? Morris (‘Paddle Dolls and Performance’, JARCE 47) links paddle dolls, faience figures and female burials (though largely of the early Middle Kingdom), with the khener (singers and dancers) and Hathoric youthful and sexualised rites intended to revive the ailing sun-god/king. Many khener ornaments described by Morris also appear in elite burials, particularly the court-type. While Grajetzki supposes that older women’s burials lacked finery because they had given it to younger women, alternatively, perhaps, the finery of the king’s daughters and other nfrwt of the royal household parallel youthful Hathor and khener. Contemporary literature suggests royal daughters revived the king through sexualised Hathorian actions; a role
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suggested for New Kingdom princesses by David O’Connor. The question remains, however, how did non-court women enter the afterlife? I remain intrigued and inspired to research further, always the sign of a successful book. CAROLYN GRAVES-BROWN
Aidan Dodson, Amarna Sunrise: Egypt from Golden Age to Age of Heresy. AUC Press, 2014 (ISBN 978 9 77416 633 4). Price: £ 25 In the preface, Dodson describes this book as a ‘prequel’ to his Amarna Sunset (2009; reviewed in Egyptian Archaeology 37, 2010), encompassing the religious and political history of Egypt from the later reign of Amenhotep II down to where Sunset took up the story in Akhenaten’s 12th regnal year. After the brief introduction covering the time from the expulsion of the Hyksos down through the final years of Thutmose III, the initial chapter is devoted to Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV. Comparatively little updating is necessary of the studies of those reigns by Peter Der Manuelian (1987) and Betsy M. Bryan (1991), respectively, cited frequently in the endnotes. For the longer second chapter on Amenhotep III’s reign, Dodson can draw upon – and disagree with – Arielle Kozloff’s recent monograph (2012) about the ‘radiant pharaoh’. The building programme of his reign passes in review, and the coregency debate is considered once again (Dodson rejects the idea) before relations with the ‘Asiatic’ potentates of the Near East under Amenhotep III are examined. With Chapter 3 the reader arrives at the accession of Amenhotep IV, followed by his change of name and transmogrification into ‘Effective-spirit-of-Aten’ – Dodson’s translation of Akhenaten. The foundation of the new capital city in Middle Egypt