Abstract:
This book provides an innovative analysis of the conditions of ancient Egyptian craftsmanship in the light of the archaeology of production, linguistic analysis, visual representation and ethnographic research.
During the past decades, the “imaginative” figure of ancient Egyptian material producers has moved from “workers” to “artisans” and, most recently, to “artists”. In a search for a fuller understanding of the pragmatics of material production in past societies, and moving away from a series of modern preconceptions, this volume aims to analyse the mechanisms of material production in Egypt during the Middle Bronze Age (2000–1550 BC), to approach the profile of ancient Egyptian craftsmen through their own words, images and artefacts, and to trace possible modes of circulation of ideas among craftsmen in material production.
The studies in the volume address the mechanisms of ancient production in Middle Bronze Age Egypt, the circulation of ideas among craftsmen, and the profiles of the people involved, based on the material traces, including depictions and writings, the ancient craftsmen themselves left and produced.
Contents
Sculpture Workshops: who, where and for whom?
Simon Connor
The Artistic Copying Network Around the Tomb of Pahery in Elkab (EK3): a New Kingdom case study
Alisee Devillers
Antiquity Bound to Modernity. The significance of Egyptian workers in modern archaeology in Egypt
Maximilian Georg
Epistemological Things! Mystical Things! Towards an ancient Egyptian ontology
Amr El Hawary
Centralized and Local Production, Adaptation, and Imitation: Twelfth Dynasty offering tables
Alexander Ilin-Tomich
To Show and to Designate: attitudes towards representing craftsmanship and material culture in Middle Kingdom elite tombs
Claus Jurman
Precious Things? The social construction of value in Egyptian society, from production of objects to their use (mid 3rd–mid 2nd millennium BC)
Christelle Mazé
Faience Craftsmanship in the Middle Kingdom. A market paradox: inexpensive materials for prestige goods?
Gianluca Miniaci
Leather Processing, Castor Oil, and Desert/Nubian Trade at the Turn of the 3rd/2nd Millennium BC: some speculative thoughts on Egyptian craftsmanship
Juan Carlos Moreno García
Languages of Artists: closed and open channels
Stephen Quirke
Craft Production in the Bronze Age. A comparative view from South Asia
Shereen Ratnagar
The Egyptian Craftsman and the Modern Researcher: the benefits of archeometrical analyses
Patricia Rigault, Caroline Thomas
The Representation of Materials, an Example of Circulations of Formal Models among Workmen. An insight into the New Kingdom practices
Karine Seigneau
Staging Restricted Knowledge: the sculptor Irtysen’s self-presentation (ca. 2000 BCE)
Andreas Stauder
The Nubian Mudbrick Vault. A Pharaonic building technique in Nubian village dwellings of the early 20th Century
Lilli Zabrana
Dr.
Gianluca Miniaci
Gianluca Miniaci is Senior Researcher in Egyptology at the University of Pisa, Honorary Researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL – London, and Chercheur associé at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris. He has held research fellowships at the British Museum, Petrie Museum, University of Salerno, and Musée du Louvre.
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Dr.
Juan Carlos Moreno García
Juan Carlos Moreno García (PhD in Egyptology, 1995) is a CNRS senior researcher at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, as well as lecturer on social and economic history of ancient Egypt at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He has published extensively on the administration, socio-economic history, and landscape organization of ancient Egypt.
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Prof. Dr.
Stephen Quirke
Stephen Quirke is Professor of Egyptology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He was previously curator of hieratic manuscripts at the British Museum, and curator at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
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Prof. Dr.
Andréas Stauder
Andréas Stauder is Professor of Egyptology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études/PSL Research University in Paris. He was previously a researcher with the Swiss National Science Foundation and the University of Basel, and a post-doctoral fellow at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
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