Encasing the Body for Eternity
»Encasing the Body for Eternity. Body Containers in the Predynastic and the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt«
In several recent and old excavations dating to the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods (4th and early 3rd mill. BC) a variety of »containers« were discovered used for the deposition of burials. While those made of wood, mud and ceramics are designated as coffins, pottery vessels, baskets or mats inclosing burials are not specified according to their use in tombs but keep their descriptive designation. Also, some tomb structures themselves resemble coffins in size and layout of their interior, such as the use of wooden planks or mud covering the tomb walls. In this conference the varieties of these objects and features will be discussed, their degree of commonness or exceptionalism, their relationship to the social status of the deceased as well as their chronological development through space and time.
A workshop within the framework of the FWF-Project (P 31551 – G25) »Centre or Periphery? The cemetery of Turah in the creative tension of state formation at the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC in Egypt« organized by Vera Müller (ÖAI/ÖAW, Vienna) & Mariusz Jucha (Jagiellonian University, Kraków).