»Offering Tables from the Necropolis of Pepy Ist«
»Offering Tables from the Necropolis of Pepy Ist«
Rémi Legros | University of Lyon
The French Archaeological Mission at Saqqâra discovered, during the work in the necropolis of Pepy Ist, many private documents which testify to the devotion of individuals towards the queens of this pharaoh. The offering tables and false door stelae constitute a corpus which today includes nearly 2,000 objects.
A study was undertaken in particular on the offering tables, of which several hundred were discovered in situ. These objects allow for a better understanding of the memory practices within the necropolis. The importance of this documentation also justifies a quantitative and serial study for the analysis of these artefacts as such. Numerous typological, palaeographical and epigraphical criteria allow us to offer now a refined dating for Saqqara’s private documentation of this period. Indeed, a statistical series of these objects shows a continuity of occupation from the beginning of the 6th Dynasty until the extreme end of the First Intermediate Period.
During this lecture, we offer to present the ritual context of these objects, the methods used for dating as well as the main perspectives of research concerning the history at the end of the third millennium BC in the Memphite area.