Setting the Scene : : the Deceased and Regenerative Cult Within Offering Table Imagery of the Egyptian Old to Middle Kingdoms (C. 2686 - C. 1650 BC).

• Superior document: Archaeopress Egyptology Series
• Author: O'Neill, Barbara.
• Place / Publishing House: Oxford : : Archaeopress,, 2015.; ©2015.
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Archaeopress Egyptology Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (123 pages)

Ancient Egyptian offering table scenes have been explored from chronological and art historical perspectives over the past century of Egyptological research. This descriptive overview has usually centred on the diachronic evolution of philology and food offerings, focussing less frequently on offering table images as discrete elements of highly codified information. This study investigates gender-based and ritual-dependent afterlife expectations of the deceased over a key phase in Egyptian history from the latter part of the Old Kingdom to the end of the Middle Kingdom Period, c.2686 BC - c.1650 BC. Conclusions indicate that the transformational journey to the afterlife can be understood through a meaningful synthesis of people, produce and ritual embedded within offering table depictions.

Table of Contents

Title page -- Copyright page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Bookmark 69 -- List of Figures -- CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION -- 1.1 An Historical Perspective -- 1.1.1 The Old Kingdom (c.2686 - 2160 BC) -- 1.1.2 The First Intermediate Period (c.2160-2055 BC) -- 1.1.3 The Middle Kingdom (c.2055-1650 BC) -- 1.2 The History of The Research: The Offering Table Scene -- 1.3 Aims and Objectives -- Table 1: Chronological, dynastic and contextual table of the periods referred to in this study -- Map of Egypt indicating main locations referred to in this study -- (Harrington 2013: 41). -- Offering chapel of Akhmeretnisut -- 3 False door of SAt-ini-Tti (Daoud 2005: plate XXXII). -- CHAPTER 2: THEORY AND METHOD -- 2.1 The Offering Table Scene: A Chronological Framework -- 2.2 New Approaches to Egyptian Visual Culture -- 4. First Dynasty cylinder seal (Friedman 1985: 86). -- 5. Three dimensional offering tables (British Museum EA 22832 -- EA 21702 -- EA 975 -- EA 414). -- CHAPTER 3: SOCIETY AND DEATH -- 3.1 Being Egyptian: States of Existence for the Living and the Dead -- 3.2 Transformation and Transition -- 3.3 Gender and the deceased -- CHAPTER 4: LIMINAL CONTEXTS -- 4.1 Talking to the Dead -- 4.2 Offering Table Scene Composition: False Doors, Stelae and Coffins -- 4.3 Deconstructing Ritual: Libation, Purification and Censing -- Figure 6: The Double False Door of Ky and Sat-Sd-Abd, First Intermediate Period. -- Figure 7: The first Intermediate Period false door exemplifies the concept of the door as a condensed substitute for more elaborate tombs of the earlier Old Kingdom Period. -- Figure 8: A comparative exploration of table scenes belonging to two women, Nefretiabet at Giza (in the Fourth Dynasty) and that of Senet at Thebes six hundred years later.

Figure 9: A Family Group: The Stela of Ameny and Renseneb with their children, Abydos, Dynasty 13. The compositional arrangement of this stelae is discussed in Table 2 below. -- Table 2. The Stela of Ameny (Franke and Marée 2013, plate 16). -- Figure 11: Head end of the coffin of Ouadj, Sedment (Asyut), Dynasty 9 to 10 (Willems 1988: 47). -- Figure 12: Offering Table Scene: Coffin of Heqata, Qubbet el-Hawa. Late First Intermediate Period, Dynasty 9 and 10 (Willems 1996, plate 16). -- Figure 13: The Coffin of Ashyt, Thebes, Dynasty 10 - 11 (Willems 1996, Plate 46). -- Figure 14: Coffin of Khnumnakht, Meir, Dynasty Eleven to Twelve. -- Figure 15: Offering scene inside the coffin of Ini, Gebelein, Dynasty 11 or 12 (Grajetzki 2006, plate X). -- 16. Mesopotamian stelae (Hermann and Schloen 2014, figures 3.1, 3.2, 3.4, C1). -- CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION: GATHERING THE STRANDS -- 5.1 The End of the Afterlife -- 5.2 anx Dt r nHH: Living Enduringly and Repeatedly -- APPENDIX 1: APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 3 -- Women Depicted At Their Own Offering Tables1 -- APPENDIX 2: APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 4 -- Ritualised Elements and Royal Motifs within Offering Table Imagery -- APPENDIX 3: Titles and epithets associated with women in possession of offering table depictions (based on the 106 instances of women's offering table scenes collated in Appendix 1, page 92). -- APPENDIX 4: Frequency of rituals enacted in offering table depictions from the examples included in this study. -- BIBLIOGRAPHY.