Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
under embargo until 2025-01-01
2025-01-01T00:00:00Z
The ancestors and conceptions of the afterlife have always been one of the most prevalent topics of research within Egyptology. From the ‘scenes of daily life’ in the tombs of the Old Kingdom to...Show moreThe ancestors and conceptions of the afterlife have always been one of the most prevalent topics of research within Egyptology. From the ‘scenes of daily life’ in the tombs of the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom books of the afterlife, a variety in interpretation is not lacking. It is perhaps due to this wealth of later evidence that the Early Dynastic period (c. 3000 – 2613 BCE) remains somewhat of a ‘Dark Age’ in the history of ancient Egypt. This dissertation explores the Early Dynastic attitude towards the tomb, the ancestors, and the afterlife by a holistic examination of the parts of the Early Dynastic tombs that were accessible after the interment of the tomb owner: the tomb superstructure and enclosure space. The corpus of the thesis consists of published superstructures from the Memphite area, that being the capital of Egypt at the time and most densely populated. The spaces are examined in a heuristic manner in Chapter One, with little initial reliance of previous identification and theory. Chapter Two features an examination of the material through the lenses of modern theories and methodologies. Included here are landscape biographies, the structure of the authority of things, human-thing entanglement, ancestor identity, and the ontological turn. The final chapter sees the reintegration of the material into a wider Egyptological framework. The resulting thesis has suggested that little to no uniformity can be seen in regards to post-mortem existence other than the social importance of the individual, and a subsequent wish for acknowledgement and offerings.Show less
Summary This thesis deals with the research question whether music played a pivotal role in complex societies, which emerged during the ED period (2900-2450 BCE) in Sumer, present day southern Iraq...Show moreSummary This thesis deals with the research question whether music played a pivotal role in complex societies, which emerged during the ED period (2900-2450 BCE) in Sumer, present day southern Iraq. In relation to this assessment, the focus of this study is on the social identity of the musician and on the evolution of the stringed music instrument. Accordingly, a literature study has been conducted focusing on a selection of relevant artifacts encountered at the Royal Cemetery of Ur: 1) the stringed music instruments, 2) the cylinder seals, and 3) the artifacts with cuneiform texts. Complex Society and Music: One of the key socio-political developments, which occurred during the ED IIIa period (2600-2450 BCE), was that kingship became hereditary. As such the legitimacy of kingship towards the citizens, became of critical importance, especially during the transition of power, now from father to son. Therefore the palace ideology, consisting of a body of doctrines, had to be inculcated effectively in society, now more than ever. To achieve this, music would prove to come to the rescue. This, since the elite would select two arenas to fulfill their propaganda needs, one in the domain of the living, the palace, the other in the domain of the death, the (royal) cemetery. The Musician: Therefore the “gala” singer attended not only the royal banquets, at the palace, and plucked the lyre, as can be observed from the cylinder seals and the Standard of Ur. But she also performed during the funerary ritual of the deceased ruler, as can be observed from the contextual evidence, the skeletons of “Dumu-kisal” and her colleagues in relation to the harps and lyres, of the royal cemetery. The Music Instrument: A sumptuous variety of stringed music instruments has been skillfully retrieved by Woolley from the Royal Cemetery, which is testimony to the long evolutionary path these instruments have followed. The lyre is thought to have evolved out of the arched harp (+/- 3000 BCE), which itself is interpreted to have developed from the hunter’s bow. The number of strings increased from 3-5 during the Uruk period to 11-15 observed during the ED period, enhancing the tonal capacity of the instrument significantly.Show less
