The Walking Dead at Saqqara: Strategies of Social and Religious Interaction in Practice

Lara Weiss

Open Access Published by De Gruyter 2022

The Walking Dead at Saqqara

Strategies of Social and Religious Interaction in Practice

Lara Weiss
Funded by: The Dutch Research Council (NWO)

Volume 78 in the series Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110706833

Overview
Contents

About this book

Open Access

Funerary rituals and the cult of the dead are classics of research in religious studies, especially for ancient Egypt. Still, we know relatively little about how people interacted in daily life at the city of Memphis and its Saqqara necropolis in the late second millennium BCE. By focussing on lived ancient religion, we can see that the social and religious strategies employed by the individuals at Saqqara are not just means on the way to religious, post-mortem salvation, nor is their self-representation simply intended to manifest social status. On the contrary, the religious practices at Saqqara show in their complex spatiality a wide spectrum of options to configure sociality before and after one's own death. The analytical distinction between religion and other forms of human practices and sociality illuminates the range of cultural practices and how people selected, modified, or even avoided certain religious practices. As a result, pre-funerary, funerary and practices of the subsequent mortuary cults, in close connection with religious practices directed towards other ancestors and deities, allow the formation of imagined and functioning reminiscence clusters as central social groups at Saqqara, creating a heuristic model applicable also to other contexts.

Author / Editor information

Lara Weiss, National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, Netherlands.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Chapter 1: Introduction Open Access Download PDF	1
Chapter 2: Representation Open Access Download PDF	51
Chapter 3: Offerings and other gifts at New Kingdom Saqqara Open Access Download PDF	133
Chapter 4: The veneration of gods and ancestors at Saqqara and beyond Open Access Download PDF	189
Chapter 5: Conclusions Open Access Download PDF	221
Abbreviations and symbols Open Access Download PDF	225
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	226
Index Open Access Download PDF	265

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Scholars and students of religious studies, social studies, cultural studies, archaeology, Egyptology, history
Pages
- Front matter: 9
- Main content: 273
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 14
- Coloured Illustrations: 27
Keywords: Practices; memory; ancient Egypt; Religion

eBook

Published: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 9783110706833

Hardcover

Published: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 9783110667929