Postprocessual archaeology has placed great importance on individuals and social interaction, though in practice this often proves a difficult project to realize. The rich archaeological and cultural data offered in an Egyptian context suggest that it is possible to identify how specific individuals and groups functioned with a domestic context, taking into account the complex vectors of social inequality—age, sex, class, status, and life experience. In the process, this paper seeks to question the narrow construal ofgender as analogous to the domain of women, and show the inadequacies of such an approach. It offers an opportunity to mesh material culture with social theory by linking sociocultural, spatial, and temporal data.

An archaeology of social relations in an Egyptian village

Retheorizing accounting, writing and money with evidence from Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt

This paper explores the possibilities of reading life histories from Egyptian material culture in mortuary contexts. The burials of partners, such as Kha and Merit, clearly illustrate that social inequality was operative between husbands and wives at Deir el Medina. It demonstrates the social negotiations conducted by family members and the potential social tensions faced at the moments of death and burial. This analysis seeks to recentre individual relationships in antiquity and reinstate the central issues of human intention and emotion.

Intimate archaeologies: The case of Kha and Merit

Memory's Materiality: Ancestral Presence, Commemorative Practice and Disjunctive Locales

This history of land tenure under the Ptolemies explores the relationship between the new Ptolemaic state and the ancient traditions of landholding and tenure. Departing from the traditional emphasis on the Fayyum, it offers a coherent framework for understanding the structure of the Ptolemaic state, and thus of the economy as a whole. Drawing on both Greek and demotic papyri, as well as hieroglyphic inscriptions and theories taken from the social sciences, Professor Manning argues that the traditional central state 'despotic' model of the Egyptian economy is insufficient. The result is a subtler picture of the complex relationship between the demands of the new state and the ancient, locally organized social structure of Egypt. By revealing the dynamics between central and local power in Egypt, the book shows that Ptolemaic economic power ultimately shaped Roman Egyptian social and economic institutions.

Edward Frank Wente

Papers

Letters from ancient Egypt