Mapping Political Diversity : Some Thoughts on Devising a Historiographical Map of Seventh-Century BC Egypt

citation: Melanie Wasmuth, "Mapping Political Diversity. Some Thoughts on Devising a Historiographical Map of Seventh-Century BC Egypt", in: Susanne Grunwald, Kerstin P. Hofmann, Daniel A. Werning and Felix Wiedemann (eds), Mapping Ancient Identities. Methodisch-kritische Reflexionen zu Kartierungspraktiken, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2018, 115–136.The social and cultural developments in the Eastern Mediterranean Area of Connectivity in the 8th to 6th c. BC are strongly rooted in the cross-regional mobility and subsequent cultural diversity that resulted from the various local strategies in the southern Levant and the Nile delta of challenging and outmaneuvering the super-powers. Yet, historiographical maps of 7th c. Egypt predominantly depict the political landscape – if at all – as the dominion of politically homogeneous entities: as part either of the Assyrian empire, or of the Kushite empire, or of a local power. By contrast, this paper discusses an alternative visualization, which indicates historical complexity with the aim of triggering further research.Peer reviewe

The statues of Udjahorresnet as archaeological artifacts

Published within the special issue: Melanie Wasmuth and Pearce Paul Creasman (eds), Udjahorresnet and his World, Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 26 (2020), https://egyptianexpedition.org/volumes/vol-26-udjahorresnet-and-his-world/ [double-blind peer review for each paper, open access].Udjahorresnet is best known for the inscription on his statue in the Musei Vaticani. It gives insights into the transformation of Egypt from an independent kingdom under the Lower Egyptian royal house of Sais (Twenty-sixth Dynasty) to a dependent kingdom under Achaemenid Persian rule. What is less known is that the so-called Naoforo Vaticano is not the only statue preserved. Udjahorresnet was commemorated in at least three to five statues, one of which was created c. 150–200 years after his death to keep his memory alive and to enhance the commissioner’s social standing by association. In addition to this chronological scope, the evidence points to an extensive statue program disseminating Udjahorresnet’s sociopolitical statement in various major temples in Lower Egypt and in the capital, Memphis. In contrast to the traditional focus on the inscription, the contribution at hand discusses the implication of the archaeological evidence of the statues for elucidating Udjahorresnet’s socio-historical context.Peer reviewe

Some Thoughts on Devising a Historiographical Map of Seventh-Century BC Egypt

The social and cultural developments in the Eastern Mediter-ranean Area of Connectivity in the 8th to 6th c. BC are stronglyrooted in the cross-regional mobility and subsequent culturaldiversity that resulted from the various local strategies in thesouthern Levant and the Nile delta of challenging and outma-neuvering the super-powers. Yet, historiographical maps of 7thc. Egypt predominantly depict the political landscape – if at all– as the dominion of politically homogeneous entities: as parteither of the Assyrian empire, or of the Kushite empire, or ofa local power. By contrast, this paper discusses an alternativevisualization, which indicates historical complexity with theaim of triggering further research

Introduction: Udjahorresnet and his world : A key figure of cross-regional relations reconsidered (in collaboration with Alex Aissaoui, Ladislav Bareš, Reinhold Bichler, Henry Colburn, Francis Joannès, Ivan Ladynin, Francesco Lopez, Nenad Marković, Allison McCoskey, Cristina Ruggero, Alexander Schütze, Květa Smoláriková, and Marissa Stevens)

The contribution at hand provides a synthetic response to the special issue on “Udjahorresnet and his World,” published as Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 26. After introducing the aims and motivation behind the volume, I present a concise summary of the key questions, investigation lines and major results of the volume’s contributions. These fall into four major thematic blocks. Three papers are primarily concerned with a re-evaluation of the material culture commemorating Udjahorresnet, three take up the question of his professional and social environment, four focus on Udjahorresnet as a cross-regional agent, while the last three draw on Udjahorresnet and the textual evidence on his naophorous statue in the Musei Vaticani as a historiographical mediator. The final section showcases synthetically the key advances in the study of Udjahorresnet and his world jointly achieved by the author collective.Non peer reviewe

Transient or eternal? Cross-regional identity display reconsidered : The missing head of the statue of Darius (NMI 4112)

by permission of the journal editor: open publication via my host institution allowed since June 2020The statue of Darius I found at Susa provides a striking example for petrifying an identity construction that is transient in nature. Darius I is simultaneously Persian Great King and Egyptian pharaoh. Usually, either one or the other aspect is put to the fore in the preserved media of presentation. Characteristically, the statue in its current headless state combines these identities and presents a new image, which follows neither regional tradition, but is understandable in either of the two (and beyond). As such, long-term and cross-cultural readability is explicitly ordered in the commission inscription on the statue, and this can be equally assumed for the missing head. Based on this hypothesis, I will reconsider the scope of potential reconstructions of the statue and, consequently, of the secondary context of erection at the gate building of the ‘palace of Darius’ at Susa.Peer reviewe

A Stranger in the House : Situating Deviance in an ‘Alterity’ Research Approach

by invitationThe paper exemplifies how the modern semantic field of ‘alterity’ can be turned into a fruitful research approach for Ancient Near Eastern Studies and where ‘deviance’ would be situated in such an approach. I ask how modern terms and concepts that intentionally or unconsciously enter our modern interpretation of ancient sources can be instrumentalised for countering historiographical ‘othering’. The key idea is to turn the modern terms and underlying concepts and connotations into a research tool that facilitates a systematic search for additional direct or circumstantial evidence on the chosen topic, in this case that of ‘a stranger in the house’. The paper has the format of a double note. The first part highlights some general methodological questions and sketches out the research tool via sets of characteristic key questions. The second part provides an application example for illustrating how the different questions change the scope of interpretation of ancient sources. The sample case study is a characteristically underdetermined private legal document from 7th c. Assur concerning a group of Egyptian merchants who are attacked in the house of their host.Peer reviewe

The So-Called Archive of the Egyptians in Assur (N31) : Archaeological Comments on the N 31A+D Complex

The contribution discusses a detail of the documentation history of the excavations undertaken by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft at Assur in 1908. Its concern is the archaeological documentation of the so-called archive(s) of the Egyptians, which – in the view of the author – needs urgent correcting as it has created an interpretational dynamic that is based on problematic premises. The enormous merits of Pedersén’s fundamental 1985/86 study on the archives and libraries from Assur notwithstanding, the suggested mixing of tablets from what he introduced as ‘archive’ N31A and N31D is not born out by the excavation documentation. I showcase in my contribution the evidence for explicit observation of Middle and Late Assyrian strata including tablet finds from either stratum in both excavation areas (eA7II and eE6V) as well as indications for area-internal mixing of the Middle and Late Assyrian tablets. This is a much more likely explanation for the presence of Middle and Late Assyrian tablets in the find complexes Ass. 13319 (N31A; eA7II) and Ass. 13058 (N31D/M7; eE6V) than a cross-area mix in the excavation house. The correction has major implications also on a socio-cultural level, as it shows that the documentation of the financial, administrative and juridical activities of the Egyptians living in Assur was spread at least over four different living quarters across the town.Peer reviewe

Publicly accessible statues as Memory Box : Thoughts on an interpretation experiment

by invitation; embargo for filing the final version in an academic repository until March 2022The paper “Publicly accessible statues as Memory Box: thoughts on an interpretation experiment” addresses the statues and especially ensembles of statues of high officials of the 18th dynasty, which were erected in various Egyptian temples and to a lesser extent the Theban necropolis. Their long-term (semi-)public display closely connects the depicted person, the creator and the viewer of the image in their contemporary context of erection and beyond. This socio-cultural dimension of the statues and other primary monuments of self-presentation is still heavily understudied. The contribution at hand draws attention to the research approach “Memory Box”, which has been developed by a Finnish- German team in 2011–2013 (Aali, Perämäki & Sarti 2014) to focus on the syn- and diachronic interdependence of the materiality and the social context of items of collective cultural memory. In honour of her jubilee and in thanks for her support of my cross-cultural studies, I dedicate the following sketch of the potential of this research approach for interpreting 18th dynasty (private) statuary to Susanne Bickel.Peer reviewe