For this assignment you have a couple of different options.
Respond to one of the choices below. Provide a short paper (minimum 750 words) with your response to the concerns suggested with each topic and any other points that you feel are relevant.
1) Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb
Netflix documentary, 2020.
Watch the film and provide an analysis of the information it includes within the context of what you have learned in class.
How does the material they find augment our understanding of ancient Egyptian culture?
What other considerations are important?
Note: parts of the site and some of the finds are later than the period of this course. I do not expect you to be able to address their specific history, but do think about how they relate to the objects and events of the long Old Kingdom period.
2) Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramidshttps://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Egyptian_Art_in_the_Age_of_the_Pyramids?Ta g=Egypt&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=0
This exhibition catalogue is free and downloadable at the link above (if it had been less focused on the 3-6th dynasties, Id have used it for a textbook; grab it even if youre not choosing this option). Pick one of the chapters concerning objects: statues/sculpture, reliefs, furniture, stone vessels. Also consult relevant objects in the catalogue section. Consider in association what youve learned in class.
How does this material augment your understanding of ancient Egyptian culture?
What is missing? What else would be useful to know?
3) The Tomb of Perneb
Link to 1916 book by Caroline Ransom Williams and A. M Lythgoe detailing the original context of the tomb:
https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/16022
Theres a video here: https://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/video/collections/egyptian/tomb-of- perneb
Model of the tomb: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/587738
Links to entry for the tomb reconstruction and the objects it contained:https://www.metmuseum.org/search- results#!/search?searchFacet=All%20Results&q=Perneb&orderByCountDesc=true&page=1 (theres not an easy way to filter out objects with photos, or even just the artifacts unfortunately). How does all this material augment your understanding of the tomb in its original context?
Of broader ancient Egyptian culture?
Stay focused on the material culture of our course time-period.
4) The Workers Village at Lahun (Kahun)
Link to the excavation report by Flinders Petrie): https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/illahun-
kahun-and-gurob-medum/F2DAF7353E3DD58C510C35ED372E5AB1
(Note: downloads as a zip of 30 pdfs along with a separate book on Meidum; but all plates are together in pdf #30 this will take some figuring out. Petrie also distinguished between the pyramid site proper which he referred to as Illahun, from the workers village he called Kahun other sources refer to both as Lahun).
The University of Manchester used to have a 3D rendering of the site. Its been taken down (possibly because the tech is old), but 2 videos are posted here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL272D21E7D5D42D24
Petrie Museum page titled One Day in Lahun with associated links:https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/petrie-museum/one-day-lahun
search page for objects from Lahun:
https://petriecat.museums.ucl.ac.uk/brief.aspx
How does all this material augment your understanding of workers lives in their original context? Of broader ancient Egyptian culture?
Stay focused on the material culture of our course time-period.
