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E-book The Walking Dead at Saqqara : Strategies of Social and Religious Interaction in Practice
‘TheWalking Dead’in the title of the current study is of courseanod to the fa-moustelevision series, but it also hasamore serious meaningalludingtothefact that from an ancient Egyptian perspective,the deceased and other spiritualbeingswereactuallypart of the life of the living and interacted with them.Aflowery description of this worldview has been provided by Thomas Mannin his famousJosephroman:“Nichtallein, daß Himmlischesund Irdisches sich in-einander wiedererkennen, sondern es wandelt sich auch, kraft der sphärischenDrehung,das Himmlische ins Irdische, das Irdische ins Himmlische,und darauserhellt, daraus ergibt sich dieWahrheit, daß Götter Menschen, Menschen dagegenwieder Götter werden können.”¹Adistinction between‘this world’and‘the next’or the like is thereforetoberejected. If borders existed, they werehighlyperme-able in the context of everydaylife in New Kingdom Egypt at Saqqara, for whichthe current studyseeksto conceptualise the various strategies of interaction. The abovequote stems fromastudyofIndian images but it is highlyrelevant forthe ancient Egyptian context as well, especiallyifweseekto understand howreligious traditions developedovertime and how we can reconstruct them inthe archaeological record, whichreflects the mutual interaction between hu-mans and their environment.³The current study seeks to understand the lived religious traditions at SaqqarainEgypt,i.e.the cemetery of the ancient city ofMemphis, around the time of the reigns of Amenhotep III and Ramesses IV(c. 1390–1129 BCE).?To be precise, this studyanalyses the various strategiesof socio-religious interaction of people?in an interesting phase in the historyof the site when the highestEgyptian officials built their monumental tombsin the shadow of the pyramidsofOld Kingdom kingslike Djoser,Unas,andTeti, which had alreadystood therefor over 1000 years.
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