Identity, Burial Practice, and Social Change in Ptolemaic Egypt
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IDENTITY, BURIAL PRACTICE, AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN PTOLEMAIC EGYPT by Thomas Peter Landvatter A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Classical Art and Archaeology) in the University of Michigan 2013 Doctoral Committee: Professor Sharon C. Herbert, Co-Chair Professor Terry G. Wilfong, Co-Chair Professor John M. O’Shea Professor Janet E. Richards © Thomas Peter Landvatter All Rights Reserved 2013 for my parents ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have many to thank for helping me through this dissertation. I would like to thank, first of all, my doctoral committee for all of the help and guidance they have given me during my time at Michigan. With their help, I have grown immeasurably as a schol- ar, intellectually and professionally. I thank especially my co-chairs, Terry Wilfong and Sharon Herbert, for their guidance. Terry was always there with advice, encouragement, and willing share his exhaustive knowledge of Egyptian history and material culture. I thank Sharon for her challenging critiques of my work, pushing me to do better. I also thank her particularly for my two seasons at Kedesh; it was there under Sharon’s direc- tion that I learned to be the field archaeologist that I am today. I owe a great deal to Janet Richards, who has been a mentor to me throughout my graduate career, for introducing me to the site of Abydos and allowing me to conduct my two seasons of fieldwork under the aegis of Michigan’s Abydos Middle Cemetery project. I also want to thank John O’Shea for making me appreciate both archaeological theory and its importance, and the complexities and difficulties of archaeological data. His critiques have always been use- ful, and have pushed me to become a better archaeologist. I also thank here Traianos Gagos, who was part of this project at its beginning, and who was my mentor and close friend during my formative years at Michigan. His friendship helped me grow both as a scholar and a person. He is missed more than words can say. My thanks also goes to the curators and staff of the Kelsey Museum and the facul- ty of Classical Studies, who have always been helpful and have inspired me to be inter- iii disciplinary in my work. I thank particularly Arthur Verhoogt, who has provided com- ments on my dissertation work, and has always encouraged me in my study of the papy- rological evidence for Graeco-Roman Egypt from an archaeological perspective. To Alex Zwinak I also owe a great debt, for always being there to help me navigate graduate school and university bureaucracy. I owe many for my research abroad. My work in Alexandria, Luxor, and else- where in Egypt was made possible with a fellowship from the American Research Center in Egypt, and I thank the Ministry of State of Antiquities (MSA) of Egypt for allowing me to conduct my photographic work. My time living in Cairo and visiting mortuary sites was invaluable, and I greatly appreciate the help of the ARCE staff in Cairo. I would like to thank the MSA inspectors assigned to me as a fellow: Mr. Mahmoud el-Dafrawy in Alexandria; Mr. Ahmed Mousa Mustafa Demerdash in Khargeh; Mr. Abdullah Mu- hammed Nasir in Dakhleh; and Mr. Sayed Gomaa, Mr. Yasser Abd el-Razik, and Mr. Mohammed Selim in Luxor. I would also like to thank Professor Steven Snape and Ms. Patricia Winker of the Garstang Museum of Archaeology at the University of Liverpool for allowing me to view the archives of John Garstang’s excavations at Abydos. For my dissertation fieldwork, I owe many people a debt of gratitude. I thank the Ministry of State of Antiquities of Egypt and its then-director Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim, and Dr. Mohammed Ismail Khaled, director of foreign missions. I also thank the Univer- sity of Michigan’s Abydos Middle Cemetery (AMC) project for allowing me to conduct this research under the AMC project’s aegis. This fieldwork would not have been possi- ble without the support of a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Im- provement Grant (BCS Proposal 1038765), an International Research Award from the iv International Institute at the University of Michigan, and a Graduate Student Research Award from the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan. I would like to thank again Professor Richards, as well as Seth Button; Claudia Chemello; Henry Col- burn; Geoff Compton; Suzanne Davis; Christian Knoblauch; Peter Lacovara; Beth Platte; Heather Tunmore; and Korri Turner, who all participated in the project. I would also like to thank the MSA inspectors assigned to the AMC project for the 2011 and 2012 seasons, Mr. Sayyed Mohammed Abd el-Rahim and Mr. Mahmoud Mohammed Amer. I would not have been able to do this without my close friends. I first of all thank my cohort – Joanna Schmitz, Angela Commito, and Charlotte Maxwell-Jones – without whom I would not have been able to survive graduate school, and without whom it would not have been nearly as much fun. I also thank Ryan Hughes, Dan Diffendale, Colin Quinn, Henry Colburn, and Seth Button, for being great friends and colleagues, and for always being willing to talk archaeology for hours on end. Of course, I would not be where I am without my family, my parents Scott and Edith, and my sister Bronwyn. I thank my parents for their unwavering love and support over the years, and for allowing me to follow my passion for archaeology. Your trips out to Michigan were always a welcome respite, and your enthusiasm for what I do has al- ways driven me forward. Lastly, I thank my wife, Beth. I cannot imagine having gotten through the last two years without your love and support. From Cairo to Luxor, to Aby- dos, and back to Ann Arbor, you have been there by my side always supportive and al- ways loving; I am a better person because of you. Thank you, and I love you. Thank you all. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii List of Tables ix List of Figures x List of Appendices xiv Chapter 1 – Greeks and Egyptians 1 1.1 – Introduction 1 1.2 – The “Two Societies” and the Ethnicity Problem 3 1.3 – Models of Identity, Ethnicity, and Cultural Interaction 10 1.4 – Archaeology, Identity, and Ethnic Interpretation 18 1.5 – Testing for Ethnicity 22 Chapter 2 – Archaeological Approaches to Mortuary Analysis 28 2.1 – The Archaeological Study of Mortuary Variability 28 2.2 – Mortuary Analysis and State Level Societies 40 2.3 – Ethnicity and Mortuary Practices 47 vi 2.4 – Methodology 52 2.5 – The Case Studies 56 Chapter 3 – Alexandria: Immigrants and Identities 58 3.1 – Introduction 58 3.2 – The Alexandrian Funerary System 63 3.3 – Communal Hypogea 97 3.4 – Cremation Practice in Alexandria 104 3.5 – Conclusions 109 Chapter 4 – Thebes: Reuse and Repurposing 110 4.1 – Introduction 110 4.2 – Background: Foundations of the Funerary System and 113 the Choachytes. 4.3 – Spatial Organization: the Funerary Landscape of Western Thebes 118 4.4 – Funerary Structures 120 4.5 – Burial Assemblages 135 4.6 – Body Treatment and Bioarchaeological Data 139 4.7 – Synthesis and Conclusion: the Purpose of Repurposing 142 Chapter 5 – Abydos: Landscape and Identity 148 5.1 – Introduction 148 5.2 – The Ptolemaic Funerary Landscape 152 vii 5.3 – Effort Expenditure: Structures, Assemblages, and 163 Post-Funerary Activity 5.4 – Spatial Organization and Development 194 5.5 – Body Treatment and Bioarchaeological Data 200 5.6 – Synthesis and Conclusions 203 Chapter 6 – Conclusions and Future Directions 210 6.1 – Summary of Results 210 6.2 – Future Directions 219 Appendices 223 Bibliography 278 viii LIST OF TABLES 2.1 – Types of Identity Distinctions 43 2.2 – Social Distinctions and their Archaeological Correlates 55 3.1 – Object Types 74 3.2 – Incidences of Qualitative and Quantitative Variables 75 3.3 – Incidences of Qualitative Object Combinations 76 3.4 – Incidences of Vessel Type Combinations 78 3.5 – Qualitative Object Groups with Associated Vessel Type Combinations 80 3.6 – Number of tombs in which a quality-type appeared 82 3.7 – Type of body treatment according to qualitative object group 85 4.1 – Summary of important choachyte documents 125-126 4.2 – Summary of tombs with well-recorded Ptolemaic reuse 130-131 4.3 – Documents relating to collective tombs 133-134 4.4 – Summary of the occupants of collective tombs 135 4.5 – Summary of evidence for Ptolemaic burial assemblages 138 4.6 – Presence of object types by tomb type 139 4.7 – Age, sex, and MNI for Ptolemaic period chambers in TT 32 141 ix LIST OF FIGURES 3.1 – Map of Alexandria with locations of major cemeteries 64 3.2 – View of Shatby cemetery as it exists today, focusing on Hypogeum A 66 3.3 – Plan of Shatby cemetery 68 3.4 – Schematic map of the Hadra cemetery 69 3.5 – Dendrogram of Grave Categories based on Qualitative Variables 76 3.6 – Known Vessel Types /Grave vs. Number of Vessels / Grave 81 3.7 - Known Types vs. Quantity of Vessels, High Quality Marked 84 3.8 – Known Types vs. Quantity of Vessels, Cremation Marked 86 3.9 – Stepped funerary monument 88 3.10 – Single interment hypogeum 89 3.11 – Shatby Hypogeum A 90 3.12 – Map of the Abukir section of Hadra 92 3.13 – Map of the Ezbet el-Makhlouf section of Hadra 93 3.14 – Plan of Mustafa Kamel tomb 1 98 3.15 – Plan of Anfushy tomb 2 101 3.16 – Sphinxes in the courtyard of Mustafa Kamel tomb 1 102 3.17 – Painting in the entrance of Anfushy tomb 2 102 3.18 – Relief in the main tomb of Kom esh-Shoqafa 103 4.1 – Labeled map of Theban Necropolis 119 x 4.2 – Section of Wilkinson’s 1830 map of western Thebes 119 4.3 – Ptolemaic period tomb from Winlock’s excavations 123 4.4 – Ptolemaic