Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt: an Introduction to Key Issues

Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018) 1–17 brill.com/jeh Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt: An Introduction to Key Issues Juan Carlos Moreno García CNRS—France [email protected] Abstract The study of ethnicity in the ancient world has known a complete renewal in recent times, at several levels, from the themes studied to the perspectives of analysis and the models elaborated by archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists and historians. Far from traditional approaches more interested in detecting and characterizing particular ethnic groups (“Libyans,” “Medjay”) and social organizations (“tribe,” “clan”, etc.), in identifying them in the archaeological record through specific markers (pottery, ornaments, weapons, etc.) and, subsequently, in studying their patterns of interaction with other social groups (domination, acculturation, assimilation, resistance, centre periphery), recent research follows different paths. To sum up, a deeper understanding of ethnicity in ancient Egypt cannot but benefit from a close dialogue with other disciplines and is to enrich current debates in archaeology, anthropology, and ancient history. Keywords ethnicity – identity – community – migration – mixity – ethnogenesis The study of ethnicity in the ancient world has undergone a complete renewal in recent times, at several levels, from the themes studied to the perspectives of analysis and the models elaborated by archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians. Far from traditional approaches more interested in detecting and characterizing particular ethnic groups (“Libyans,” “Medjay”) and social organizations (“tribe,” “clan,” etc.), in identifying them in the archaeological record through specific markers (pottery, ornaments, weapons, etc.) and, © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/18741665-12340040Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 05:13:08PM via free access 2 Moreno García subsequently, in studying their patterns of interaction with other social groups (domination, acculturation, assimilation, resistance, centre-periphery), recent research follows different paths. The influence of post-colonial theory, as well as the renewal of social history, gender studies, and cultural studies, explains why the focus is put instead on the construction of (changing) identities, in entanglement, in hybridity, in mutual influence, and in the capacity of people and individuals to shape and modify their identities through intentional choices depending on the context, the public, and the expected impact.1 This means that single individuals may display very different cultural markers in different situations, depending not solely on power relations and hierarchy, but also on fashion or on strategic choices in order to join coveted social networks, to obtain status and respectability or to assert autonomy. In this perspective, a concept such as “ethnic group” becomes much more fluid and less easy to identify. Thus, human groups cannot be simply reduced to a kind of folkloric repository of distinctive values and cultural attributes. They appear instead as active players in which an ethnic label (“Egyptian,” “Nubian”) encompasses in fact different sub-groups and sub-cultures (based on wealth, gender, age, social position, beliefs, accessibility to symbolic items, etc.), each one follow- ing specific interests and strategies depending on the circumstances. In both cases, agency appears as a central concept, far from the crude social deter- minism prevalent in so many studies of the last two centuries. Egyptology is not alien to this move, as can be discerned in many recent publications about cultural identities, definition of ethnic groups both by ancient Egyptians and Egyptologists, and the interaction of Egyptians and non-Egyptians at particular “multicultural” sites (mostly Nubian fortresses and cities in the Middle and New Kingdom, towns such as Elephantine and Tell el-Dabʿa, cult centres such as Serabit el-Khadim, etc.).2 Similar perspectives help also in understanding how identities were forged and changed in Egyptian society.3 1 Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity; Kohl, “Nationalism and archaeology”; Hu, “Approaches to the archaeology of ethnogenesis”; Díaz-Andreu, The Archaeology of Identity; Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties; Wendrich and van der Kooij, Moving Matters; Halles and Hodos, Material Culture and Social Identities; McInerney, A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean; Curta, “Ethnic identity and archaeology.” 2 General introductions: Riggs and Baines, “Ethnicity”; Smith “Ethnicity and culture”; Schnei- der, “Foreigners in Egypt”; Wendrich, “Identity and personhood”; Spencer, Stevens, and Binder, “Introduction: History and historiography.” Cf. also Schneider, Ausländer in Ägypten; Smith, Wretched Kush; Van Pelt, “Revising Egypto-Nubian relations”; Bader, “Cultural mixing in Egyptian archaeology.” Prejudices linked to the study of some foreign peoples: Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” 70 n. 3. 3 Meskell, Archaeologies of Social Life and Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt; Stevens, Private Reli- gion at Amarna; Bussmann, “Egyptian archaeology and social anthropology” and “Great and Journal of EgyptianDownloaded History from Brill.com09/27/202111 (2018) 1–17 05:13:08PM via free access Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt 3 On this basis, the study of ethnicity in ancient Egypt addresses several major issues. Considering the rich pharaonic imagery about foreign peoples (one can think about the Nine Bows), a crucial element of analysis is how Egyptians imagined and characterized the Other, and how the resulting picture was inspired by information derived from ethnographic and historical observation but put nevertheless at the service of the construction of stereotypical images (as it emerges, for instance, from the Amarna Letters and from the iconography of the expedition of Queen Hatshepsut to Punt).4 This leads to a second issue, construction of identities. Forging depictions (both literary and iconographic) of the Other implies not only defining foreignness but also what Egyptianness meant, from lifestyles, ritual purity, and banqueting to dressing, customs and the very definition of “civilized,” as many texts reveal. So particular lifestyles carried with them cultural particularities that Egyptians tended to identify with “foreignness,” such as Egyptian herders depicted nevertheless as crip- pled, with exotic hairstyles and wearing cloaks. This also means that, in a context of pharaonic imperial expansion (as it happened in Nubia and in the Levant during the Late Bronze Age), the influence of the cultural values and styles of the dominant culture produced new forms of self-identity on subject peoples, ranging from Egyptianization to affirmation of “ethnic” labels (one can think of people defining themselves as Aamu “Asiatics” in their otherwise typically Egyptian monuments), from preservation of traditional culture to the selective adaptation of elements taken from the Egyptian society, depending on the circumstances.5 Thus a cow leather and a skull found beside the coffin in the otherwise typically Egyptian tomb of Ini, a provincial “great chief” of Gebelein in the First Intermediate Period, are remainders of a Nubian funerary custom and of the possible Nubian origin of Ini himself.6 The outcome was a continuous exchange between cultures and the introduction of foreign customs (fashion, “international styles,” court manners, commensality practices, religious beliefs, etc.) not always perceptible in formal art and in scribal culture, with their emphasis on formal behaviour and traditional practices, but visible nevertheless in domestic archaeology. little traditions in Egyptology.” Cf. also the excellent example provided by Miniaci, “The col- lapse of faience figurine production.” 4 Loprieno, Topos und Mimesis; Baines, “Contextualizing Egyptian representations of society and ethnicity”; Liverani, International Relations in the Ancient Near East; Bader, “Zwischen Text, Bild und Archaologie.” Another example: Matić and Franković, “Out of date, out of fashion.” 5 Smith, “Hekanefer and the Lower Nubian princes.” 6 Donadoni Roveri, “Gebelein.” Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018) 1–17 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 05:13:08PM via free access 4 Moreno García A third issue concerns modern prejudices about the identification of peoples and ethnic groups (particularly non-literate ones) from the archaeological record. Older interpretations based on diffusionism and on the ascription of specific sets of artefacts (pottery, ornaments, etc.) to particular peoples and cultures have given way to the elaboration of more sophisticated perspectives. Of course, this does not mean that cultural particularities are useless to help identifying people from one culture living in a foreign environment.7 For instance, the presence and absence of toggle pins in some areas of Tell el-Dabʿa point to dressing styles common among some people living there (Levantine) but hardly used at all by their Egyptian neighbours.8 However, the discovery of Nubian pottery and points of arrows at different archaeological contexts in Tell el-Dabʿa has been considered as solid proof of the existence of Nubian merce- naries, despite other alternative interpretations (merchants, etc.), as if Nubians living in Egypt could only be military specialists, herders, or enslaved people.9 Similar conflictual interpretations emerge in other contexts. When archaeology reveals the presence of houses with an Egyptian plan in the Levant,

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