Individual and Society in Ancient Egypt: Deciphering Weni the Elder

FAIN: FA-52121-05

Janet Richards
Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1382)

Integrating archaeological, documentary, and pictorial evidence, this book will explore how ancient Egyptians crafted notions of the individual and identity, the relationship of individuals to politics and society, and the operation of social memory in sacred landscapes. Using as an example the third millennium BCE official Weni of Abydos in southern Egypt, I will set this particular person within a network of other individuals of his period elsewhere in Egypt; and explore the archaeology of individuals as practiced in colonial and post-colonial settings, and the effect that different archaeologists, their own places and intellectual baggage, and a flowering indigenous Egyptology had and have on how we write ancient social history.