Distribution of Miniature Pottery in the Memphite Area During the Old Kingdom: New Evidence from the Sun Temple of Nyuserra at Abu Ghurab (Egypt)

MAGNANI, Giulia

Miniature pottery represents a category of material culture of great symbolic and ritual value in Old Kingdom Egypt, and is widely attested in temple and funerary contexts all over the Memphite area. However, its spatial distribution remains partially unexplored, as much as the functional differentiation between temple and funerary contexts. This contribution intends to address the above issues by offering new perspectives on the ritual role of these artefacts in a particularly important context, i.e., the Sun Temple of Nyuserra (sixth king of he Fifth Dynasty, c. 2350 – 2320 BCE) at Abu Ghurab. Here, during excavation campaigns 2018-2022, a considerable accumulation of miniature vessels have been found. The archaeological context of their discovery suggests that they were related to cultic activities associated primarily with the Sun Temple construction and only secondarily with the temple daily life and ritual offerings. Moreover, the analysis of the typologies of these artefacts and their stratigraphic distribution in the other major sites of the area, especially the contiguous sites of Abusir and Saqqara, allow us to draw similarities and differences with respect to the site of Abu Ghurab, by eventually broadening our understanding of the function of this category of material culture in the religious and ritual landscape of Old Kingdom Egypt.

Session 4. Crafting Identity and Clusters through Material Culture, Iconography and Texts ^[info]