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Complex Identities and Community Memberships in Second Intermediate Period and Early New Kingdom Egypt

AYERS, Natasha

In spite of recent progress in identity studies in Egyptology, the diversity visible in material culture and practice often is forced to fit into rigid cultural boxes, like ‘Egyptian’ or ‘Nubian’. The simplistic culture-historical view does not make space for the multifaceted identities and group memberships that can co-exist and adapt to new situations. Different frameworks are needed, and this paper takes a communities of practice approach to Second Intermediate Period and early New Kingdom contexts from Saqqara, Qau el-Kebir, and Badari. Although the archaeological adaptation of Wenger’s Communities of Practice is commonly used for understanding communities of production or apprenticeship, it can be taken further to elucidate communities of use, behavior, and ideas that can create links across different social, spatial, and temporal scales. A new appraisal of the archives and objects from Saqqara, Qau el-Kebir, and Badari via traditional and more recent technologies (e.g. RTI), in conjunction with a communities of practice framework, reveal overlapping and nested communities of practice that more accurately represent the complexity of ancient identities than what is possible with only a culture-historical perspective.

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