In the Gardens of the Pharaohs: Organic Craft Productions and Chaînes Opératoires

Graduate / Professional

This course focuses on the origins of organic resources, the manufacturing techniques, and the extensive talented skills hidden behind exceptional Egyptian objects that can be seen in museum collections. Since the late Neolithic period and the early fourth millennium BCE, ancient Egyptians developed significant skills for transforming the various vegetal resources available in their environment, in the Nile Valley, in its delta, as in more remote areas such like the western oasis or the eastern desert. Many craft productions, sometimes supported by the Pharaonic central state, occupied a foundational importance to guaranty the continuation and the resilience of this ancient civilization over several millennia. This constant quest for ensuring the subsistence, sustainability, and various levels—from simple to more elaborated—craft production, forged important aspects of the Egyptian civilization and economy, enhanced its complex administrative system, even dictated its political relationship with neighboring countries. This seminar investigates in detail the ancient Egyptian organic resources, related techniques, even proto industries, through the scope of archaeological, historical and socioeconomical data, using material culture, iconographic data and sometimes textual sources. Ethnoarchaeological and experimental approaches of various chaîne-opératoire are discussed to illustrate and reconstruct skills, gestures, and craftsmanship expertise that have now completely disappeared. T 1:30pm-3:25pm