Space and Shape. Considerations on pre- and proto-State funerary practices in Ancient Egypt

CAMPAGNO, MARCELO

Basel Egyptology Prize 1. Junior Research in Egyptian History, Archaeology and Philology

Ägyptologisches Seminar, Universität Basel

Lugar: Basel; Año: 2003; p. 15 - 28

The emergence of the State constitutes a social change process of an enormous magnitude. In effect, its advent signifies the constitution of a social pole which concentrates the legitimate monopoly of coercion implying a type of society qualitatively diverse from the preceding one. In the Nile Valley, that process takes place in the IVth millennium b.C. and is well established by the first third of the following millennium (that is, during the last phases of Predynastic Period and the Early Dynastic Period). What kind of evidence testifies the existence of those transformations that led to the Egyptian State? Given their preservation conditions ? remarkably better than those of other spheres, such as residential spaces or cult structures ?, most testimonies come from the funerary practice domain. And what kind of information is drawn from such funerary evidence? Studies about variations in the funerary sphere between Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods have mainly emphasized the existence of an increasing social differentiation process, traceable in the transformations shown by tombs of different cemeteries along the Nile Valley.