Products of the Physical Engagement with Sacred Space: the New Kingdom Non-textual Tomb-graffiti at Saqqara

Abstract

Examples of ancient

graffiti provide a graphic testimony to peoples’ attitudes towards earlier

monuments. They have been described as one of the key groups of sources for the

study of Egyptian uses of the past, and are considered as one of the richest sources of evidence available of the personal experience of religion in Ancient Egypt. The past decade saw an increasing scholarly interest in ancient graffiti. While studies traditionally focussed almost exclusively on the textual component, more recent research has gradually included non-textual or figural graffiti as well. The New Kingdom (ca. 1539–1077 BC) necropolis at Saqqara – the foremost (elite) cemetery for the city of Memphis – provides the spatial and cultural context for the data discussed in this paper. The graffiti were recorded in the sub- and superstructures of the tombs, and on dismantled blocks now kept in museum collections around the world. The tomb in Egypt was considered sacred space. Therefore, it is useful to emphasize the materiality of graffiti and their physical engagement with those spaces. The figural and textual graffiti were carved into the sacred context of the tomb, thus becoming one with it. In the words of Dorman and Bryan, ‘sacred space may be said to presuppose the actualization of ritual within it and inherently provides a setting that both frames religious ceremony and can even elicit a performative response on the part of the officiant’. One particular group of figural tomb-graffiti are the subject of this paper: the representations of human figures. How should these figures be interpreted, and what do they tell us about the use and users of the tombs?