著者

和田 浩一郎

出版者

一般社団法人 日本オリエント学会

雑誌

オリエント (ISSN:00305219)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.60, no.2, pp.141-156, 2018-03-31 (Released:2021-04-01)

参考文献数

48

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Settlement burials existed in dynastic Egypt, like in other agricultural societies throughout the world. Since the ancient Egyptians thought that the dead should be separated from the living, it is important to consider the meaning of this. This paper carries out a comprehensive study of settlement burials in dynastic Egypt. Although both children and adults were buried within settlements, the interments of the latter always pre- or post-date the period of occupancy of the settlement. It is therefore possible to say that the separation of the dead and the living was carried out for adult burials. For analysis in this study, settlement burials are divided into three types based on the age of the deceased and the simultaneity of burial and settlement: (Type 1) child burials contemporary with a settlement, (Type 2) pre- or post-dated settlement burials only children were interred, and (Type 3) pre- or post-dated settlement burials where children and adults were mixed. The age distributions for Type 1 and 2 are somewhat different: the former type is exclusively of children under six months old, while the latter also includes children of up to two years. This tendency suggests that “true” settlement burial in dynastic Egypt may have been a burial custom only for fetuses and very young infants, and that nursing children were at least buried in settlements, even if in houses already abandoned. Except for the age distribution, the difference between Type 1 and 2 is obscure. Since some Type 2 burials were found in the same space as Type 1, these might share the perceptions of the place as a burial site. Other Type 2 burials seem to follow the idea of separation of the dead from the living. The variety of child settlement burials suggests that the ancient Egyptians treated the young dead as having a different kind of existence from the adult dead.

著者

和田 浩一郎

出版者

一般社団法人 日本オリエント学会

雑誌

オリエント (ISSN:00305219)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.51, no.1, pp.87-109, 2008-09-30 (Released:2014-03-30)

参考文献数

35

被引用文献数

1 1

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It is generally stated that in the Egyptian New Kingdom burials the bodies were placed with their heads pointing toward the West because of the Egyptians’ funerary belief that the deceased needed to face the rising sun for their resurrection. However, this statement does not fully reflect the actual archaeological data. A survey of the plans of New Kingdom royal tombs shows that some changes in the head orientation took place during this period. Before the New Kingdom Period, bodies were normally placed with their heads pointed to the north. However, the tombs of the 20th Dynasty have a symbolic east-west axis that causes the westward head orientation of royal mummies, whereas in the 18th Dynasty tombs some of the decoration scheme and sarcophagus placements show compromising orientations between the north and west. Non-elite burials in the Memphite and Heracleopolitan regions show a tendency different from the royal tombs in that there is more diversity of head orientation. Although about fifty percent of the burials in a given cemetery have the western head orientation, the considerable number of bodies are directed to the north, east and south. Since the burials of the previous periods in these regions do not show such diversity, it seems to be a noticeable feature of non-elite burial customs in the New Kingdom Period. A seriation analysis shows that the diversity of head orientation in non-elite tombs is not the result of a historical transition as seen in the royal tombs since it is found among burials of the same period. B. J. Kemp suggests that lower-class people did not ignore the formal concepts of funerary belief, even though they often chose “unsuitable” head orientations. Instead they followed their own sense to decide what was appropriate for them. It might be fair to assume that the diverse head orientations in the New Kingdom burials reflect the ancient Egyptians’ trait of accepting the existence of alternative concepts.