Violence and Power in Ancient Egypt

Violence and Power in Ancient Egypt examines the use of Egyptian pictures of violence prior to the New Kingdom. Starting with the assertion that making and displaying such images served as a tactic of power, related to but separate from the actual practice of violence, the book explores the development and deployment of this imagery across different contexts. By comparatively utilizing violent images from a variety of other times and cultures, the book asks that we consider not only how Egyptian imagery was related to Egyptian violence, but also why people create pictures of violence and place them where they do, and how such images communicate what to whom. By cataloging and querying Egyptian imagery of violence from different periods and different contexts—royal tombs, divine temples, the landscape, portable objects, and private tombs—Violence and Power highlights the nuances of the relationship between aspects of royal ideology, art, and its audiences in the first half of pharaonic Egyptian history.

“This book is a significant contribution to the study of Egyptology and ancient art history, delivering the results of cutting-edge research in an area of central importance. Its essential focus is violence in Ancient Egypt which is a topic of increasing interest in current historical and cultural studies, and discusses a large corpus of images of great value, recognising the need for a more theoretical approach to the study of Egyptian artistic expression, and emphasising the critical importance of context in evaluating the function of representations. Throughout, the analysis shows a healthy awareness of the problem of evidence -- or lack thereof. The book has a valuable cross-cultural dimension which makes it relevant not only to the Egyptological community, but also to art historians, ancient historians in general, and anthropologists. The result is a study which breaks much new ground and forces the reconsideration of entrenched views. - Dr Alan Lloyd, Swansea University, UK”

This book is a significant contribution to the study of Egyptology and ancient art history, delivering the results of cutting-edge research in an area of central importance. Its essential focus is violence in Ancient Egypt which is a topic of increasing interest in current historical and cultural studies, and discusses a large corpus of images of great value, recognising the need for a more theoretical approach to the study of Egyptian artistic expression, and emphasising the critical importance of context in evaluating the function of representations. Throughout, the analysis shows a healthy awareness of the problem of evidence — or lack thereof. The book has a valuable cross-cultural dimension which makes it relevant not only to the Egyptological community, but also to art historians, ancient historians in general, and anthropologists. The result is a study which breaks much new ground and forces the reconsideration of entrenched views.

- Dr Alan Lloyd, Swansea University, UK

“Violence and Power in Ancient Egypt. Image and Ideology before the New Kingdom” by Laurel Bestock is a new and exciting work on the representations of violence in ancient Egypt from the Early Dynastic Period until the end of the Middle Kingdom (c. 4000-1650 BC).

-Dr Uroš Matic, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

Laurel Bestock is an Associate Professor of Archaeology and Egyptology at Brown University (USA). She received her PhD in Egyptian Archaeology and Art from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (USA). She directs excavations in Egypt at the site of Abydos, where she investigates early kingship. In the Sudan, she co-directs excavations at the Egyptian fortress of Uronarti, seeking to understand lifestyles and cultural interactions in a colonial outpost from nearly 4000 years ago. For her next project, she hopes to work on a book focused on food and culture at Uronarti, both anciently and in the context of a modern excavation team camping in tents along the Nile.

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