Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists Abstracts of Papers

XICE – Abstract of Papers
the primeval ritual of Hathor as daughter of the sun god and stimulating the creative
powers of her father. This creative process with its sexual undertones was at the core
of Egyptian society as shaped by Egyptian priests and thinkers through the millennia,
expressed in words and imaginative representations. Where the texts may be quite
unambiguous (as for example when describing theogamy), the illustrations remain
shrouded in symbolic references. The objects held in the hands of the participants in
ritual scenes are thus crucial for an understanding of the message conveyed. A sistrum
will often be paired with a menat, a necklace with counterpoise, which is in itself a
depiction of the essential parts of a woman’s body (counterpoise = torso and uterus)
with copious hair (beads).
This paper will investigate in particular the objects used and handled by the royal
family in a sacred context on the monuments of Akhenaten at Karnak and at el-
Amarna in order to define more closely the roles played by these persons against the
background of past religious practises. During the early years the hathorisation of the
queen vis-a-vis the king as creator is evident in her appearance on the “Nefertiti
pillars”, signalled above all by the use of the naos-shaped sistrum. It is also apparent
in the continued references to Hathor as “The Golden” during the sed-festival
depicted on series of talatat from Karnak, details of which were copied from earlier
representations in the tomb of Kheruef.
The craft and science of Egyptian faience: the case of the Step Pyramid tiles
[poster]
Panagiota Manti, Paul Nicholson, Andy Smith, Mark Ellis, Fred Mosselmans ,
Trinitat Pradell and Manolis Pantos
Work by J-P. Lauer in the early 20 th Century at the Step Pyramid of King Djoser
(c.2667-2648 B.C.), first pyramid in Egypt, unearthed some 36,000 faience tiles, most
with a turquoise-blue glaze. These tiles are possibly the earliest known evidence of
mass production. The glazing process of these tiles has been interpreted as a selfglazing
or efflorescence process. Approximately 450 of these tiles from a private
collection are currently at Cardiff University for conservation. This gave the
opportunity to investigate fragments from a tile in the aim to obtain a deeper insight
into the processes involved in the production of the colour and the glazing process.
Preliminary investigations have involved the use of conventional X-ray diffraction
(XRD) and synchrotron based micro-XRD, micro-fluorescence (XRF), micro- X-Ray
Absorption Fine Structure spectroscopy (EXAFS), and Scanning Electron Microscopy
(SEM/WDS), which give new evidence for the presence and the composition of
mineral phases other than silica, in particular copper compounds. The aim of this
paper is to present our current research, to enable discussion on copper sources in the
coloring of early faience, and demonstrate the value of modern science for the
investigation of early technologies.
TT 353 of Sen-en-Mut:
Contributions on its functional and ritual nature
Francisco Martin Valentin and Teresa Bedman
161