Afterword 1: Greco-Roman Households in Pharaonic Perspective
Miriam Müller
Given my own research focus on Pharaonic-period households, the chapters presented in this volume have been a revelation of the fantastic work my colleagues undertake for the later periods of Egyptian history. This volume confirms the importance of studying and understanding houses, households, and homes, not only in ancient Egypt, but also throughout the wider Mediterranean and Near East. Simultaneously, the diverse research in the different chapters showcases a development over time, in that we are no longer concerned with the same issues that characterized the beginnings of household archaeology in the Mediterranean, such as what a household is and which physical space it occupies.1 The study of Ptolemaic and Roman-period households in Egypt emphasizes that we need to overcome the often too narrowly defined approach of only looking at the actual house. The preceding chapters provide a broader perspective, as well as a great deal of new information about the identity and self-awareness of the inhabitants of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Specifically, this volume brings together a great selection of case studies, presenting an integration of archaeology, texts, and material culture that expand our understanding of “houses” and “households” to include (among other things): the immediate surroundings of the physical frame of the house, such as the courtyards and street areas; the presence of extended families and different forms of cohabitation, spanning sometimes multiple houses; the study of violence and its location within the physical space of the household; the significance of textual records in combination with the archaeological record; the role of gender and women (an aspect of household studies that was for a long time neglected); the integration of bioarchaeological evidence in a focus on ancient diet; or use patterns and discard activity in household space.2 Many contributions furthermore make use of ethnographic data, closely linking the study of contemporary societies and their material remains to the past society under scrutiny. The chapters further showcase new approaches in dealing with old excavation records and the ways that we can integrate and expand them into new research designs by implementing new archaeological techniques.
Many of the themes stated above have also played, and continue to play, an important role in research on Pharaonic households—with one major exception: the ubiquity of texts dealing with Ptolemaic and Roman-period households in Egypt. The study of Pharaonic-period households struggles with a lack of written evidence that could, for example, inform about the composition and size of households throughout Pharaonic history, or the evidence for owners and their social standing. Elite housing, at least, often reveals its occupants through inscriptions on fixed architectural elements, furniture, and objects, but the middle and lower classes are extremely difficult to detect archaeologically, and their households appear only rarely in records that were mostly found dissociated from the described circumstances and locations.3 It is very promising to see that many of the chapters in this volume implement a combination of textual and archaeological records and further explore the potential of this material for the study of households in Egypt from the Greco-Roman Period.
Cross-Cutting Themes
The interactions between households constitute a leitmotif in all the case studies presented in this volume. Space and rights of access within the settlement structure were negotiated on all different levels. Bethany Simpson’s examination of access patterns and thoroughfares in the different neighborhoods of ancient Karanis in chapter 2 and Darlene Brooks Hedstrom’s discussion of the living quarters in the Monastery of Apa Thomas in chapter 11 both reveal an intricate cooperation on issues of space and passage that is confirmed by contemporary written documentation on agreements between neighbors.
In the same way, Sabine Huebner’s work in chapter 5 on legal arrangements between family members and with creditors in the form of the habitatio (or the right of residence) illustrates complex interactions among house owners and dependents. Since the property was inherited in equal shares by male and female children, the widow would have to return to her natal house if no such arrangement existed. This division but also consolidation of property plays out on the ground in the form of multiple house contracts between extended families about the sharing and combining of one estate or neighboring properties, as discussed in chapter 2 by Bethany Simpson, chapter 4 by Dorothy Thompson, and chapter 7 by Richard Alston.
Other case studies remind us of less convivial community culture, as in Youssri Abdelwahed’s vivid narrative (chapter 5) on complaints about verbal and physical abuse and trespassing, as well as in David Frankfurter’s account (chapter 10) of apotropaic measures against the vulnerability of a domestic space that was constantly threatened by outside demonic forces. These studies remind us of the negative aspects of cohabitation, such as the resentment and quarrels over property that accompany the increasing urban pressure documented in Gregory Marouard’s discussion (chapter 3) of settlement data from multiple Ptolemaic sites. Specifically, the vertical expansion of the tower houses reveals the challenge of finding new forms of coresidence in a community without losing too much space or accessibility. Similarly, the compact form of the Ptolemaic and Roman-period houses, with only limited uncovered courtyard space and no views into the interior of the houses, also responds to the arid environment and windy and dusty climate of Egypt, as Paola Davoli clearly outlines in chapter 1. Furthermore, the theme of domestic discard and possible solutions for the disposal of everyday debris, as Anna Boozer describes in chapter 8 for the Roman-period town of Trimithis, very much ties into this emphasis on pressing issues experienced in settlements and among households of Greco-Roman Egypt.
The comparison of activity areas and the evidence for shared facilities, such as ovens, in the Ptolemaic fort at Bi⸒r Samut in chapter 12 by Jennifer Gates-Foster, Bérangère Redon, and Melanie Godsey reveals close interaction among the fortress population, similar to that also evidenced in other settlements such as Karanis. These findings raise questions about whether individual households were present, with potential family structures, or whether such a fortress has to be seen as one big household for a community with exclusively military functions. Finally, Ross Thomas’s account of domestic cults in the Greco-Roman Period in chapter 9 (as evidenced by figurines with different cultural influences) displays the realities of life on the periphery of empires where multiple cultural zones overlapped.
Taken together, all of these case studies reveal different forms of household agency, and in particular diverse individual decisions, modifications, and adjustments that can only be revealed by a thorough analysis of all the available lines of evidence. Looking back in time, and considering Ptolemaic and Roman-period households together with their Pharaonic predecessors, enables us to relate this theme of personal agency to a longstanding bias in Egyptological research. Scholars working on the prevalent settlement types of Pharaonic Egypt have questioned the very existence of household agency and the expression of different forms of household evolution, development, and growth.4 One recent publication claims that model settlements, such as those that have been excavated from all different periods of Pharaonic Egypt, forced the population into ghettolike living circumstances that for a long time did not leave much room for individual or community agency.5 Only recently has this dataset been studied for potential insights into a more detailed understanding of households’ everyday dealings, and in particular household interactions and identity.6
Related Studies from a Pharaonic Perspective
Perspectives on households and daily life in ancient Egypt have considerably changed over the last two decades. Formerly, analysis focused on the pictorial and limited textual record, with archaeological data solely drawn from two well-documented settlement sites, Deir el-Medina and Amarna. More recently, there has been an enormous increase in information from long-term settlement excavations during the second half of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century, as well as a new, integrated approach to the analysis of data on everyday life in Egypt. Although much can be gained from examining daily life as depicted in paintings and models, or from descriptions in letters or census lists, the material evidence from settlements presents the clearest and most reliable account of a society’s everyday dealings. Already, sites such as Elephantine, Tell el-Dab’a, South Abydos, Amarna, and Amara West have been explored with a new perspective and have revealed novel information. Furthermore, with the implementation of new technologies such as microarchaeology, it is possible to grasp the lived experience of people in cities in different parts of the Egyptian empire, from the core to the periphery.
Scholars working in Pharaonic Egypt have similarly become aware of neighborhood interactions and the constant negotiation of space, the taking over of adjacent open and public areas such as streets and alleys, the incorporation of neighboring properties, or the splitting of houses and estates and reorganization of access. Similar phenomena can be seen in the late Middle Kingdom/early Second Intermediate Period neighborhood at Tell el-Dab’a7 or the New Kingdom examples in the Main City of Amarna8 and inside the city walls of Amara West.9
Household lifecycles, and the passing on of household property and management from father to son, have been documented in census records from the Middle Kingdom town of Kahun and also verified in the archaeological record of the site.10 The theme of urban pressure, trash, and trespassing has been explored for the long-lived settlement of Elephantine at the traditional southern border of Egypt.11 In the period of the Middle Kingdom, domestic waste management and an attempt to keep the houses and adjacent surroundings clean reveal an individual, but maybe also community, strategy to secure space in the valuable courtyard areas and passage of the streets and alleys on this narrowly confined island.
The question of how to deal with a special-purpose settlement, such as a fort or a monastery, and whether we are dealing with one big household organized under certain conditions and with only one specific group of members, such as soldiers or monks, is also being discussed for the many Pharaonic towns and villages that were built for a particular task. Workmen’s settlements, such as the Walled Village in the eastern desert of Amarna, and fortresses like the Middle Kingdom strongholds in Nubia, have been examined for their potential inhabitants and for the interactions among residents who are assumed to be exclusively soldiers and officials12 or families.13 By analyzing the distribution of seal impressions and revealing their owners at Uronarti, or investigating the number and arrangement of bread-making facilities at Amarna, researchers have revealed individual households and properties, but at the same time documented a close-knit community that collaborated on a daily basis. We furthermore see a much closer intermingling of work and living space, to the extent that offices cannot really be differentiated from domestic space.14 Most of the spaces inside smaller units in those uniform settlements were thus probably multifunctional.15
Additionally, new studies on domestic cults from the Pharaonic heartland and the alleged type sites of Egyptian urbanism, Deir el-Medina16 and Amarna,17 challenge long-held views of religious life in the New Kingdom by challenging the exclusivity of the veneration of the Aten and the resulting trend of a strong expression of personal piety. Rituals and performances, including certain objects pertaining to the realm of magic, were dedicated to protecting the Pharaonic house and are expressed in the material record, revealing the intricate nature of the perceived and expressed identities of individuals, households, and communities.18 With so much information already to offer in the Egyptian “core,” it will also be important to take a new look at analogous dynamics in the borderlands, with their potential exchange, adoption, and creation of new cultural expressions.
Trends in Pharaonic and Greco-Roman Household Studies
As noted in the preceding chapters, texts comprise a major component in the analysis of domestic space and household composition in Greco-Roman archaeology and also for the study of households in Greco-Roman Egypt. However, an equally extensive textual record does not exist for the examination of domestic space in the Pharaonic Period. While this discrepancy robs Egyptology of an important source and insight into household dealings in the third and second millennia BCE, the reliance on texts has also created a major bias in the perception of domestic arrangements in ancient Greece, Italy, and equally Greco-Roman Egypt. In particular, the supposed use of various rooms by different genders (andron, gynaikon) became a common reading of domestic space.19 The gendered use of space was similarly addressed in household studies of the Pharaonic Period, based on depictions and related built features found in the two best-preserved settlements in Egypt, Deir el-Medina and Amarna, which seemed to delineate male and female spaces in typical Egyptian houses from the New Kingdom.20 In Greco-Roman archaeology, it was only in the 1990s and early 2000s that thorough studies of artifact distribution reevaluated the picture derived from the texts.21 Similar approaches followed in Egyptian archaeology of the Pharaonic Period.22 With a new awareness of the validity of different sources, we cannot afford to neglect either one or the other. As this volume shows, a combination of archaeology, texts, and material culture will lead to a better understanding of the patchy remains that archaeologists and philologists encounter.
Therefore, bringing together the Greco-Roman and Egyptian worlds creates a fortunate and worthwhile opportunity. In Egypt, favorable conditions of preservation for both archaeological and textual sources allow for the combination and comparison of numerous family archives of papyri found in the vestiges of ancient houses and neighborhoods of the Greco-Roman Period.23 Because of the perturbations and formation processes of the archaeological record, some have expressed pessimism regarding the clear association of texts with particular domestic spaces, and thus the possibility of assigning owners to the different buildings and retracing their family histories in the ancient remains of their properties.24 Still, it has become clear that this approach bears enormous potential.25
Future Perspectives
Located on the imperial frontiers, Egypt naturally lends itself as a case study for investigating borderland interactions in the Greco-Roman Period. At first an outpost on the other side of the Mediterranean, Egypt hosted Greek immigrants from the seventh century BCE onward, before becoming the heart of the Ptolemaic Empire and subsequently being relegated to a province at the periphery of the vast Roman Empire. From the Greco-Roman perspective, Egypt certainly constituted a contact zone, with foreign customs and beliefs that were quickly adapted and merged with traditional Greek and Roman motifs but also respected and admired.26 In the same way, certain regions of northeast Africa, such as the western oases and parts of Nubia, constitute borderlands if viewed from the core of the Ptolemaic or Roman empires.27 These areas have brought to light a naturally mixed material culture that stresses certain markers of identity and ethnicity, displaying various strategies for living in these border zones. Especially for the Pharaonic Period, areas at the periphery of the empire’s sphere of influence and contact zones with neighboring regions, such as the eastern Nile Delta and Nubia, reveal a different picture from that gained from official records, which are mostly distorted by the representation of the ruler and shaped by territorial interests. A closer look at the archaeological evidence from settlements and a detailed study of households help to uncover multifaceted levels of cultural interaction and the creation of new identities through cultural exchange.28
Applications from the field of microarchaeology have contributed considerably to our understanding of certain practices in and around domestic space. It is the area of modern-day northern Sudan, Egyptian-occupied Nubia during the Middle and New Kingdoms, where micro- and ethnoarchaeological research coupled with experimental studies accompany the excavations at a number of sites such as Amara West and Sai Island.29 Micromorphology has revealed insights into different techniques of constructing floors in house types of Egyptian and Nubian origin. These have been confirmed by observations of traditional building in the modern villages nearby. Different types of Egyptian and Nubian cooking pots and their imitations, as evidenced by petrology, inform about varying diet. The reconstruction of an area for the preparation of food and cooking has revealed how the different types of pots were employed. In Egypt, the implementation of different microarchaeological methods in settlement excavations is considerably hampered by the fact that the Egyptian authorities currently still do not allow exportation of archaeological samples for this kind of analysis, and facilities for on-site analysis and local laboratories have only recently been developed.30 As a result, contributions with this focus were rare in the different chapters presented in this volume.31
Taken together, these studies demonstrate that there is still much to learn about ancient households. With every new angle, we can get a little closer to the lived experience of past societies, in the core and periphery of empires and in the constant exchange and negotiation between individuals and communities. As discussed in the introduction to this volume, households are clearly not passive bystanders, but influence and change societies from the bottom up. This volume showcases this theme in a very innovative way, and I look forward to exciting new avenues of research in the future!
Notes
1Cf. Parker and Foster 2012.
2Hendon 2004.
3Cf. the Heqanakht letters, which give a vivid account of a wealthy middle-class farmer’s household dealings, but were found in the debris of the entrance shaft of the tomb of Ibi, where Heqanakht was fulfilling his duty as mortuary priest (Allen 2002).
4E.g., Kemp 2018, 194–244, for Middle Kingdom communities.
5Mazzone 2017.
6Müller 2015a. A recent conference on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the excavations on Elephantine has expanded on the study of households and settlements in pharaonic Egypt and firmly established the field of household archaeology in Egyptology (Sigl 2022).
7Müller 2015b; 2015c.
8Kemp and Stevens 2010.
9Spencer 2014a; 2014b; 2015.
10Kemp 2018, 219–21; Kόthay 2001, 353–55; Muhs 2015, 326–29.
11Arnold 2015.
12Penacho 2015.
13Samuel 1999.
14Picardo 2015.
15Spence 2015; Moeller 2015. This was also stressed by Gates-Foster, Redon, and Godsey in their study of the Ptolemaic fort at Bi⸒r Samut in chapter 12, this volume.
16Weiss 2015.
17Stevens 2006.
18Jankuhn 1972.
19E.g., Hoepfner and Schwandner 1994.
20E.g., Ricke 1932; Meskell 2002. Cf. Kleinke 2007.
21E.g., Nevett 1999; Allison 2004.
22e.g., publications in the Tell el-Dab’a series; Von Pilgrim 1996.
23Van Minnen 1994.
24E.g., Landvatter 2016.
25Muhs 2008; Nevett 2011.
26Cf. Boozer 2012, 2013; Masson-Berghoff and Thomas 2019.
27Boozer 2018.
28Müller 2015d; 2019.
29Dalton 2017; Budka 2017.
30E.g., Sigl and Kopp 2020.
31Cf. Thomas, chapter 9, this volume; Boozer, chapter 8, this volume.
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