How did the burial practices in Egypt change from the Neolithic period to the Roman period?
Research proposal: Eyptian Burial Practices during Neolithic and Roman Era
By: Hanan Khan
100479173
Instructor: Caitlin Gordon Walker
June 13,2014
Research question: How did the burial practices in Egypt change from the Neolithic period to the Roman period?
.The research I will be conducting will be on the burial practices in Egypt. The proposal focuses on the Neolithic period to the Roman era of Egypt. My research will be on cultural anthropology and biological anthropology. The first article that will be used in the research summarizes different shapes and sizes of graves in the western desert of South Egypt. It is stated in the article that during the Neolithic Era in South Egypt “Each grave had its own individual pattern of decoration; characteristic ornamentation motifs are geometric figures, like triangles, diamonds, or curved bands filled with a rocker stamp design(Kobusiewicz et al., 2004).” The second article talks about the fetal skeletons from the East cemetery in Egypt during the Roman era. It states that “Fetal skeletons are rare, however, largely due to poor preservation and recovery, misidentification, or non-inclusion in general burial populations (Tocheri et al., 2005)”. The third article is an analysis of ancient Egyptian funerary artefacts dated from the New kingdom to the Graeco-Roman period, ca (3900-1800) years B.P (Edwards, Villar, David &Faria, 2003). The fourth article is on the Burial and the dead in ancient Egyptian society. It is stated in the article that “The ancient Egyptian ideal was that in death people should be buried in a splendid and everlasting tomb that supplied a visible memorial to them (Baines& Lacovara, 2002)”. In the last article the author conducted a research on burial practices in Roman Egypt, in her thesis she stated that “Roman period burials and examines not simply mummiform coffins, but a variety of funerary equipment in order to help explain the complex nature of the burial practices of the denizens of the Nile Valley (Eugene& Riggs, 2011)”.
References
Kobusiewicz M, Kabacinski J, Schild R, Irish J, Wendorf F. Discovery of the first
Neolithic cemetery in Egypt’s western desert. Antiquity [serial online]. September
2004; 78(301):566-578. Available from: Academic Search Elite, Ipswich, MA.
Accessed June 14, 2014
This article talks about the different shapes and sizes of graves in the western desert south Egypt. It will help my research as it talks about the graves from the Neolithic era of Egypt and the different shapes and sizes of graves during that era.
Tocheri, L., Dupras, T., Sheldrick, P. and Molto, J. (2005). Roman period fetal
skeletons from the east cemetery (Kellis 2) of Kellis, Egypt. International Journal of
Osteoarchaeology, [online] 15, pp.326-341. Available at:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.cat1.lib.trentu.ca:8080/doi/10.1002/oa.784/pdf.
This article talks about the fetal skeletons from the East cemetery in Egypt during the Roman era. This will help my research as it states about how the fetal skeletons were so rare during the Roman era of Egypt.
Edwards, H ., Villar, S., David, R., &Faria, D. (2003). Nondestructive analysis of ancient
Egyptian funerary relics by Raman spectroscopic techniques, Analytica Chimica
Acta, 223-233
This article is an spectroscopic analysis of a range of ancient Egyptian funerary artefacts dated from the New kingdom to the Graeco-Roman period, ca (3900-1800). This will help me in my research as it talks about the Egyptian funerary artefacts from to the New kingdom to the Roman period.
Baines, J., &Lacovara P. (2002). Burial and the dead in ancient Egyptian society, Journal
of Social Archaeology, 2(1), 5-36
This article talks about the Burial and the dead in ancient Egyptian society, and states how dead people in Egypt should be buried in a splendid everlasting tomb that supplied a visible memorial. This helps my research as it states how Egyptians wanted the dead to be buried in a splendid which has a memory for the person for the dead person.
Eugene, C., &Riggs C. (2011). The beautiful burial in Roman Egypt: Art, identity,
and funerary religion, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 70(1), 143-144
This article states burial practices in Roman Egypt. The author considers a series of Roman period burials to complete her research. This helps my research as the author talks about burial practices during the Roman era of Egypt.
