ARCE-PA: Politics of Placement: Development of the 18th Dynasty Theban Necropolis by Dr. JJ Shirley

Lecture Information:

In the 18th Dynasty the Theban Necropolis became a preferred location for elite burials, witnessing an explosion of tomb construction. But how did officials decide where to place their tombs? What were the determining factors? Rock quality, location on the mountain, spatial relationship to royal mortuary temples, status, some combination of these?

This talk focuses on the development of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna during the 18th Dynasty to examine the changes and shifts that took place both in tomb location and in which officials were able to build tombs. Certainly, a major purpose of a tomb was to enhance one’s afterlife, and thus having a good view to the royal mortuary temples and access to royal and sacred festival processions would have played a role in where a tomb was placed.

However, there are also clear indications that a tomb served as a reflection of one’s place in the living world. As such, a tomb owner’s family and career could help to determine a tomb’s location in the necropolis. By examining the tombs from the perspective of the officials’ lives, it becomes clear that who one was, both in terms of family and career – which after all is how an ancient Egyptian defined himself – seems to have been a dominating factor in tomb placement within Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, but likely carried through into other parts of the necropolis as well.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. JJ Shirley received her PhD from The Johns Hopkins University, and has taught Egyptian Art, Archaeology and Language at the University of Michigan, University of Wales, Swansea, and as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Bryn Mawr College. Since 2007 she has been the Managing Editor for the Journal of Egyptian History, published by Brill. She has been ARCE-PA’s Vice President for many years, and also serves on several ARCE National committees. In 2014 Dr. Shirley founded the TT110 Field School, which focuses on epigraphic, illustration, and research training for Egyptian Ministry officials, and for which she has received three Antiquities Endowment Fund grants from the American Research Center in Egypt.

Dr. Shirley’s research interests include Late Second Intermediate Period and Early New Kingdom socio-political history and administration, power dynamics in the ancient world, manifestations of social status in art and architecture, Theban Tombs, and landscape archaeology. Her published work to date has largely focused on the intersection of prosopography and the socio-political history of Dynasty 18. She is currently working on a full publication of TT110 utilizing the new drawings produced by the field school students.