04

Apr

ARCE-NE: Plunder in Ancient Egypt: A View from Lists of Spoils of War by Uroš Matic

Registration is Required

  • 5:00 PMNew England
  • In-Person/OnlineRhode Island Hall (the Joukowsky Institute), room 108 (60 George St, Providence, RI 02912, Brown University)
  • + Add to Calendar
Register Now

Lecture Information

Relief of Seti I’s war scenes in Syria and Palestine New Kingdom, Dynasty 18 (~1290 .C.) Karnak Temple Complex, Precinct of Amun-Re, Great Hypostyle Hall

Looting in armed conflicts is attested in ancient Egypt at least since the Early Dynastic Period, which is also when the earliest lists of spoils of war appear. The number of known lists increases in subsequent periods (Old to Middle Kingdom), forming a considerable corpus in the New Kingdom, when Egyptian imperialism reached its peak. An analysis of the content and structure of these lists reveals a long tradition of organizing plunder into categories such as humans, animals, and objects. Furthermore, several lists clearly indicate the classification of plundered humans and animals according to status and gender. In the New Kingdom, this is further confirmed by visual representations of the registration of spoils of war in tribute scenes from the tombs of state officials, many of whom held military positions. Additionally, such representations appear on temple walls. Therefore, multiple lines of evidence can be used to reconstruct actual practices following the aftermath of war.

This lecture examines New Kingdom Egyptian lists of spoils of war to reconstruct ancient Egyptian plundering practices, with a particular focus on the logistics and administration of looting, as well as the impact of plunder on the economies and demographics of both Egyptians and their neighbors. Furthermore, so-called “autobiographical” accounts from the tombs of state officials and visual depictions of spoils of war will be analyzed to explore the role of booty in shaping the status and agency of the New Kingdom Egyptian elite.

Speaker Bio

Uroš Matić is an assistant professor at the Institute for Ancient History and the Ancient Near Eastern Studies, University of Innsbruck in Austria and a lecturer at the Institute for Classics, University of Graz in Austria. His main expertise is in war and violence in ancient Egypt, ancient Egyptian interrelations, settlement archaeology and gender studies in archaeology. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Münster in 2017 and received two prizes for this work (Philippika prize of Harrassowitz in 2018 and Best Publication Award of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 2020).

Starting in March 2025 he will join the College for Social Sciences and Humanities of the Ruhr University Alliance based in Essen Germany as a visiting Senior Fellow. He has over 100 publications, the most recent being the monograph Violence and Gender in Ancient Egypt (Routledge, 2021) and the edited volumes Beautiful Bodies. Gender and Corporeal Aesthetics in the Past (Oxbow Books, 2022) and Bodies that Mattered. Ancient Egyptian Corporealities (Sidestone Press, forthcoming in 2025, with Dina Serova).