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The aesthetics of Predynastic burial

practices
Alice Stevenson

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 The aesthetics of Predynastic Egyptian burial:
Funerary performances in the fourth millennium BC
Alice Stevenson
as364@cam.ac.uk
Gonville and Caius College, Trinity Street, Cambridge, CB2 1TA

Introduction

One of the excavators at the Predynastic cemetery site of Adaima recalled

recently the profound impression made upon him when confronted with an
ancient intact burial (similar to Fig. 1), within which the occupants were
positioned in such a careful way as to suggest that they were “… ready to
be photographed” (Crubézy 2005). The striking image that elicited this
response is just one of the many evocative representations that were created
in the space of burial at this time in Egyptian prehistory. In submitting to
our own reactions to these contexts we might be wary of the spectre of
essentialism in their interpretation. However, a materiality-based
consideration of the social role of the aesthetic and performance aspects of
burial may provide a springboard from which to assert that these structured
compositions were, in some sense, just as resonant for those in antiquity
who gazed over the grave before the deceased was finally obscured from
view.

Figure 1. Grave 171, el-Gerzeh (Wainwright 1912: pl. III).

Archaeological Review from Cambridge 22.1 2007

Alice Stevenson 77
The ancient Egyptians’ great cultural investment in the mortuary domain is
a well-recognised phenomenon, but the social implications of these
elaborate constructions have educed little comment. This may be due, in
part, to the over-dominant assumption in Egyptology that the creation of a
burial and the provisioning of grave goods was a practice related solely to
the construction of the afterlife for the deceased. Following Hertz ([1907]
1960), however, it is possible to acknowledge that the performance of burial
would have been experienced by those left behind. It was they who would
have interacted with the funerary goods, they who would have arranged the
material assemblage around the body, and they who would have been the
recipients of the sensuous elements created in the enactment of a funeral.
We should concede, therefore, that the format of each ritual deposition may
have held significance for those who attended the funeral, or for those who
otherwise interacted with the corpse and the objects accompanying it. It is
from this perspective that the present article derives by examining the
manner in which Predynastic grave goods, and their deployment within the
burial space, had an aesthetic effect that enhanced the moment of burial,
impressing itself into social memory (see for e.g. Connerton 1989), and
creating a particular representation of the deceased. Such performances, it is
argued, were not the repetition of cultic prescriptions, but were
transformative events bringing the unconscious into focus through material
networks and presentations.

Aesthetics and performance

Archaeologists have in recent years attended more closely to the possibility

of examining the emotive dimensions of archaeological contexts, including
burial (e.g. Tarlow 1999). Fears that these approaches betray an over-
extended empathy, dislocated entirely from past material contexts and past
constructions of meaning may be countered by the recognition that
emotions are not completely ephemeral, internally generated phenomena,
but rather can be created in the interaction between social agents and the
material world (Gosden 2001, 2004). By grounding interpretation in the
material properties of things, it becomes possible to conceptualise how the
qualities of tangible goods can constrain or invite certain meanings or uses
(Boivin 2004: 64). From this position, we can recognise that the paths of
signification are not finite as critics of phenomenological, or otherwise
sensual approaches, have sometimes feared.

Within such a materiality-situated perspective a consideration of aesthetics

has been seen as a way of methodologically linking material culture with
78 Aesthetics of Predynastic Egyptian burial
emotion (Gosden 2004: 37). Aesthetics within this model have little relation
to notions of high art or standards in the evaluation of beauty (Coote and
Shelton 1992: 7). Rather, the remaining semantic linkage with aesthetics, as
it is usually defined, is the notion of the affective and evocative nature of
things, together with the nature of culturally situated perception and
evaluation. This is closer to the word's Greek derivation from the verb
aesthánome, which denotes sense, feeling, understanding and the ability to
judge correctly (Seremetakis 1994: 5). The word and its further derivatives
– such as aisthitikos (denoting ‘perceptive by feeling’) – encompasses the
notion of action and power through the medium of the senses, and the media
through which sense is made (Seremetakis 1994: 5). In this understanding
of the word it is possible to recognise the objective characteristics of objects
themselves, rather than the extraneous symbolism that they may involve.
This echoes Renfrew's (2004: 30) contention that archaeologists can
identify which particular material constituents may invite symbolic usage,
without privileging the content of that symbolism.

This approach need not, therefore, be restricted to an appreciation of objects

of art. Coote (1992), for example, has extended the notion to items that are
not typically considered ‘art’, such as the cattle of Nilotic peoples. Coote
maintains that the “… study of a society’s visual aesthetic... should be
devoted to the identification of the particular qualities of form – shape,
colour, sheen, pattern, proportion and so on – recognised within that
society… ” (Coote 1992: 248). These are properties that we can identify
and contextualise archaeologically, such as has been attempted by Gosden
(2001, 2004) and Pollard (2001). Neither argue that we can understand the
experience past people had of these materials, but rather they contend that
we may recognise the ways in which past individuals and groups actively
structured their world through engagement with particular kinds of material
goods and particular forms of action. Aesthetics may thus “... be extended
to encompass an understanding of styles of action considered proper and
efficacious, and which drew in a knowledgeable and skilful fashion on
specific understanding of the world and the order of things" (Pollard 2001:
317). These ideas may be applied to the analysis of burials. By examining
the choreography of bodies and artefacts within burial spaces, together with
the material constituents of those spaces, it may be possible to identify
strategies by which impressions of identity and the social world were staged
by the survivors.

In this formulation of aesthetics, the manner in which values or ideas are

expressed becomes important, and a clear link with performance can be
Alice Stevenson 79
made. Performance may be integral to the intensity and evocativeness of the
aesthetic experience. Following Seremetakis (1994: 7), performance is not
considered here to be just the enactment of a pre-existing code, but rather it
is a mediation of memory and meaning. The notion of drama and enactment
has been employed in a number of archaeological investigations of ancient
burials (e.g. Barrett 1994, Pearson 1998, Thomas 1999), and it serves to
focus attention upon the experience of the audience or ritual participants in
the mortuary rites. Ancient Egyptian burials in general may be a particularly
fertile case study for performance-based approaches since ancient
Egyptians, of the historic period at least, tended to dramatize their loss on a
communal scale, thus making loss bearable through public display.

The Predynastic period

The fourth millennium BC along the Nile, from the Mediterranean to the
First Cataract (Fig. 2), is characterised as a period of relatively rapid
development in social complexity, from the appearance of sedentary
agriculturalist groups, to the emergence of the early Egyptian state (for
summaries see Bard 1994a, Midant-Reynes 2000, Savage 2001). Part of this
process was purported to have involved the integration of the two lands of
Egypt, Upper and Lower Egypt, an ideological division that was prevalent
in later historical thought. This bipartite separation has been seen
materialised in Predynastic society, perhaps too simply, as the 'Maadi-Buto
culture' of Lower Egypt, and the 'Naqada culture' of Upper Egypt. The latter
is credited with instigating and achieving ascendancy over the former.

A central methodology that has been implemented to trace this process has
been to document the transformation of Lower Egyptian ceramic
inventories from locally produced wares to those previously only attested in
Upper Egypt. Although current trends have downplayed the differences
between these societies (Köhler 1995, 1996), the discourse remains fixated
upon the reality of ‘cultures’ with differences dismissed as being merely
‘stylistic’ (Köhler 1996: 216). This, however, does little to explain those
differences in social terms (Shennan 1989: 19). Our models of this period
would thus benefit from a re-orientation of the interpretive outlook, from
searching for ‘cultures’ to considering active social practice and the
construction of identities (Diaz-Andreu and Lucy 2005, Schortman 1989:
2). This frame of reference demands our attention be paid as much to the
way in which materials were used, constituted, and experienced as to the
basic facts of their form.
80 Aesthetics of Predynastic Egyptian burial

Lower
Egypt

Upper
Egypt

Figure 2. Map of Predynastic Egypt.

Predynastic burials

Our evidence for this phase derives predominantly from burials. This is a
legacy of late nineteenth and early twentith century excavation preferences
and geophysical transformations of the Nile Valley, which have had a
Alice Stevenson 81
detrimental effect upon settlement remains (Butzer 1966, 1976). The
principal mode of interment was inhumation in simple oval to rectangular
pits. Bodies were laid on their sides, in the foetal position, and their hands
clasped in front of their faces. The body was often placed on, in, or under a
mat. The amount and quality of grave goods accompanying the deceased
varied, but they usually included pottery vessels, and often beads, pendants,
stone vessels, palettes and flint tools. The studies that have been made of
Predynastic burial contexts have tended to concentrate upon the abstraction
of chronological schemes or the measurement of hierarchy and ‘status’ (e.g
Bard 1994b, Castillos 1982, Griswold 1992, Savage 1997, Wilkinson 1996).
Notwithstanding the integrity and value of these works, this restrictive focus
has nevertheless marginalised a great diversity in post-mortem treatments
clearly present in the Predynastic and which remain to be fully explained by
current models of competitive status display. Taking time to consider the
minutiae of individual configurations of burial goods through the concepts
of aesthetics and performance, in addition to broad trends, can be one way
to enrich our engagement with the wealth of cemetery data available from
this period.

There is the general tendency to see the creation of these mortuary contexts
as being for the benefit of the deceased (e.g. Midant-Reynes 2000: 187).
Certainly, the notion of a ‘good burial’ following the correct funerary rituals
was a concern for Egyptians in later historical epochs, as it was perceived to
be necessary for the rebirth of the individual (Meskell 1999: 121). Yet, the
often diligent construction of many such spaces, and the careful articulation
of bodies and objects within the frame of the grave pit, may suggest that the
tomb was intended to be on view and could form an arena for display
(Thomas 1999: 160). The attempt to manipulate the corpse’s features to
emulate the appearance of a person ‘at rest’, for instance, makes particular
appeal to the sense of sight. The end result could provide a ‘memory
picture’ (Tarlow 2002: 93), the last compelling image of the deceased that
may be retained by the survivors (Hallam and Hockey 2001: 132), and the
funeral could be seen to be directed towards this moment of 'visual
perfection' (Pearson 1998: 32).

A salient example here is a Predynastic burial of a woman excavated

recently at the site of Hierakonpolis (Friedman 1998). When uncovered, this
intact interment at first appeared unremarkable, with the repose of the
corpse conforming to the norm. Yet, a closer inspection revealed that a large
portion of the left part of her cranium was absent, seemingly from a blow to
the back of the head resulting in her death. The funeral organisers had been
82 Aesthetics of Predynastic Egyptian burial
careful, however, to comb over the hair from the left side to the intact right
side of her skull to create the illusion of completeness. The motivation
attributed by the excavator for this treatment was that it was “to make her
appear whole and normal for eternity” (Friedman 1998: 7). It is equally
possible, however, that this portrayal of the individual was deliberately
staged so that the survivors’ confrontation with the dead body could
instantiate familiarity, recognition and connection, a prerequisite for the
formation of social memories (Hallam and Hockey 2001: 109).

The body within this visual context seems therefore to have had efficacy as
a signifying centre (Seremetakis 1991: 177), around which, further
meanings could be created and expressed. The linkages between artefacts
and bodies were, in some contexts, particularly intimate with meaningful
and prominent convergences between specific individuals and material
forms, reifying perceptions of such persons. Objects were often seemingly
chosen for a particular burial on account of their qualities, such as
appearance, patina, texture or size. At the Upper Egyptian cemetery of
Adaima, for example, the burial of two males who had in life suffered
bodily malformations as a result of tuberculosis, were provided with
ceramic vessels which had been deformed deliberately prior to firing
(Buchez 1998: 99). The physical deformity of these individuals was thus
rendered in their grave goods, amplifying this particular aspect of
appearance. As an example, therefore, of a very tangible and direct
extension of person beyond the body, it is possible to conceive how this
materialisation could have allowed the funeral participants to engage
directly with the person by proxy, via the shared experience of objects
resonant of the deceased’s physical being. We might tentatively envision,
for example, such artefacts being passed around by members of funereal
entourage before being placed in the tomb. Handling of such tactile objects
in this manner could have triggered embodied sensations of both presence
and absence. A similar linkage may seen in the observation that artefact
miniatures seem to be associated with infants and children (Buchez 1998:
101). Such miniaturisation need not result in a devaluation of these as ‘toys’
or ‘models’. These diminutive items may have been perfectly functional in
the context of the requirements of funerary display, aesthetics, embodied
experience and performance. Such practices underscore the explicit concern
of Predynastic communities with the aesthetic construction of some
mortuary spaces, with particular objects selected for their fit, balance and
dynamism (Pearson 1998: 37).
Alice Stevenson 83
The decisions upon which these constructions were made would have been
drawn from a corpus of specialist knowledge of certain mortuary traditions.
It has been suggested that these mortuary traditions included a 'formula' for
the deposition of objects around the corpse. Early in the history of the
excavation of Upper Egyptian Predynastic cemeteries Petrie noted that “…
each object had its appointed position” and that there were “fixed rituals for
funeral observance” (1939: 35). These supposed rules have been reiterated
ever since, without critical evaluation. Nevertheless, deviations from the
supposed burial ‘formula’ were dramatically manifest in those contexts
where the human remains had been subject to secondary burial rites, with
parts of the body removed or re-arranged within the grave (Petrie and
Quibell 1896: 28, 32, pls. LXXXII–LXXXIII; Randall-MacIver and Mace
1902: 19, pl. V, Wainwright 1912: 8–15). There had been some doubt as to
the veracity of these observations (e.g. Vandier 1952: 248), and they were
dismissed as being local vagaries in mortuary practice, or else
misinterpretations of disturbed contexts. However, recent excavations
conducted under more stringent procedures have validated Petrie’s original
hypothesis of deliberate bodily mutilation. At Adaima, for example, the
removal of the skull after the decomposition of the soft tissues has been
demonstrated (Midant-Reynes et al. 1996: 96). As commented by Wengrow
and Baines (2004: 1097), secondary burial rites like this suggest a more
creative interplay with traditional funereal arrangements than is often
acknowledged.

We need not, however, confine ourselves to the examination of

extraordinary practices in order to appreciate the creative improvisation of
mortuary performances. Even when we consider seemingly typical
interments, it is possible to identify innovative plays on the presentation of
individuals in death.

Contrary to Petrie’s assertion that the layout of the grave was formulaic, it is
clear that across all cemeteries in Upper Egypt, no two burials were
identical. Despite underlying trends that bespeak of a continuity in broader
levels of social practice, local and individualistic aspects were worked into
every representation of the deceased. The cemetery of el-Gerzeh in Lower
Egypt (Wainwright 1912),1 dated to c. 3600–3350 BC (Naqada IIC–IID2)
exemplifies these issues. As the eponymous site of the period, the burial
treatments across the approximately 289 burials conform to typical trends
evident in Upper Egypt at this time, despite the site's distance from the
nearest contemporary cemetery. The composition of the assemblages and
their articulation during funerals, for instance, demonstrates clear linkages
84 Aesthetics of Predynastic Egyptian burial
with the practices of the communities in the south. For example, ripple-
flaked flint knives were ‘killed’ prior to interment, green malachite was
placed in the deceased's hands, the distinctive wavy-handled jars were most
often placed at the head of the corpse, whilst large storage jars were
generally laid below the feet, just as within graves of the classic 'Naqada
culture'. A few burials also had convincing evidence of secondary mortuary
treatment, such as repositioning or removal of the skull, practices that were
rare, but nevertheless were a feature of some Upper Egyptian mortuary
rites. The performance of these burials thus drew from a wider body of
esoteric knowledge of the symbolic order of things (Pollard 2001), which
may have derived from memories of previous ceremonies or else from
direct knowledge of them. This suggests that the community represented at
this cemetery were embedded within wider Naqadan social narratives as
opposed to a separate group that had merely adopted the Upper Egyptian
material repertoire.

Nevertheless, local peculiarities and individual idiosyncrasies are evident in

the orchestration of certain graves. In a small proportion of burials, artefacts
that were otherwise generally found in a particular locus were placed in
alternative locations within the grave pit. Some deviations may have had a
pragmatic basis, whilst in others the possible reasons for alternative
arrangements are not so clear. Yet, even in contexts that conform to the
apparent dictum of storage jars to the lower end of the grave and wavy-
handled jars to the top, the space in-between was subject to great variation
in object placement, sometimes with similar objects clustered together,
sometimes with similar objects separated into groups. Rather than there
being a universal set of rules governing arrangement as suggested by Petrie,
there may have been general preferences that permitted a more
improvisatory performance of burial mediating between memory and
meaning (Hakenbeck 2004: 52, Pollard 2001: 316, Thomas 1999: 78–79).
The attendant rituals that we can archaeologically discern, therefore, both
drew from, and recreated, evocative images that were reminiscent of
traditional practices but which had both local and individual tints.

In a few cases, aesthetic judgement is clear in the distinct conscious

eclecticism of the sundry of materials enclosed within burial contexts. The
assemblage in grave 133 (Fig. 3), for instance, was composed of a diversity
of materials, colours and textures that created a microcosm of the natural
world within the confines of the one particular burial space. This included
beads of vibrant blue lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, glossy black obsidian
from Ethiopia or the Near East, iridescent meteoric iron of unknown
Alice Stevenson 85
provenance, as well as carnelian and gold from the Eastern Desert. Also set
in the grave were lumps of vivid green malachite from the Eastern Desert or
Sinai, shells from the Mediterranean and Red Seas, red coloured resin from
western Asia, two canine teeth of a dog or jackal, and a scatter of 16 natural
pebbles of carnelian, green jasper and quartz, some smooth, some rough,
others glossy, and others matt. The bringing together of such a wide corpus
of material from all across Egypt and beyond, to be placed in one context,
may have signified that this individual possessed, had access to, or was
otherwise associated in death with specialist knowledge of far-off places
(Helms 1986), or of the properties of the earth’s resources.

Fig 3. Part of assemblage from grave 133, el-Gerzeh (Wainwright 1912, pl. IV).

The enactment within this mortuary space of such a miniaturised geography

could be considered as a moment of dramatic display, and the aesthetic
86 Aesthetics of Predynastic Egyptian burial
effect created by the juxtaposition of exotic materials of different textures
and colours could have made apparent certain relationships between people,
places and things in an evocative way that would visually impress the
moment of interment upon memory (Jones 2005: 175). We might also
speculate on the interactions between people and objects as the different
materials were presented to the deceased in front of an audience of
survivors, who may have held and experienced the objects directly before
interment. Even if the interaction was only visual, however, such materials
could have appealed to the other senses, since the manner in which visual
experience forms in memory is situated within bodily practice and lived
material environments (Hallam and Hockey 2001: 153).

Figure 4. Drawing of grave 105, el-Gerzeh (from original tomb card,

Petrie Museum).

Not all interments, however, need to have encoded specific statements or

commentaries on particular identities per se such as this, but may
nevertheless have had a certain similar evocative effect. The desire to 'read'
too much into the status of objects within graves is perhaps a hangover from
the model of material culture as text, but the limitations of such logocentric
approaches can be countered by consideration of aesthetics. As argued by
Pollard, there are instances of deposition in which the "... considered
placement of items... is not fully explained by their role as components in an
Alice Stevenson 87
orchestrated process of signification: there is often a certain 'style' to
deposition that demands explanation" (Pollard 2001: 316). Graves 105 and
106 at Gerzeh, for instance, display an almost regimented placement of
objects with jars placed neatly in parallel to the body, mirroring and
emphasising the body (Fig. 4). Sometimes these framing objects entirely
encircled the body, whilst in other burials they were aligned or clustered at
particular nodes, often emphasising the hands or head. In other contexts,
small flint bladelets were not heaped simply into the grave, but were
carefully set out in rows along the forearm of the grave occupant. There is
an effect of order and the creation of a staged image here, the aesthetic
effect of which may have influenced the way in which the dead were
remembered (Wengrow and Baines 2004: 1097, Williams 2003: 231).2

If we compare these carefully choreographed graves with those of groups

designated as 'Maadi-Buto' groups, then the contrast in attitudes to the dead
is clear. The “… impression given by the burials at Maadi is that the vessels
were put at random into the grave” (Rizkana and Seeher 1990: 27).
Moreover, the grave pits were narrow, and bodies had to be forced into the
graves in a manner which suggested to the excavators that “… the ancient
Maadians apparently were not much interested in preparing a comfortable
place for the eternal repose of their dead” (Rizkana and Seeher 1990: 23).
These burials were constructed within a limited space, with the body placed
within the oval pit, surrounded by little in the way of structural detail. The
largest proportion of graves contained no grave goods whatsoever. Where a
burial assemblage was included, the number of objects was few, and
typically comprised plain pottery vessels. In these contexts it was the body
that was the singular focus of the grave, rather than acting as a foundation
around which object associations, meanings and images could be
constructed or experienced. This is not to suggest that these communities
were any less complex in their social management of death, which may
have been conducted away from the mortuary arena or in an intangible or
ephemeral manner. Instead, it highlights the way in which the performance
of their funerals engendered an alternative set of values that serve to
distinguish them from those groups in Upper Egypt and Gerzeh. This is
more than a matter of style. It is a fundamental difference in the experience
and reflexive understanding of how identities are materially constructed and
performed during the social upheaval following death.
88 Aesthetics of Predynastic Egyptian burial
Conclusion

Aesthetic judgement can be identified in many Predynastic graves in the

selection of particular objects with specific properties for burial with certain
individuals. These may relate strongly to perceptions of aspects of a
person's identities, and a knowledgeable evaluation by those organising the
funeral on the most appropriate way to materialise these. Other aesthetic
judgements can be seen in the configuration of certain graves, where the
conscientious placement of objects and bodies created an impression that
need not have referenced the identity of the deceased directly, yet framed it,
enhancing the moment of burial. In either case, the material performance
could be expressive on a communicative plane that allowed the display of
ideas and emotions that may have otherwise been too complex to put into
words, but whose effect may have been felt long after the grave pit was
filled. Non-verbal materiality is of central importance (Tilley 2006: 62).
Burial assemblages may not have been staged therefore as coherent
statements to be read, as much as situationalised meanings that were to be
sensually evoked through the material performances that forged memory.
These are impressions of the social world, not reflections, and their
semantic content may elude us, but their substance remains.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Barry Kemp and Catherine Hills for reading and commenting upon
earlier drafts of this text.

Notes
1
The original publication of the site is brief, as was typical for the time.
Fortunately, the tomb cards recording each grave are held in the Petrie Museum of
Egyptian Archaeology, in London, and it is from these data, in addition to the sparse
details of the publication, that this discussion is based upon.
1
In contrast, there are a number of burials that were not carefully constructed and in
which the corpse was simply wrapped in a mat and buried. This may mean that the
funereal entourage beside the grave pit was small and the opportunities for
contemplative viewing and interaction within the deceased at the grave-side more
limited. Aspects of forgetting rather than remembering may have been at play here.

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