AN ONLINE LECTURE BY
SASHA BENTLEY-ROHRET
“Animals in the Urban Sphere: A Faunal Analysis from Tell Edfu”
to be held via ZOOM.
Registration for this event is required.
Textual and archaeological evidence have shown that the town of Edfu developed into an important regional center during the 3rd millennium BCE serving as a provincial capital. But with the onset of the First Intermediate Period, which is often perceived as a time of widespread famine and economic crisis, limited textual evidence and a dearth of archaeological material have obscured the realities of daily life for the inhabitants of this influential site. So what can animal remains tell us about the evolution of Tell Edfu? As most of the ancient Egyptian population consisted of agriculturalists in rural settings, animals, as well as cultivated plants, formed the basis of their economy. While excavation of the Old Kingdom area at Edfu is on-going, a great deal of faunal material has already been uncovered from late-6th Dynasty domestic contexts as well as contexts that appear to have served administrative functions related to a royal domain dating to the late-5th Dynasty. From a zooarchaeological perspective, discerning which animals were domesticated, how they were kept and maintained, and when they were butchered, provides us with a more comprehensive understanding of how these animals were incorporated into ancient Egyptian society, at both the broader city level and within the domestic domain. Was there provisioning by the state or did the inhabitants of the site prescribe to a more individualized household economic model? Through an examination of the faunal remains and the architectural features found at Edfu, we can better understand how the role of these animals changed from the Old Kingdom to the First Intermediate Period, and how ancient peoples adapted their production strategies to changing social and economic pressures.