Kinship and Family in Ancient Egypt
Archaeology and Anthropology in Dialogue

Uses primary evidence to ask anthropological questions about kinship and families in ancient Egyptian society.

Leire Olabarria (Author)

9781108498777, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 February 2020

292 pages
26 x 18.4 x 1.8 cm, 0.77 kg

'… this is an interesting and thought provoking study that generates genuinely novel social analyses.' Tom Landvatter, African Archaeological Review

In this interdisciplinary study, Leire Olabarria examines ancient Egyptian society through the notion of kinship. Drawing on methods from archaeology and sociocultural anthropology, she provides an emic characterisation of ancient kinship that relies on performative aspects of social interaction. Olabarria uses memorial stelae of the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom (ca.2150–1650 BCE) as her primary evidence. Contextualising these monuments within their social and physical landscapes, she proposes a dynamic way to explore kin groups through sources that have been considered static. The volume offers three case studies of kin groups at the beginning, peak, and decline of their developmental cycles respectively. They demonstrate how ancient Egyptian evidence can be used for cross-cultural comparison of key anthropological topics, such as group formation, patronage, and rites of passage.

Part I. Ancient Egyptian Kinship in Context: 1. Introduction: ancient Egyptian kinship between relatedness and material agency
2. Understanding the sources: dating, characterisation, contextualisation, and display
3. Setting the terms: etic and emic approaches to ancient Egyptian relatedness
4. Between the emic and the etic: kin groups in ancient Egypt
5. Dynamising kin groups
Part II. On Koinographic Analysis: 6. The birth of a kin group: from filiation to group formation
7. The summit of a developmental cycle: non-genealogical relatedness
8. Displaying decline: survival strategies and marriage patterns
9. Conclusions: the dynamism of the social fabric.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Egyptian archaeology / Egyptology [HDDG], Archaeology [HD]