Book Series Aegyptologica Pisana, vol. 1

Clashing Religions in Ancient Egypt

Exploring Different Layers of Religious Beliefs

Marilina Betrò, Gianluca Miniaci (eds)

  • Pages: approx. 291 p.
  • Size:178 x 254 mm
  • Illustrations:21 b/w, 24 col.
  • Language(s):English
  • Publication Year:2025


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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-61416-8
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  • € 125,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE


Subject(s)
BIO

Marilina Betrò is Full Professor of Egyptology at the University of Pisa and Head of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Egyptian Museum in Turin. Since 2003, she has been the Director of the Archaeological Mission of the University of Pisa in the necropolis of ancient Thebes, at Dra Abu el-Naga – Gurna (Luxor – Egypt). She is the editor-in-chief of the scientific journal “Egitto e Vicino Oriente”. Her main research interests concern the archaeology and history of Thebes, the history of Egyptology principally through the study and publication of Ippolito Rosellini’s archives, Egyptian religion, and religious texts. She is the author of about two hundred publications, including fourteen monographs, one of which is “Geroglifici”, translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Portuguese.

Gianluca Miniaci is associate professor of Egyptology at the University of Pisa. He has co-directed the archaeological mission at Zawyet Sultan in Middle Egypt since 2014. He is editor-in-chief of several series, amongst which “Ancient Egypt in Context” (Cambridge University Press), “Middle Kingdom Studies” (Golden House Publications) and “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Ancient Societies” (Oxbow). His research interests focus on social history and the dynamics of material culture between Egypt, the Levant and Nubia in the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550 BC). He is author of over one hundred publications, including the following monographs, Rishi Coffins (London 2011), Le Lettere ai Morti (Brescia 2014), The Middle Kingdom Ramesseum Papyri Tomb (London 2020), Faience figurines in Middle Bronze Age Egypt, Nubia and the Levant (Leuven 2024), and Faience Figurines in their Archaeological and Museological Contexts (Leuven 2024).

Summary

What did ‘religion’ mean for the Ancient Egyptians? Was the state involved in acting as a unifying and founding force for Egyptian religion or can we still identify some clashes between different religious practices? To what extent did different rituals, practices, and beliefs intersect and merge across time and space? Such questions have long preoccupied scholars working in the field, but they have often only been considered through the lens of official, ‘centralized’ texts. Yet increasingly, there is an acknowledgment that such texts require calibration from archaeological data in order to offer a more nuanced understanding of how people must have lived and worshipped.

The chapters gathered in the volume aim to offer a thorough exploration of Egyptian cultural and religious beliefs, and to explore how these impacted on other areas of daily life. Contributors explore the connection between religion and central power, the paradigms around burial and access to the afterlife, the interconnections between religion, demonology, magic, and medicine, and the impact of multicultural interaction on the religious landscape. What emerges from this discussion is an understanding that the only truly identifiable clash is that between modern, Eurocentric perspectives and the views of the ancient Egyptians themselves.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

1. Introduction: Clashing Religions?
Marilina Betrò

2. Religion and Community in Egypt in the Third Millennium BC
Juan Carlos Moreno García

3. Festivals, Religion and Economy. The Evidence from the Sun Temple of Niuserre
Massimiliano Nuzzolo

4. The Changing Face of Royal Patronage at Abydos in The Old Kingdom (Fourth – Sixth Dynasties)
Paul Whelan

5. Ancient Egyptian Demonology between Modern Preconceptions and New Perspectives
Gabriele Mario Conte

6. A Princess’ Burial: Funerals and Ancestor Cult in the Extended Royal Family in the Time of Amenhotep III
Susanne Bickel

7. Modelling Strategies of Commemoration. The Case of the Huy Clan
Lara Weiss

8. Athena-Minerva and Zeus-Jupiter in Egypt. Reflections on a Relief in the Cairo Museum (CGC 27570)
Gaelle Tallet

9. Poseidon in the Theban Desert. Stratigraphies of Beliefs and Layered Reminiscences of the Religious Past in Late Antique Egyptian Literature
Paola Buzi

10. When Religion Becomes Countable: The Case of Ancient Egypt
Gianluca Miniaci