Denise M. Doxey Livres

Ancient Nubia was home to a series of civilizations between the sixth millennium BCE and 350 CE that produced towering monuments, including more pyramids than in neighboring Egypt, and artifacts of enduring beauty and significance. Nubia's trade network reached across the Mediterranean and far into Africa. At the time that Nubian kings conquered Egypt, in the middle of the eighth century BCE, they controlled one of the largest empires of the ancient world. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has the most extensive and important collection of ancient Nubian art outside of Khartoum, mostly gathered during the pioneering Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition in the first half of the 20th century. The objects highlighted in this volume include refined early ceramics, monumental statues and relief carvings made for royal pyramids, exquisite gold and enamel jewelry, playful decorations for furniture and clothing, and luxury goods traded from around the Mediterranean world.

Evocative photographs of a major archaeological expedition from the last century, conveying the effort and excitement of discovery and the austere beauty of the desert landscape. Specially trained Egyptian photographers were an integral part of the pioneering Harvard-MFA expedition during the first half of the twentieth century. Their photographs documented the excavations with thousands of images, as the riches of a great ancient civilization in northern Sudan were uncovered. The best of these photographs bring to life the dramatic landscapes of the Nile Valley, the excitement of archaeological discovery, and the artistry of the photographers who recorded it all.

This book is about epithets on Egyptian monumental inscriptions, and about the conclusions one may draw from them. Epithets in the first place characterize the owner of the text and encourage others to maintain his memorial cult. Though formulaic and not describing actual historical events, this thorough study points out that these epithets are in fact "valuable indicators of religious, social and political attitudes," In the case of this volume, the author analyses the epithets of non-royal officials from the Middle Kingdom (c. 2040-1640 BCE). Drawing on evidence from several hundred inscriptions, it assesses the relationship of elite, scribal-class officials to their gods, the king, each other, and their dependants, and discusses the Egyptian world view, beliefs about the afterlife, and the changing role of elite provincial administrators relative to the central administration. It also studies the effect of an inscription's context and its owner's official titles on the subject matter of the epithets.