Der Alltag des Todes

In Der Alltag des Todes, Claudia Näser explores mortuary practices in New Kingdom Egypt (1470–1070 BC) based on a dataset from Deir el-Medina, the community of workmen who built the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Highly skilled, these workmen also constructed their own tombs in the cemeteries around Deir el-Medina. Their use of mortuary consumption to negotiate professional and social positions led to the development of a commercial sector for the production of decorated funerary objects, primarily coffins, with an accompanying textual record.

Combining archaeological and textual evidence, Claudia Näser outlines the development of mortuary practices in this tightly-knit community across four hundred years. She reconstructs and systematizes the processes of assembling the burial equipment and the mechanics of the burial itself. She also discusses a range of later 'intracultural' interventions, in­cluding grave plundering and subsequent inspections, tidying-up and reburial. Using a micro-historical approach, Claudia Näser reveals a multi­dimen­si­onal network of actors and factors that con­ditioned mortuary expressions: religious concepts, access to knowledge and economic resources, individual and collective experiences and aspirations, as well as the contingencies of when and how someone died. Across 600 pages, Der Alltag reveals a uniquely detailed panorama of ancient Egyptian mortuary practices.