A New Kingdom Domestic Environment at South Karnak: Preliminary Interpretation of Findings at the Mut Precinct and Their Relation to Other New Kingdom Domestic Sites

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2005 and from 2018 to 2020, the Johns Hopkins University Expedition at the Mut Precinct in Luxor (ancient Thebes), Egypt, unearthed New Kingdom domestic material, preliminarily dated to the first half of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The findings included a considerable number of articulated, mainly red painted, mud brick features in close proximity to two column bases and a stone feature consisting of pavers and a standing sandstone architectural element with a cavetto cornice and torus roll. Originally interpreted as a small neighborhood chapel, the nature of this domestic environment has been revised based on new findings, more closely relating to “reception rooms” in houses at Amarna and Deir el-Medina. The sandstone feature bears a striking likeness to a “divan,” and the painted mud brick is consistent with niches and altars found in such rooms, with the color red appearing almost exclusively on door frames and niches. However, the style of painting at Mut is distinctly unique. These findings provide new insight into domestic life and religion prior to the Amarna period and likely identify a local regional style in domestic architecture, possibly speaking to the representativeness of Deir el-Medina to other New Kingdom habitation sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33165