SCHEDULE AND SESSIONS

TUESDAY November 7, 2007: Kingship, Traditions and Innovations (I)

Session I
Kingship and the Nature of its Tradition
Papers by D.B. Dickson, D. Charpin, and T. Schneider

9:00-11:00 Discussion
Coffee Break (11:00-11:30)
11:30-1:00 p.m. Discussion

Break for Lunch (1:00-2:00 p.m.)

The session should examine the definitions of kingship in the Egyptian and Mesopotamian states, with focus on the traditional role of the king in his divine function of cosmic ruler, high priest, mediator with the gods, and archenemy of chaos. Tradition is a cognitive factor that plays a fundamental role in the construction of royal ideology. It concerns the royal deeds and rituals whose performance and application activate the normative system of ancient values that favor and impose the ruling into the present. Royal contexts and actions influence social expectations and religious beliefs, and become mental conditions for the ruled to acknowledge the transmission of royal power into the legitimate king.
Through means of textual, decorative, and monumental productions, the king established himself as inheritor of a tradition extending back into prehistory by appealing to the founding ideology of the nation and the social memory. The discussion should analyze both the purpose and role that the concept of king played in society on an etic level and how the literary-historical tradition, monumental architecture and inscriptions in Egypt and Mesopotamia support and perpetuate this role in the emic sense. Distinctions that modern scholars make between “literary”, “propagandistic”, and “historical” texts should be scrutinized in terms of whether these terms in their modern sense apply to these ancient texts and to what audiences each genre of texts was addressed.

Keywords: tradition, cultural/social memory, ideology, transmission, perpetuation, inheritance, cosmic ruler, high priest, divine mediator, order, chaos, literary, historical, propagandistic, ancient audience.

Session II
Kingship and the Mechanics of Authority
Papers by L. Morenz and W. Sallaberger

2:00-4:00 p.m. Discussion
Coffee Break (4:00-4:30 p.m.)
4:30-6:00 p.m. Discussion

6:00 p.m. Adjourn

The ways in which the king intervenes in the lives of his subjects and the different client classes (royal family/elites, provincial leaders, vassal states, administration/scribal class, craftsmen, army/corvee and peasantry) that this intervention affects. This session would tend to deal more with documented cases in which the king’s power and authority is challenged or negotiated in the face of these different client classes.
Evidence would deal with both administrative and legal texts as well as royal decrees. The pros and cons of negotiating power (i.e. within the royal family, through the granting of hereditary offices, making land grants, abating taxes, etc.), at least as far as royal rule is concerned, by creating new power bases or simply precedents from which the king’s power can be challenged. In Mesopotamia, these discussions could focus on the court system, or administration, and Mari texts. In Egypt, examples from the use of writing in the Early Dynastic Period, the privileged role of writing in the exclusive spheres of the court and burocracy, or the rise of provincial powers during the First Intermediate Period could form the basis of discussion of these issues.

Keywords: authority, royal family, elite, court, provincial, vassal states, subjects, origins, administration, burocracry, scribal, classes, negotiation, crisis, hereditary offices, writing, control, privileges.

 

WEDNESDAY November 8, 2007: Kingship, Traditions and Innovations (II)

Session III
Royal Transformations in Mortuary Culture
Papers by M. Bárta and TBA

9:00-11:00 Discussion
Coffee Break (11:00-11:30)
11:30-1:00 p.m. Discussion

Break for Lunch (1:00-2:00 p.m.)

This session would discuss the transformations, alterations, and innovations detected in the ideology of power during particular periods of each region’s history. Papers would touch on specific political, social and ideological stresses the king reacts to while continuing to preserve the institution of his office. Monumental innovations can show the interconnections between sociopolitical and religious spheres and how these were directed by changes implemented under particular rulers. In the case of Egypt, pyramid and sun temple complexes of the 5th Dynasty are clear examples of social, political and religious ideological movements and innovations expressed not only through artistic and architectural innovations but in terms of the reorganization of space, manpower and administration that accompanied these changes. Finally discussion should touch on the success or failure of these innovations in terms of the degree to which they are widely accepted and their longevity.

Keywords: historical, stresses, innovation, transformation, spatial reorganization, economy, law, literature, monumental art, royal burial complexes, constituencies, courts of law, adoption, longevity.

Session IV
Kingship and Cosmic Contingency
Papers by A. Leahy and B. Pongratz-Leisten

2:00-4:00 p.m. Discussion
Coffee Break (4:00-4:30 p.m.)
4:30-6:00 p.m. Discussion

6:00 p.m. Adjourn

Discussion in this session would focus on the uses of oracles, divination and divine interventions in the justification and negotiation of power, as well as on the uses of the past to legitimate authority. Mesopotamian discussion would focus on the implicit struggle between the king and the interpreters of prophecy, exploring the ways divine messages could legitimize the king through appeals to both past and future. Additionally, the authors discuss strategies used by the king and his advisors to forward their own personal and institutional interests through interpretation. Egyptian discussion would delve into the fiction between the “forseen” and the “intention” of the gods in sanctioning the actions of the king or the royal succession in Egypt. Special uses of the past to justify or add legitimacy to present actions, for example, the Saite Period king’s invoking the grand traditions of the Old Kingdom during their reigns will also be discussed. Authors should examine the extent to which the rulers of these two cultures abuse past, future, and reality in order to obtain their objectives, touching on the physical contexts of ceremonies of divination and their audiences.

Keywords: oracles, divination, prophecy, interpretations, future, past, old traditions, archaism, appeals to tradition, legitimacy, negotiation, ceremonies.

 

THURSDAY November 9, 2007: Kingship, Space, and Action (I)

Session V
Landscape and Kingship
Papers by M-A. Ataç, A. Lloyd, and A.T. Smith

9:00-11:00 Discussion
Coffee Break (11:00-11:30)
11:30-1:00 p.m. Discussion

Break for Lunch (1:00-2:00 p.m.)

Papers should explore the interaction of the divine office of king and the physical landscape and the people who inhabited it. Discussion should focus on how kings created mental landscapes through image, word, and building based on the respective cultures’ symbolic codes, art, and belief systems for the purpose of expressing and perpetuating royal power. For the mental landscape aspects, discussion sources such as monumental art, cylinder seal glyptic could be the starting point for comparisons to the landscapes created or co-opted through the construction of royal complexes for living and dead kings, and their placement in relation to symbolic/cosmic features of the natural landscape. In Mesopotamia discussion would focus on how king, homeland and foreign lands were depicted in reliefs, where the reliefs were located, and who their intended audience was. Similarly in Egypt, the media for indicating the royal presence in the landscape in the contexts of royal and private cemeteries, temples, provincial monuments and frontier markers should be examined in their contexts to determine the symbolism and the ideological significance of the royal message.

Keywords: physical landscape, mental landscape, art, cylinder seal glyptic, cosmic symbols, building reliefs, royal and private cemeteries, provincial monuments, frontier markers.  

Session VI
Kingship and Urbanism
Papers by J-C. Moreno and M. Roaf

2:00-4:00 p.m. Discussion
Coffee Break (4:00-4:30 p.m.)
4:30-6:30 p.m. Discussion

6:00 p.m. Adjourn

This session would involve the arrangement of territory within the kingdom through the founding and movement of capitals and cities, the construction of new administrative or religious centers in regions or provinces. Discussion should touch on the differences in the ways that Mesopotamians and Egyptians socially defined their internal space and how it affected their national identity as well as how they defined and categorized the “other”. Analysis of the symbolic geography imposed by the royal authority through religious and ideological factors might also be discussed.
The examination of the connections between the central administration and regional powers might help to define the reactions of territory dwellers whose lives are transformed by royal activity. Additionally, the notion of a city as a “home” or seat of kingship itself could be addressed as well as what were the political, social and cosmological justifications for its movement.

Keywords: city, capital, territory, kingdom, foundation, movement, center, region, province, physical space, social space, elite, symbolic space, individualism, identity, ‘the other’.

 

FRIDAY November 10, 2007: Kingship, Space, and Action (II)

Session VII
KINGSHIP WITHIN PUBLIC AND RITUAL SPACE
Papers by E. Frahm and C. Leblanc

9:00-11:00 Discussion
Coffee Break (11:00-11:30)
11:30-1:00 p.m. Discussion

Break for Lunch (1:00-2:00 p.m.)

Discussions should focus on the appearance and performance of the king and how space was manipulated to better depict or frame the divine and political aspects of the ruler exercising power, whether that power was ritual, political, or commemorative. Discussion could focus on how cityscapes framed the king’s actions, such as those created by boundary stelae (Amarna), processional ways (Amarna, Thebes), building axes and landscape features (Memphis, Amarna, Thebes, Elephantine). The examination of these settings will require a discussion of backgrounds, regalia, entourages, and the interaction of text and image.

Keywords: royal appearances, ritual performance, commemorative action, political/military performance, processional ways, building axes, regalia, entourages, interaction. 

Session VIII
BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES
Papers by M. Bietak and Bradley J. Parker

2:00-4:00 p.m. Discussion
Coffee Break (4:00-4:30 p.m.)
4:30-6:00 p.m. Discussion

6:00 p.m. Adjourn

Conference Dinner (6:30-9:00 p.m.)

Discussion would focus on the nature and expression of authority on the borders of the kingdom (limes mundi) as well as areas that are annexed, controlled, exploited and subjugated.  Discussion should focus on the ways in which definitions of foreign lands and their respective states affected the placement, architectural design and decoration of fortresses, mining outposts, trading outposts and temples on the borders and the ways that these outposts were represented and referred to in the written record. A discussion of the intended audience for these monuments, inscriptions and representations could provide insight into the ways that kingship in these two cultures attempted to rule and maintain liminal spaces where the conceptual and actual power of the king met its finite limits. Archaeology suggests that Egyptians living abroad were far more accepting of foreign customs, religious and architectural forms than the royal rhetoric would imply. Battle reliefs on sites such as Karnak show the Egyptian king as dominant over all he encounters in foreign lands yet there are examples of Egyptians altering temple representations in the service of diplomacy i.e. the covering of a copy of the Battle of Kadesh bulletin on the walls of Karnak after the text of Egypt’s peace treaty with the Hittites was inscribed on an adjacent wall. Such concessions to political realities implicitly recognize limits to the kings’ power as well as acknowledge the power of rival or “brother” kings. Authors can explore the extent to which international relations move the king from the apex of his hierarchical world to a collegiate one.

Keywords: borders, limes mundi, foreign territories, fortresses, mining outposts, trading outposts, battle reliefs, diplomacy, treaties, rival kings, “brother” kings.