Naga-ed-Deir_to_Thebes_to_Abydos_The_Ris.pdf

Naga-ed-Deir to Thebes to Abydos: The Rise and Spread of the “Couple Standing before Offerings” Pose on FIP and MK Offering Stelae Jacqueline E. Jay Abstract The “couple standing before offerings” pose first appeared at Naga-ed-Deir in the First Intermediate Period and gradually rose in popularity at that site. Its appearance at Thebes in the late Eleventh Dynasty coincided with reunification; similarly, it first occurred at Abydos at the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty, as Amenemhet I was consolidating his control of the north. As the Twelfth Dynasty progressed, however, stelae production became more and more standardized, and the pose ultimately dropped out of use. Thus, as this paper will show, tracing the rise and spread of the “couple standing before offerings” pose enables us to elucidate patterns of communication between artists and workshops at different sites under different political circumstances.

The depiction of the deceased seated before a funerary meal is a central element of ancient Egyptian private funerary iconography from the earliest historic period onward, with the oldest attested stelae bearing this scene dating to the Archaic Period. 1 These early stelae come from Sakkara and Helwan and are rectangular in shape. In contrast, early stelae from Abydos tend to be tall and round-topped and bear only the deceased’s name rather than the full offering table scene, a pattern of distribution which suggests the existence of regional styles. 2 Around the end of the Archaic Period, the tradition of round-topped stelae died out at Abydos, replaced by rectangular stelae, perhaps as a result of the spreading influence of the Memphite region as the state became increasingly centralized. 3 At roughly the same time, the more elaborate false door stela appeared in the Memphite region, with examples from Sakkara and Meidum dating to the end of Dynasty 3 and beginning of Dynasty 4. 4 Although 1 

Scharff suggests that the Sakkara stela of Sehenefer is the oldest, dating it to the end of Dynasty 1. A. Scharff, “Eine archaische Grabplatte des Berliner Museums und die Entwicklung der Grabplatten im frühen Alten Reich,” in Fs Griffith, 346–57; P. Der Manuelian, Slab Stelae of the Giza Necropolis, PPYE 7 (New Haven-Philadelphia, 2003), 135. The site of Helwan has produced numerous examples from Dynasties 2 and 3. Z. Saad, Ceiling Stelae in the Second Dynasty Tombs from the Excavations at Helwan, ASAE Supplément 21 (Cairo, 1957); T. Wilkinson, “A Re-examination of the Early Dynastic Necropolis at Helwan,” MDAIK 52 (1996), 337–54. 2  These trends are not exclusive, however, for there are early stelae from Abydos which are rectangular in shape, while the two stelae erected before Sneferu’s pyramid at Meidum are round-topped. Thus, a more complex network of factors than pure geography probably determined stelae shape. For example, Vandier, Manuel I, 742 and 747, links differences in shape to the type of scene placed upon an individual stela (the rectangular shape being more suited to the offering table scene), and to whether a stela was fixed or free-standing. The Bankfield stela, purchased at Thebes, is a particularly notable exception to the general trend, for although it is round-topped, it bears a funerary meal scene. Numerous explanations have been proposed to explain its mix of elements; see Der Manuelian, Slab Stelae of the Giza Necropolis, 133–36, for a summary. 3  Or, as Vandier, Manuel I, 747–48; 751–52 suggests, the change in stela shape at Abydos may reflect a shift at that site from free-standing stelae to stelae embedded in the tomb wall. As he notes, the shape of Abydene stelae changes, but the typical Memphite funerary meal scene is not adopted at Abydos. 4  Der Manuelian, Slab Stelae of the Giza Necropolis, 135.

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the false door stela was larger and more elaborate than the slab stela, it retained the depiction of the owner seated before a table of offerings as a central feature placed directly above the doorway; in addition, standing figures of the owner and others were carved on the door jambs. 5 Wealthy provincial elite soon began to mimic the false door stelae of the Memphite region at numerous sites throughout Upper Egypt, including the key element of a seated figure before the funerary meal. 6 On provincial stelae of the First Intermediate Period, however, figures often stand rather than sit before the offering table; in general during this period, the decline of centralized authority and the continued rise of provincial cemeteries coincided with the appearance of a much more heterogeneous corpus of offering stelae, along with a decrease in the size of the funerary assemblage. On the whole, stelae production of the First Intermediate Period reversed the evolutionary trajectory of the Old Kingdom. While tomb decoration had become progressively more complex as the Old Kingdom progressed, with the simple slab stela developing into the larger false door, in the First Intermediate Period stela size shrank to the proportions of the original slab stela. Despite the smaller size, however, an attempt was made to retain the essential elements of the false door stela, leading to the crowding, and mixing and matching, of many diverse elements. Within the varied group of First Intermediate Period stelae, certain clear subgroupings do appear, based on style, provenance, and chronology, as Edward Brovarski’s analysis of the stelae of Naga-ed-Deir demonstrates. 7 Using Brovarski’s stylistic and chronological groups as a starting point, it is possible to trace the rise in popularity of one particular motif at one particular site: the “couple standing before offerings” pose at Naga-ed-Deir. Stelae displaying this pose form a particularly intriguing category, both for their clear break with earlier traditions and for their gradual geographic spread over time. The reunification of Egypt at the end of the First Intermediate Period caused significant changes in the production of monumental art. Channels of communication between provincial artisans and craftsmen in the newly founded royal workshops at Thebes seem to have been opened, leading to a higher degree of artistic standardization throughout the country; during this period, stelae displaying features characteristic of Naga-ed-Deir begin to appear elsewhere. When the capital moved north to Itj-tawy at the end of the reign of Amenemhet I, the center of stelae use also moved north, with the rising practice of erecting memorial chapels at Abydos resulting in a particularly rich corpus of Middle Kingdom stelae. Early Dynasty 12 stelae from Abydos continue to depict couples standing before offerings, continuing for a time an important First Intermediate Period tradition. Gradually, however, this arrangement of elements dropped out of use. Tracing the rise and spread of the “couple standing before offerings” pose enables us to elucidate patterns of communication between artists and workshops at different sites under different political circumstances. As has often been shown, there are close connections between politics and artistic production, with the core having a profound effect on the periphery, particularly at times of intense centralization; as this paper will demonstrate, however, there are also times when the periphery can have a significant effect on artistic production at the core.

5  As discussed more fully in the conclusion, the Giza funerary monuments of the time of Khufu mark a step away from this developmental trajectory, for in his reign the false door is abandoned in lieu of a simpler slab stela. 6  See, for example, false door stelae excavated by Petrie at Dendera and the false door of Weni from Abydos. W. Flinders Petrie, Dendereh, Memoir EES 17 (London-Boston, MA., 1898), pls. 1 and 9; J. Richards, “Text and Context in late Old Kingdom Egypt: The Archaeology and Historiography or Weni the Elder,” JARCE 39 (2002), 75–102, figs. 3 and 18. 7  Naga-ed-Deir is part of a six kilometer stretch of cemeteries on the east bank of the Nile which acted as the primary burial ground of the Thinite nome from the Predynastic through to the Middle Kingdom, when the city of This, opposite Naga-ed-Deir, was replaced in importance by Abydos. The Naga-ed-Deir corpus of stelae is currently spread throughout museums worldwide and comes primarily from excavations of George Reisner carried out between 1901 and 1924.

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The Appearance of the “Couple Standing before Offerings” Pose at Naga-ed-Deir Although provincial cemeteries grew in importance as the centralized government of the Old Kingdom collapsed at the end of Dynasty 6, the provincial elite of the First Intermediate Period clearly had access to fewer resources than did the Memphite officials of the Old Kingdom, for their funerary monuments are considerably less elaborate. At Dendera, the mastabas of the late Old Kingdom and early First Intermediate Period devolved into much smaller structures, with many tombs having no super-structure at all; in these cases, Petrie notes that “the stele is put in the pit at the mouth of the chamber.” 8 At sites dominated by rock-cut tombs, like Naga-ed-Deir, most tombs possessed only a small, undecorated rock-cut chapel, with a simple slab stela marking the offering place. 9 During the First Intermediate Period, grave goods were certainly of poorer quality, but it must also be noted that resources were more evenly divided, with more people having access to them.  10 This trend may be seen clearly in the large corpora of First Intermediate Period stelae discovered at sites like Dendera, Nagada, Gebelein, Thebes, and, most significant for our purposes, Naga-ed-Deir. The stelae from these sites tend to share a number of key elements: an offering formula inscribed across the top and/or along the right-hand side; the owner on the left side, facing right, often accompanied by his wife; and food offerings before them, sometimes carried by servants. Although the owner and his wife appear seated on some monuments, they are more commonly depicted standing. The densely packed stelae characteristic of the First Intermediate Period probably represent a practical means of adapting to the broader distribution of available resources resulting from the collapse of the Old Kingdom. Because these stelae are the only decorated elements in the tomb, it seems to have been imperative that they depict all of the essential details. 11 Thus, the rise in popularity of the standing figure in Upper Egypt may be explained as a simple matter of space conservation: a standing figure takes up less space than a seated one. Seated figures do, however, continue to appear as well, suggesting that the shift was a matter of expediency rather than symbolism. Although the prominence given to the standing pose on First Intermediate Period stelae is innovative, the pose itself has precedent in the Old Kingdom, in the figures that commonly stand on the jambs and architraves of Old Kingdom false door stelae. Vandier sees the appearance of standing figures before an offering table as a local tradition developed in Upper Egypt, and Fischer suggests that Upper Egyptian craftsmen of the late Old Kingdom derived the standing figure pose from Old Kingdom false doors produced in the Memphite region. 12 Despite the many common features linking together stelae produced at different sites, small diagnostic details distinguish groups of stelae, suggesting that provincial workshops were developing independently at each site. On the stelae produced at Gebelein, for example, artists developed ways to distinguish Egyptians from Nubians. 13 In general, stelae from Gebelein, and from Dendera, Nagada, and Thebes as well, tend to be short and broad. In contrast, the stelae from Naga-ed-Deir are more 8 Petrie,

Dendereh, 19. G. Robins, The Art of Ancient Egypt (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 83. 10  For an overview of this phenomenon, see S. Seidlmayer, “The First Intermediate Period (c. 2160–2055 bc),” in I. Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 2000), 118–47. 11  This phenomenon was characteristic of contemporary Saqqara burials as well, for, as Smith notes, in Saqqara mastabas “the repertory of scenes is selectively abbreviated to the essentials.” W. Smith, Art and Architecture, 151. 12 Vandier, Manuel II, 454; H. Fischer, Dendera, 59–61. 13  H. Fischer, “The Nubian Mercenaries of Gebelein during the First Intermediate Period,” Kush 9 (1961), 44–80. B. Kemp’s discussion, Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization, 2nd ed. (London, 2006), 27, fig. 6, of one of these stelae (MFA 03.1848) highlights the “Nubian” features of the owner: he wears a loincloth with long sash, and, to Kemp, “dots around the edge of his hair distinguish it as tightly curled.” In contrast, when monuments from Gebelein depict Egyptians, they typically wear a Sndyt kilt, a feature which Brovarski views as an intentional means to distinguish Egyptians from Nubians. E. Brovarski, “Two Monuments of the First Intermediate Period from the Theban Nome,” in Fs Hughes, 38. 9 

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commonly tall and narrow, a characteristic shape which may represent a local tradition also manifested by the tall and narrow Early Dynastic Period stelae of nearby Abydos. Some Naga-ed-Deir stelae include an offering table; others, however, have none, with the offerings seeming to float in the air before the owner instead. According to Vandier, the depiction of a couple standing before “floating” offerings is another feature characteristic of Naga-ed-Deir, being for the most part restricted to that site and the surrounding vicinities. 14 Separate workshops also seem to have been operative within individual sites, as Edward Brovarski’s analyses of distinct groups of Naga-ed-Deir stelae show. Brovarski defines a stela group as “a homogenous class of steles defined by specific iconographic, paleographic, and philological criteria produced by one artist or workshop,” while Rita Freed, who has studied stelae workshops of Dynasties 11 and 12, defines a “workshop” as “a group of artisans working cooperatively in the same place over a period of time and observing a common model.” 15 Using stylistic criteria, Brovarski has divided the Naga-ed-Deir stelae into groups for which he has developed a relative chronology. 16 Although modern historians typically view the death of Pepi II as the event separating the Old Kingdom from the First Intermediate Period, the artistic style of the Old Kingdom Memphite court continued to exert a strong influence into the beginning of the First Intermediate Period, during Manetho’s ephemeral Seventh and Eighth Dynasties. This period, sometimes called the late Memphite period, seems to have lasted for only two to three generations, perhaps forty to fifty years. 17 Memphite styles clearly influenced a number of high quality Naga-ed-Deir tombs of the late Memphite period. 18 For example, standard Old Kingdom style offering table scenes, in which the deceased sits before a tall pedestal table with half-loaves of bread, appear frequently. Although standing couples are present on poorer quality monuments of this period (e.g., on the stela of Idw-i 19), couples do not yet appear standing before offerings. The end of the late Memphite period and the rise of the Heracleopolitan “House of Khety,” equivalent to Manetho’s Ninth Dynasty, coincided with a significant shift in artistic patterns at the site of Naga-ed-Deir for, although stelae of the Ninth Dynasty vary greatly in quality, style, and method of production, they all display a degeneration of the offering table scene commonly found on slab stelae of the Old Kingdom. The size of the offering table decreases, the half-loaves are replaced by other offerings, and the owner and his wife frequently stand before the table rather than sit. 20 Critically, the appearance of the “standing couple before offerings” pose at Naga-ed-Deir in the Ninth Dynasty coincided with a political break with Memphis. At this period, local workshops were forced to develop their own innovative ways to deal with the reduced circumstances of their patrons. 14  There are, of course, exceptions to the general trends. Examples of short and broad stelae have been discovered at Naga-edDeir. And, there are stelae from other sites which are highly reminiscent of those from Naga-ed-Deir. See, for example, UPMAA 29–66–693, published by D. Silverman, “A Reference to Warfare at Dendereh, Prior to the Unification of Egypt in the Eleventh Dynasty,” in S. Thompson and P. Der Manuelian, eds., Egypt and Beyond: Essays Presented to Leonard H. Lesko (Providence, 2008), 319–31. A stela in the Turin Museum from Gebelein also displays seemingly clear Naga-ed-Deir features: it is tall and narrow in shape, with a banded border, and depicts a couple standing before a small offering table. See A. Roccati, Museo Egizio Torino (Rome, 1988), 29–30. Significantly, despite the decline of centralized authority at this time, individual sites were by no means completely isolated from one another. For example, Brovarksi suggests that his Blue and Anomalous groups of Dynasty 9 were produced by craftsmen who also produced monuments discovered at Dendera. E. Brovarski, “The Inscribed Material of the First Intermediate Period from Naga-ed-Dêr” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1989), 185–86. 15  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 11; R. Freed, “Stela Workshops of Early Dynasty 12,” in P. Der Manuelian, ed., Studies in Honor of William Kelly Simpson (Boston, 1996), 297. 16  Admittedly, critiques can be made of some of his conclusions; see below for specific examples. 17 Fischer, Dendera, 113–28, 187; Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 965. 18  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 171. 19 Cairo CG 1607; Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 113. 20  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 182–83.

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Brovarski assigns four distinct stelae groups to the Ninth Dynasty, called the Red, Blue, Polychrome, and Green groups according to the coloration of their hieroglyphs. 21 He suggests that these groups were consecutive rather than concurrent, supporting this hypothesis with the observation that the tombs of four successive nomarchs of the region each display the characteristics of a different group. 22 Based upon the assumption that each of these nomarchs had a normal lifespan and reign length, Brovarski proposes eighty years for the Ninth Dynasty (twenty years per generation); admittedly, this chronology is not universally accepted, with many scholars arguing for a much shorter period of time. 23 Many of the owners of these stelae bear only standard, generic titles: smr waty, xtmty bity, Hry-Xbt, HAtya, iry-pat. Other titles, however, are more specific and speak to the Thinite provenance of the corpus; see, for example, the stela of ^mA, who is called imy-r xA m ^ayt m kmt nb=f InHrt, “overseer of the herds in Shayt, namely the black cattle of his lord Onuris” (Onuris being the city god of This). 24 Significant from a historical perspective is the fact that stelae of the Green Group show a marked increase in the title imy-r mSa, presumably reflecting increasing degrees of conflict as the First Intermediate Period progressed. 25 The latter groups contain far more examples of the “standing couple before offerings” pose, from 5% and 13% in the earlier Red and Blue groups to 81% and 64% in the later Polychrome and Green groups. As a result, I would suggest that these numbers support Brovarski’s relative chronology of the groups. Group Name

Total #

Red

21

Blue Polychrome Green

# with a standing couple

% with a standing couple

 1

 5%

15

 2

13%

26

21

81%

14

 9

64%

The stelae of the first Ninth Dynasty group, the Red Group, bridge the transition between the style of the Old Kingdom and the new style that developed during the Heracleopolitan period. They display stylistic and paleographic features that suggest a residual influence of the artistic style of the Memphite court; for example, Brovarski notes that their inscriptions bear several similarities to the later Coptos decrees. 26 The stelae are, however, of poor quality, indicating that the elite of Naga-ed-Deir no longer had access to the artistic workshops and monetary resources of the Memphite court. At least twentyone stelae are assigned to the Red Group, of which only one depicts a couple standing before offerings (Dunham 12 27); two other examples from this group depict a seated couple (Dunham 34 28 and 21  J.

Settgast, “Materialien zur Ersten Zwischenzeit I ,” MDAIK 19 (1963), 7–15, initially named the Red, Polychrome, and Green groups. H. Fischer, “A Daughter of the Overlords of Upper Egypt in the First Intermediate Period,” JAOS 76 (1956), 101, identified the Blue Group, and Brovarksi, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 10, gave it this name. 22  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 12–13. 23  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 15ff., cites a number of these arguments. More recently, I. Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 2000), 480, gives the Ninth Dynasty only thirty-five years, while J. von Beckerath, Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten: Die Zeitbestimmung der ägyptischen Geschichte von der Vorzeit bis 332 v. Chr., MÄS 46 (Mainz am Rhein, 1997), 144, continues to maintain a 100–150 year length for the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties combined in contrast to Brovarski’s 192 years. Brovarski’s chronology is, however, accepted by D. Lorton, “The Internal History of the Heracleopolitan Period,” DE 8 (1987), 21–28. 24  H. Fischer, “Three Stelae from Naga-ed-Deir,” in Fs Dunham, 58–61; Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 643–44. 25  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 974. 26  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 514; 541–42. 27  D. Dunham, Naga-ed-Dêr Stelae of the First Intermediate Period (Boston-Oxford, 1937), 24–26, pl. 7/2. 28 Dunham, Naga-ed-Dêr Stelae, 46–47.

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N1091 29). On Dunham 12, offerings float before the man’s face and a small offering table piled with food is tucked under his kilt; this kind of pedestal table occurs on other stelae of this group as well. 30 This single Red Group example of a couple standing before offerings represents the beginnings of a trend which will continue to grow at Naga-ed-Deir. Brovarski places the Blue Group immediately after the Red Group in his sequence. While the Red Group “gives the impression of having been hastily or sketchily executed,” members of the latter Ninth Dynasty groups, beginning with the Blue Group, tend to be far better in quality, perhaps indicating an upswing in prosperity at the site. The stelae of the group do, however, range in quality, leading Brovarski to suggest that they were produced by “several craftsmen of varying degrees of competency.” 31 The stelae of the Blue Group mix raised and sunk relief, a combination which also occurs on roughly contemporaneous monuments from Dendera, presenting the possibility that both groups were the work of artists trained in the same style. Since such bold relief also occurs on late Sixth Dynasty Memphite monuments, Brovarksi suggests that it may have been imported from the capital at Heracleopolis. 32 On most Blue Group stelae, the background behind the figures is completely cut away, with the couple standing within the resulting frame and the main inscription carved in sunk relief on a level higher than that of the raised figures. This technique also appears at Thebes, notably on the limestone stela of king Wahankh Intef II from his funerary complex. 33 There are only two stelae among the fifteen of the Blue Group that display husband and wife together: the stela of RwD-aHAw and his wife Ippi (fig. 1) 34 and the stela of _Sri and his wife IDni. 35 There are many physical similarities between the two couples, all of whom have bulky bodies with little musculature, large eyes, and wings at the nose, features characteristic of the First Intermediate Period style of Upper Egypt. 36 The stela of RwD-aHAw and his wife Ippi is short and broad, with the inscription taking up most of the right side of the stelae. Tightly packed offerings on a small table appear below the offering formula, reaching only to the height of the owner’s knee. In contrast, the stela of _Sri and IDni is more characteristic of Naga-ed-Deir stelae, being tall and narrow. The inscription is placed over the heads of the couple, and a tall column of loose offerings reaches the owner’s elbow to his right. Such variations in the placement of offerings mark a shift away from the standard organization of Old Kingdom Memphite offering stelae. 37 The Polychrome Group is the largest group identified among the Naga-ed-Deir stelae, with twenty-six members. 38 Chronologically, the Polychrome Group follows the Blue Group, and seems to be roughly contemporaneous with the well-known tomb of Ankhtifi of Moalla. The stelae of the Polychrome Group are carved in deep sunk relief with incised details, and the majority of examples are framed by a banded border. 39 The male owner is pictured alone on only three stelae, and a woman is the sole

29 

Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 566. Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 537. 31  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 180; 581. 32  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 185–86. 33 Robins, Art of Ancient Egypt, 85, fig. 83. 34  Budapest 60.19; E. Varga, “La stele de RwD-aHAw et d’Ippi,” Bulletin du Musée hongrois des beaus-arts 22 (1963), 3–7; Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 595–96. 35  Denman Collection; Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 599–60, fig. 133. 36  For a discussion of these features on Budapest 60.19, see Varga, “La stele de RwD-aHAw et d’Ippi,” 7. 37  Based on similar criteria, E. Brovarski, “Akhmim in the Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period,” in Fs Mokhtar, 123, dates a stelae group from Akhmim to the Ninth Dynasty, for this group contains the “unorthodox arrangement” of a woman standing, rather than seated, before “an offering table with conventional loaves.” This group does not, however, include the motif of a couple standing before offerings. 38  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 601, table 4. 39  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 195. 30 

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Fig. 1.  Budapest 60.19. Blue Group stela of RwD-aHAw and his wife Ippi. Photograph courtesy of Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest.

owner on only one. 40 On one stela, the owner’s son stands behind him; in all other cases, the husband is accompanied by his wife, and the couple always stands, never sits. Despite the high quality of the members of the Polychrome Group, the central offering table with bread loaves is abandoned in favor of a small rectangular table bearing beer jars, or no table at all. 41 Offerings cluster in the area around the owner’s elbow, with additional offerings sometimes being added around his kilt, as on the Toledo stela of Iy and &it (TMA 1925.250, fig. 2). Offerings on these stelae are loosely packed and do not reach the bottom register line. Often, small offering bearers appear before the owner’s face as well. The sharp increase in the popularity of the “couple standing before offerings” pose exhibited by the Polychrome Group suggests that the pose met the funerary needs of the Naga-ed-Deir elite, presumably because it allowed all of the necessary elements (owner, wife, and offerings) to be included economically on a single monument. The Green Group consists of fourteen extremely similar stelae. Following the higher quality Polychrome Group, the Green Group marks a decline in quality; however, the standing couple pose remains popular. On nine of the fourteen members of the Green Group, the owner stands with his 40  41 

Although Brovarksi states that the owner stands alone on five, by my count there are only four. Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 200–202.

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wife, who tends to place her hand around the man’s shoulder, torso, or waist. One exceptional stela depicts the husband and wife standing faceto-face, holding hands. 42 Unusually for stelae groups from Naga-ed-Deir, short and broad stelae predominate. Tall columns of offerings are common on Green Group stelae, typically consisting of a small table bearing baskets with other types of offerings hovering above. The offerings are packed more tightly than on Polychrome Group examples, appearing in a cluster to the right of the owner’s staff. 43 On two stelae a mirror floats before the face of the woman, a phenomenon common on Naga-ed-Deir stelae following the Green Group period but rarely found outside the Thinite nome. 44 Significantly, we see the complete abandonment of the seated pose in both the Polychrome and Green groups. 45 The closely contemporaneous rise of the Heracleopolitan Tenth Dynasty alongside the Theban ElevFig. 2.  TMA 1925.250. Polychrome Group stela of Iy and &it. Photograph enth Dynasty marked a significant courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art; Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey. political change whose ramifications are reflected in monumental art at Naga-ed-Deir. After Intef II of Thebes moved north and captured the region of Naga-ed-Deir, the area seems to have remained a bone of contention between the Thebans and the Heracleopolitans. This situation was not resolved until Nebhepetre Montuhotep’s reunification of Egypt several decades later. The stelae from Naga-ed-Deir dated to this time exhibit a marked decline in quality, presumably reflecting the contemporary political upheaval. Although the stelae of this period are very diverse in style and iconography, Brovarski identifies six distinct groups in addition to a number of independent stelae. 46 We might question whether such a high number of workshops was really operational in such a short period; perhaps it is more reasonable to view this stylistic variation as a mark of the decentralization of craft production 42 

Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 677. Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 678. 44  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 222. 45  In addition to the four major groups, Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 716–31, assigns sixteen independent stelae to the Ninth Dynasty. Three of these display the standing couple pose: the stela of MAa-xrw in a private collection at Basel, the stela of ^mA (Cairo JE 43755), and the stela of *ni-Hr-pgA (SF 5102). 46  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 732ff. 43 

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and the work of independent artists rather than of autonomous workshops. The standing couple pose continues to occur frequently, and appears in particularly high numbers in Brovarksi’s Mr-irty=f group and #w.n=s group. 47 Interestingly, many of the women depicted on the stelae of these groups are nude, ­either completely or above the waist (see, for example, fig. 3). This feature is unexpected, for elite women in ancient Egypt were not typically portrayed in the nude. As Brovarski notes, however, a bare-breasted Nubian woman does appear on a Ninth Dynasty stela from Gebelein, and thus this feature may be a sign of Nubian influence on stelae production at Naga-ed-Deir. 48 Naga-ed-Deir stelae produced in the period from year 14 of Montuhotep II to his reunification of Egypt by year 39 continue to reflect the struggle between north and south. In textual content they resemble contemporary inscriptions from Lower and Middle Egypt, Fig. 3.  MFA 12.1479. Stela of WD-sTi and Mr-irty=f. Photograph courtesy while in paleography they resemble of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. inscriptions from Upper Egypt. In general, these stelae are executed in extremely poor quality sunk relief and most are without stylistic parallels, suggesting that the system of workshops had broken down during this time of turmoil, and that craftsmen were now working independently. 49 Supporting this hypothesis are the many unusual features displayed by individual examples of this very heterogeneous corpus; seemingly, artisans were freed to be even more creative through the further decentralization of craft production. For example, the following five stelae from this period combine a standing couple with their own distinctive features: 1. The stela of WAD and MAa-xrw, N 3978. 50 On this stela, a mirror floats before the face of the woman, a characteristic feature of stelae from Naga-ed-Deir from the Green Group onward (see above). In contrast, the position of her left arm is unexpected, for it passes in front of her husband’s shoulder 47 

Both groups are named after the owners of diagnostic stelae in each group. There are ten stelae in the Mr-irty=f group and nine in the #w.n=s group; ten and five respectively display a couple standing before offerings. 48  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 224–26. 49  This period yields only one well-defined Naga-ed-Deir stelae group, Settgast’s group, which consists of six stelae. Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 233 and 826. 50  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 234; 873–74, fig. 169.

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JARCE 46 (2010) rather than behind it. The stela of RwD-m-obH/Qrr and #wyt, Oriental Institute 16951. 51 Here, the arrangement of the wife’s hands and arms is very unusual, for she has her left hand around her husband’s left shoulder, with her right hand grasping her own left wrist. The stela of anh-imy (?), N 4102. 52 The figures on this stela are highly attenuated; the man’s arms hang at his sides and the much smaller woman grasps his elbow. The stela of @ni and ^dt.it=s, Brussels E. 8244. 53 According to Brovarski, the offering table on the stela is unusual and the wavy snake-scepter held by the man seems to be unique. Anonymous Stela, CG 1595. 54 This stela is divided into two registers, a feature which is unusual for Naga-ed-Deir at this time. It does, however, prefigure a trend which becomes increasingly popular in the Middle Kingdom.

Despite many distinctive elements, however, these stelae remain tied to broader trends of the period and the region, for their figures display the very large eyes common to Upper Egyptian monuments of the First Intermediate Period. 55 Thebes and the “Standing Couple” Pose As the First Intermediate Period progressed, Thebes experienced a rise in prominence and influence which affected monumental art produced both at that site and elsewhere. In the First Intermediate Period, the pose of the couple standing before offerings also occurs at Thebes, although not in the same high numbers as at Naga-ed-Deir. 56 The stelae from Thebes exhibit their own local variations; while Naga-ed-Deir stelae are most commonly tall and narrow, Theban stelae tend to be short and broad. Frequent differences in layout between the two groups can be connected to this difference in shape. While inscriptions often appear exclusively at the top of the tall, narrow stelae of Naga-ed-Deir, short and broad stelae from Thebes frequently include a large block of inscription dominating the right-hand side. On such stelae, offerings are often placed in a horizontal row under this inscription, rather than in a tall, narrow column running along the length of the owner’s body as is common on stelae from Naga-ed-Deir. Even when an inscription block does appear on the right side of a Naga-ed-Deir stelae, the offerings are still placed to its left rather than below it. Theban stelae of the early First Intermediate Period are generally of poor quality. As the Tenth Dynasty collapsed and the Eleventh Dynasty rose, however, stelae at Thebes became finer, while stelae at Naga-ed-Deir declined in quality. Thus, we see a reversal of the trend that occurred at the beginning of the First Intermediate Period, for with the recentralization of the government came a gradual recentralization of resources as well. When the Theban nomarchs of the early Eleventh Dynasty expanded their hegemony beyond the Thebaid, they began to build and decorate monuments on a royal scale, although still in the regional style of pre-unification Upper Egypt. With reunification, however, Montuhotep II seems to have ordered his craftsmen to abandon the regional Upper Egyptian style and to

51 Dunham,

Naga-ed-Dêr Stelae, 94–96, pl. 29/1; Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 898–904. Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 921–24, fig. 86 and 172. 53  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 932–33, fig. 175. 54  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 933–34. 55  Brovarski, “Inscribed Material from Naga-ed-Dêr,” 235–36, notes that these stelae do not display the characteristics of the specifically Theban pre-unification style. Later examples do, however, show the influence of Theban iconography, suggesting that there was a least some communication between Naga-ed-Deir and Thebes at this point. 56 Vandier, Manuel II, 458–62, notes four examples, three in the Cairo Museum and one in Florence: Cairo CG 20005, Cairo CG 20500, Cairo CG 20011, and Florence 7588. He also notes a few examples from Dendera, Nagada, and Gebelein. 52 

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shift to the style of the Memphite court, for the later monuments of his reign closely follow Old Kingdom patterns. 57 The conscious re-opening of channels of communication throughout the country also seems to have affected the production of non-royal monuments, a phenomenon clearly illustrated by the members of a late Eleventh/early Twelfth Dynasty stela workshop which has been identified by Rita Freed. 58 Freed terms the stelae produced by this workshop the “few standing figures” group based on their inclusion of a large-scale standing couple, triad, or (rarely) single male. According to Freed, small details appearing throughout the group include incised detailing on the wigs along with the incorporation of the same distinctive offering table with a split base and basin with tapered sides. Of the eighteen stelae assigned to this group, five display the “couple standing before offerings” pose. Despite the small details suggesting that these stelae were produced in a single workshop (or by artists tied to a single workshop), individual pieces display a high degree of stylistic variation. Some are carved in the high raised relief characteristic of the pre-unification period, while others exhibit the much lower raised relief of post-unification. This phenomenon suggests that the workshop or some of its artists were active before, during, and after reunification. Significantly, while five of the group’s provenanced stelae are known to have derived from the Theban region, two are from Dendera, two are from Abydos, and one is from Naga-ed-Deir. 59 The two stelae from Dendera seem to be the earliest members of the group, for they were both carved in high pre-unification style relief with intricate internal detail (refer to fig. 4 for the first). 60 On both, a short, squat offering table is tucked beneath the man’s kilt. In contrast, the two unprovenanced “standing couple” stelae in this group are far more reminiscent of monuments from Naga-ed-Deir, for a tall offering table appears to the right of the owner’s staff, bearing offerings which reach to the height of his shoulder. 61 Both of these unprovenanced stelae are transitional in style, for while they display the high raised relief of pre-unification, the faces of the figures (although somewhat crude in the case of Florence 6378) are closer to the Old Kingdom Memphite style adopted with reunification. The fifth “standing couple” stela in this group, the stela of %A-InHrt (fig. 5), was excavated in a Nagaed-Deir cemetery, providing a critical link between Naga-ed-Deir and Thebes. 62 Like many monuments from First Intermediate Period Naga-ed-Deir, this stela depicts the owner and his wife standing before a tall column of offerings placed to the right of the owner’s staff, some free-floating and some placed on tables which themselves float in the air. The text reveals the owner’s ties to Naga-ed-Deir even more clearly, for his name, %A-InHrt, and his epithet, “the honored (one) before Onuris, lord of Thinis,” reflect his devotion of the local god. 63 Although the organization of elements on this stela parallels that of First Intermediate Period examples from Naga-ed-Deir, the technique of its raised relief is that of post-unification Thebes, for, according to Freed, this stela is executed in a low, flat, smoothly rounded, “paper-thin” raised relief, with internal details carved rather than painted. She sees this low raised 57 

See, for example, Robins, Art of Ancient Egypt, 90. Freed, “Stela Workshops,” 302–7. 59  The stelae from Dendera and Naga-ed-Deir depict a standing couple, while those from Abydos do not. The remaining eight stelae in the group are unprovenanced; two of these include a standing couple. 60  Alternatively, as Freed, “Stela Workshops,” 306, notes, the Dendera stelae may have been carved after unification by an artist trained in the pre-unification style. One of these stelae is in the Ashmolean museum (AN1896–1908 E.3927; fig. 4 here) and was originally published in Petrie, Dendereh, pl. 11 bottom left. Freed refers to as Ashmolean A 149. The other stela from Dendera is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art with designation LACMA 50.37.13; Freed, “Stela Workshops,” fig. 2d. 61  The stela of Mn-nxt (Florence 6378, purchased in Luxor; Freed, fig. 2b) and the stela of +dw-sbk (Ashmolean 1954.25; Freed, fig. 2c). 62 Dunham, Naga-ed-Dêr Stelae, 26–27, pl. 8/1; R. Freed, “A Private Stela from Naga ed-Der and Relief Style of the Reign of Amenemhet I,” in Fs Dunham, 68–76. 63  This epithet occurs in line 3. Translation in Dunham, Naga-ed-Dêr Stelae, 27. 58 

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Fig. 4.  AN1896-1908 E.3927. Stela of Nxt-Tw. Photograph courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

relief as being characteristic of the reign of Amenemhet I, representing the culmination of the technique introduced in the Deir el-Bahari royal workshops of Montuhotep II. Freed states that this stela “bears testimony to the fact that at least for a brief period Naga ed-Deir was in touch with the most advanced stylistic trends.” 64 Despite the scattering of monuments produced in this workshop, it seems most likely that it was located at Thebes, given that it follows Theban artistic trends, that it was active at a period when Thebes served as the capital of the country, and that five of its members are known to have come from the Theban region. Thus, just as Theban artistic trends rippled out into the provinces, provincial motifs influenced workshops at the new capital, for a Theban artisan seems to have drawn on the local trends of Naga-ed-Deir in the case of the stela of %A-InHrt. The conduits of communication worked in both directions. We can imagine several mechanisms by which stelae tied to Thebes ended up elsewhere. It may be that officials from the provinces serving at Thebes commissioned funerary monuments to take home with them for burial, instructing a Theban artisan as to their design. 65 Alternatively, Marcel 64 

Freed, “A Private Stela from Naga ed-Der,” 68. Such a situation has parallels. M. Marée, “Edfu under the Twelfth to Seventeenth Dynasties: The monuments in the National Museum of Warsaw,” BMSAES 12 (2009), 39, has identified the work of a single Abydos craftsman at both Edfu and Elephantine. 65 

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Marée’s analysis of stylistic relations at Assiut and Elephantine suggests that the same artisans were active in both places, establishing the complicating fact that artisans traveled widely; thus, perhaps it was the artisan who traveled rather than the stela and stela owner. 66 A second, closely contemporary, group from Thebes, the “colorful Theban” group, also displays the “couple standing before offerings” pose. 67 Freed’s stylistic analysis suggests that the earliest extant stelae from the “colorful Theban” group were produced slightly later than the earliest stelae of the “few standing figures” group. While stelae in the “colorful Theban” group range from low raised relief to sunk relief with a deep outline to painting only, the group as a whole is characterized by high quality painted details. With only six identified stelae, this group is smaller than the “few standing figures group.” Four of its stelae derive from the Asasif region of Thebes, one is from Edfu, and Fig. 5.  MFA 25.659. Stela of %A-InHrt. Photograph courtesy of the Boston one is unprovenanced; three stelae Museum of Fine Arts. depict a couple standing before offerings. The stela of _dw, 68 from the Asasif, most closely resembles the stelae of Naga-ed-Deir, for the man and the woman stand before a tall column of floating offerings placed to the right of the man’s staff. The stela of @r-nxt, 69 from Edfu, is similar, although it has a round top and a much smaller arrangement of floating offerings concentrated in the space above the crook of the owner’s arm. In contrast, the unprovenanced stela of $ty 70 is short and broad, providing space for a much wider offering table bearing more closely packed offerings, and for a man carrying a haunch of meat at the far right, facing the stelae owners across the offering table. The use of the couple standing before offerings pose by the “few standing figures” and “colorful Theban” workshops is part of a broader trend of experimentation exhibited by the two groups as a 66 

M. Marée, in Fs Detlef Franke (forthcoming). Freed, “Stela Workshops,” 299–302. 68  MMA 16.10.333; Freed, “Stela Workshops,” fig. 1a. 69  Florence 6364; S. Bosticco, Museo Archeologico di Firenze. Le Stele egiziane dall’Antico al Nuovo Regno (Rome, 1959), 23–24, pl. 17. Schiaparelli was told of the stela’s Edfu provenance at the time of its purchase in Luxor in 1884–1885 (M. Guidotti, personal communication). 70  Vienna, ÄS 202; Freed, “Stela Workshops,” fig. 1e. 67 

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whole; for example, see also the stela of KAy, in which the owner carries a bow and is accompanied by his dog, and the stela of Imn-m-HAt, in which three seated figures embrace one another. 71 Clearly, stelae production had yet to become standardized in the late Eleventh Dynasty and very early Twelfth Dynasty. The generally high quality of the stelae in these groups speaks to the increasing prosperity of Thebes in the period following reunification, while the variation they display represents a high degree of freedom of expression at a time before full-blown centralization and standardization had set in. As Freed notes, “the beginning of a dynasty, before its canons are established, is at times characterized by . . . charm and play inventiveness.” 72 The Shift to Abydos During the reign of Amenemhet I, the capital was moved from Thebes to the newly founded Itjtawy, in the Memphite region, and the king shifted his burial north as well. The elite of the central government followed suit, constructing Old Kingdom style mastabas around the royal pyramid.  73 At the same time, the rising elite practice of building memorial chapels near the enclosure of the Osiris festival at Abydos caused the number of stelae erected at that site to spike. Freed links this phenomenon with a shift in stela production from Thebes to Abydos, and it seems quite possible that artisans from Thebes and elsewhere followed the market, establishing new workshops at Abydos at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom. 74 However, given that many of the individuals establishing chapels were not from Abydos, at least based on names and titles, it also seems likely that at least some of the stelae found at Abydos were produced elsewhere. In general, the early Middle Kingdom stelae from Abydos display extremely high degrees of heterogeneity and innovation, features presumably related to these issues of provenance and production, in addition to the time period in which they were carved. Freed assigns two stelae groups to the very early Twelfth Dynasty, the “vertical curls and flower” group and the “packed offerings” group, both of which contain only four stelae. 75 One of the “vertical curls and flower” stelae is indeed dated to year 30 of Amenemhet I/year 10 of Senwosret I, supporting Freed’s analysis to some degree; 76 however, Brovarski has redated the “packed offerings” stela Cairo JE 36420 to the end of the Eleventh Dynasty, expanding the span of time involved. 77 All of the stelae of the “vertical curls and flower” group are carved in sunk relief, with little incised detail, and Freed characterizes them as slightly awkward in their execution. Their strong similarities in relief style, attributes, and epigraphy lead her to suggest that the whole group may have been carved by a single craftsman. 78 Despite these similarities, however, the group displays a high degree of experimentation, each stela being dramatically different from the others in its shape and organization; thus, this group continues the experimental trends of the slightly earlier Theban groups. Two of the four stelae in the group bear a standing couple before offerings, although in neither case are the figures arranged as we would expect. The stelae of the “vertical curls and flower” group are as follows:

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Berlin 22820 and Cairo JE 45626; Freed, “Stela Workshops,” fig. 2a and 1b. Freed, “Stela Workshops,” 302. 73 Robins, The Art of Ancient Egypt, 101–2. Funerary stelae also show the influence of the Old Kingdom, although with variations; as Robins, Art of Ancient Egypt, 102, notes, funerary stelae of the Middle Kingdom “expand on the traditional image of the deceased seated in front of a table of offerings” by depicting family members arranged in registers around the deceased. 74  Freed, “Stela Workshops,” 334. 75  Freed, “Stela Workshops,” 310–14. 76  CG 20516; CG No. 20001–20780, II, 108–11; I, pl. 35. 77  E. Brovarski, “False Doors and History: The First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom,” in D. Silverman, W. Simpson, and J. Wegner, eds., Archaism and Innovation: Studies in the Culture of Middle Kingdom Egypt (New Haven, 2009), 394–95. 78  Freed, “Stela Workshops,” 310 and 312.  72 

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1. Cairo CG 20516. This stela is tall and narrow, with a lunette top, and has three registers with multiple figures, including a couple seated in front of an offering table in the top register. 2. Cairo CG 20256. 79 This stela is short and broad, with one register on which a man and a woman face each other across an offering table. 3. PAHMA 5–351. 80 This stela is tall and narrow, with a flat top and banded border. Its one register depicts husband and wife before an offering table above which disassociated offerings float. Most unusually, the women does not stand behind the much larger man; instead, she perches on the offering table in front of him, with one hand reaching back to cup his elbow. 4. BM 560. 81 This stela is tall and narrow, with a flat top. It has two main registers with multiple figures (seven standing figures and a single seated figure in the bottom left corner). The contemporary “packed offerings” group displays a similar diversity and creativity. As Freed notes, the stelae of this group are carved in low, flat raised relief with a sparing and skillful use of interior modeling. Among the four stelae of this group, Cairo JE 36420  82 is of most interest with respect to the present study, for it incorporates many features common to First Intermediate Period Naga-ed-Deir stelae. It has a banded border, horizontal text across the top, and a tall pile of offerings. As the name of this stelae group suggests, densely packed offerings of various food types are incorporated, placed directly on top of an Old Kingdom style table bearing bread loaves. This stela bears not one, but two standing couples before offerings, for two brothers, Mesenu’s son Heqaib the Elder and Mesenu’s son Heqaib, face each other across the table, each with his wife standing behind him. In this Middle Kingdom example, the man’s scepter passes before his body on the left and behind his body on the right, a feature which is common on Old Kingdom false doors. 83 Although unusual, this arrangement of figures is not unique, for it also occurs on stela CG 20105 from Abydos. 84 In other ways, the two stelae are quite different, and thus presumably not members of the same group, for CG 20105 is carved in sunk relief with deep outline, the offerings are loose, not packed, and the text is arranged in one horizontal line above 18 short vertical lines. Complicating matters further, the “packed offerings” stela of the two Heqaibs was discovered in an Aswan tomb, rather than at Abydos, and seems to date to the late Eleventh Dynasty. With this stela, we would again seem to have a case of the movement of stela or artist, for the only other provenanced stela from the “packed offerings” group came from Abydos. 85 During the reign of Senwosret I, royal relief became higher and rounder, as illustrated by the Karnak White Chapel. According to Freed, “faces take on a sweeter, more idealizing quality which replaces the broad expressionless faces of the reign of his predecessor.” 86 As Freed notes, these features occur on non-royal monuments as well, notably the high quality stela of In-it=f son of ¤At-Imn from the North Cemetery of Abydos, assigned to her “many active figures group.” 87 The organization of elements on the stela is characteristic of Naga-ed-Deir: it has a banded border and three lines of horizontal text 79 

CG No. 20001–20780, I, pl. 19; Freed, “Stela Workshops,” fig. 4a. Stelae, 9, pl. 47 (#93); Freed, “Stela Workshops,” fig. 4b. Freed calls the stela “Hearst 93” based on Lutz’s numbering. 81  Freed, “Stela Workshops,” fig. 4c. 82  Freed, “A Private Stela from Naga ed-Der,” 76, fig. 7; idem, “Stela Workshops,” fig. 5c. In the 1981 article, Freed associates this stela with the stela of %A-InHrt of the “few standing figures” group, a position which she seems to have abandoned in the latter article. While Freed assigns it to a single individual named Msnw, Brovarski, “False Doors and History,” 394, reascribes it to Mesenu’s son Heqaib the Elder and Mesenu’s son Heqaib. 83  See, for example, the figures of the Third Dynasty official Khabausokar in his offering niche. Robins, Art of Ancient Egypt, 52, fig. 47. 84  CG No. 20001–20780, I, 128–29, IV, pl. 11. 85  Cairo CG 20315; Freed, “Stela Workshops,” fig. 5b. 86  Freed, “A Private Stela from Naga ed-Der,” 76. 87  Cairo CG 20561; W. Simpson, The Terrace of the Great God at Abydos: The Offering Chapels of Dynasties 12 and 13, PPYE 5 (New Haven, 1974), 17, pl. 11 bottom; Freed, “A Private Stela from Naga ed-Der,” 76; idem, “Stela Workshops,” 320. 80 Lutz,

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above a couple standing before an offering table. Both the relief style of this stela and its high quality suggest that it was produced in a royal workshop or by high level artisans with connections to royal workshops. Significantly, these skilled craftsmen seem to have been influenced by the organization of elements that had developed at Naga-ed-Deir in the First Intermediate Period, suggesting that an interaction between national levels of production and provincial styles continued into the reign of Senwosret I. However, the influence of such regional variation does seem to have been decreasing at that point in time, for the stela of In-it=f is the only member of the group to depict a standing couple, and the other three stelae bearing In-it=f ’s name are dramatically different in organization. 88 From the middle of the reign of Senwosret I onward, stelae discovered at Abydos display a high degree of standardization, probably a mark of a shift to mass production as the popularity of stelae continued to increase. 89 While stelae organization becomes more complex, involving multiple registers and many figures, the owner ceases to stand, instead sitting before the offering table in standard Old Kingdom style. Although Freed lists many stelae belonging to groups which date from the middle of the reign of Senwosret I to the end of the reign of Senwosret II, a couple stands before offerings on only one, a stela belonging to a man named %anxy. 90 This stela is a member of Freed’s “elongated skull” group, dated from late Senwosret I through early Amenemhet II and carved in sunk relief with a deep outline. The stela of %anxy stands out among the standing couple stelae examined thus far in that it is round-topped, not rectangular; this feature is consistent with contemporary trends, for round-topped stelae experienced an upsurge in popularity during the Middle Kingdom. Couples standing before the funerary meal continued to be rare in the second half of the Middle Kingdom. There is, however, a single, significant example from Naga-ed-Deir, dated to year 30 of Amenemhet III (fig. 6). 91 Although this stela is round-topped as well, otherwise it is far closer stylistically to Naga-ed-Deir monuments of the First Intermediate Period than to contemporary late Middle Kingdom works from Abydos, for it has a banded border and a tall column of offerings placed to the right of the man’s staff. In the Middle Kingdom, Naga-ed-Deir was eclipsed by the rise of Abydos across the river, becoming a provincial town outside the political and artistic mainstream. 92 The isolated craftsmen of Middle Kingdom Naga-ed-Deir clearly followed the patterns established by their First Intermediate Period forebears and, indeed, Freed suggests that the figures on this stela may have been copied from exposed earlier works. 93 In contrast, their contemporaries at Abydos seem to have been far more connected to national trends. Conclusion The reduction in tomb decoration evident in provincial First Intermediate Period cemeteries is in some ways paralleled by the abandonment of more elaborate false doors and wall paintings in favor of slab stelae in the tombs of Khufu’s officials at Giza. For Der Manuelian, there are three possible causes which might explain this phenomenon: (1) royal command (early Dynasty 4 rulers dictated this “downsizing” in order to emphasize their own central position); (2) economics (the construction of the Great Pyramid exhausted available resources); (3) “non-linear reductionism” (despite our mod88 

ANOC 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3; Simpson, Terrace of the Great God at Abydos, pls. 10 and 11. Freed, “Stela Workshops,” 336. 90  Kansas City 33–16; Freed, “Stela Workshops,” fig. 9c. A few other members of the “attenuated figures” group also display standing figures; this, however, represents a different phenomenon. These stelae typically include no offerings or offering formula, and thus Freed, “Stela Workshops,” 332, n. 50, suggests that these critical elements would have appeared on another element of the offering chapel. 91 Dunham, Naga-ed-Dêr Stelae, 19–20, pl. 5/1. 92  Freed, “A Private Stela from Naga ed-Der,” 68. 93  Freed, “A Private Stela from Naga ed-Der,” 74, n. 45. 89 

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ern assumptions, the simpler slab stelae may actually have been the preferred choice of officials during the reign of Khufu). 94 Der Manuelian himself clearly favors the third option, suggesting that “a modern Egyptological assumption on the linearity of Egyptian tomb development, and the ‘concept of progress’ leads to the expectation that funerary complexes should become more, rather than less, elaborate over time.” He describes the Giza slab stelae as follows: “Complete in and of themselves, they did not represent a compromise, sacrifice, or a hurried solution due to untimely death, but rather provided every critical element needed to ensure the continued successful mortuary cult.” 95 Although First Intermediate Period provincial stelae are certainly not of the same extremely high quality as the Giza slab stelae, these words could be applied to them as well. The traditional interpretation views the decline in stelae quality in the First Intermediate Period as evidence of a retreat from the artistic heights of the centralized Old Kingdom; T. G. H. James, for example, Fig. 6.  MFA 13.3844. Stela of %n-ny-anx and Iy. Photograph courtesy of the describes the stelae of this period Boston Museum of Fine Arts. as “objects of little artistic merit, being characterized by a primitive and ungainly style.” 96 However, as scholars such as Seidlmayer have stressed more recently, this was also a period during which resources were spread more evenly throughout the country as a whole. Thus, I would argue that the First Intermediate Period stelae, and the smaller, embedded phenomenon of the “couple standing before offerings” pose, certainly represent a change, but not necessarily a step backward. Instead, the design of provincial First Intermediate stelae may be described best as a practical way to utilize the more even distribution of resources characteristic of the period. As we have seen, standing figures became extremely popular at this time, probably ultimately deriving from the arrangement of figures on Old Kingdom false doors. The combination of an offering table or pile of offerings before a standing couple first appears at Naga-ed-Deir at the beginning of the Ninth Dynasty, at a time when 94 

Der Manuelian, Slab Stelae of the Giza Necropolis, 167–69. Der Manuelian, Slab Stelae of the Giza Necropolis, 169. 96  T. James, “Egyptian Funerary Stelae of the First Intermediate Period,” BMQ 20/4 (1956), 87. 95 

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communication between provincial artisans and royal Memphite workshops seems to have been breaking down. The pose reached its highest level of popularity with the Ninth Dynasty Polychrome and Green Groups and, although few of the slightly later Naga-ed-Deir stelae of the Tenth/Eleventh Dynasties can be grouped stylistically, this arrangement of elements continued in use. Reunification seems to have brought about a higher degree of communication throughout the country, and the stela of %A-InHrt, produced at Thebes and excavated at Naga-ed-Deir, strongly suggests some form of communication between Naga-ed-Deir and Thebes in the early Middle Kingdom. Stelae from Abydos dating to the reign of Amenemhet I continue to incorporate the “couple standing before offerings pose.” As the Twelfth Dynasty progressed, however, stelae production shifted to standardized mass production and this arrangement of elements dropped out of use, except at the marginalized site of Naga-ed-Deir where it had become extremely popular several hundred years before. Eastern Kentucky University