Making Millions Of Pots: How The Cult In Ancient Egypt Met Its Demand For Pottery

TUESDAY, APRIL 5TH | 1 P.M. - 2 P.M.

Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art

5500 University Pkwy, San Bernardino, CA 92407

Ritual in ancient Egypt required vast amounts of goods. For instance, Ramesses III’s Great Harris Papyrus lists donations of millions of material items, food, drink, and even flowers to Egypt’s temples. At Medinet Habu temple alone Ramesses III offered more than 80,000 beer jars per year to the cult. Indeed the abundant material culture excavated at temple sites supports the idea that ancient Egyptian ritual needed lots of things. This talk examines the social and economic context of craft production for ritual with a case study on the production of pottery at Abydos for cultic use in the popular festival of Osiris at Umm el-Qa’ab and a chapel of Thutmose III in the North Abydos Votive Zone. The conclusions of this talk show suggest how craft workers made their living and provide insight into both how temples functioned economically and people got the material goods they needed for private cult.