Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Johannes Auenmüller

The discourse on social relationships in the context of status, prestige and belonging is a key aspect of Pharaonic elite culture. Social relations and hierarchies are not only addressed in texts, but also extensively displayed in visual sources and find ample archaeological representation in tombs, cemeteries, and settlements as well as in the design and layout of these built structures. The talk will explore the major relevant evidence of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC (such as tomb imagery, necropoleis, stelae, and settlements) as cultural media from a sociological perspective. The presentation will not only illustrate the different modes and forms in which social relationships and dependencies are encoded iconographically and archaeologically, but also address how Pharaonic society understood, modelled, and constructed itself by those means.