SOMA 2012

Identity and Connectivity

Proceedings of the 16th Symposium on Mediterranean
Archaeology, Florence, Italy, 1–3 March 2012
VOLUME I

Edited by

Luca Bombardieri, Anacleto D’Agostino,

Guido Guarducci, Valentina Orsi
and Stefano Valentini

BAR International Series 2581 (I)

2013
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SOMA 2012. Identity and Connectivity: Proceedings of the 16th Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology,
Florence, Italy, 1–3 March 2012. Volume I

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Being a Foreigner in Egypt, between Maintenance and Loss of Cultural Identity:
the Archaeological Data
Massimiliano Franci
(CAMNES Firenze)
Abstract
The cultural identity represents the appearance of self-
awareness resulting from the relationship to a
community. Its development goes through three stages:
a) the ethno-genesis, the result of research by members of
a culture of self-representation and collective forms of
self presentation b) ethno-preservation, the maintenance
of the traits of a culture c) ethno-extinction phase that is
characterized by attempts to rebirth and re-establishment
and recovery of identity, until you get to cultural
extinction. The preservation of identity takes place
through the establishment of clear boundaries between
different groups of them. In this analysis it has been
possible to reconstruct the behavior of foreigners in
Egypt, according to the different phases of the
development of cultural identity, to define whether and
how it maintained the figures of memory, through the
study of archaeological data: tombs, stelae, and so on.
The analysis covered all the different historical phases,
until the late period of Egyptian history, when the
Egyptian culture becoming a stranger in his own country.
Keywords
Cultural identity, stranger, controlling chaos, Semitic,
Nubian Dynasty, Asiatic, foreign Dynasties, Hyksos,
Egypt, Egyptian archaeology, Egyptian Museum of
Florence.
Introduction1
During the definition of cultural identity, the cultural
community often emphasizes its collective identity
through a process of solidarity contrastive or antagonistic,
which draws what the community wants to be at odds
with what is not to be. The climax of this cultural contrast
is identified in the definition of ‘we’ against ‘them’; in
the creation of clear boundaries with other groups: in the
identification/the equality with the other groups, and
finally in the recognition / difference from the other and
from the others. This description is internal to the process
of defining cultural identity, which follows, according to
Assmann (1997), three main stages:
1) ethno-genesis, the result of research by members of a
culture of self-representation and collective forms of self
presentation;
1
I would like express my great indebtedness to the 16th SOMA
Committee, and to several colleagues, above all to Dr. Joanna
Popielska-Grzybowska for her enthusiastic and unflagging assistance,
and to Dr. Stefano Valentini and Dr. Guido Guarducci for their
appreciation on my work. A special thank to Sara Cruicchi.
501
2) ethno-preservation, the maintenance of the traits of a
culture;
3) ethno-extinction, phase that is characterized by
attempts to rebirth and re-establishment and recovery of
identity, until the cultural extinction.
In this process the ‘we’ is then made by the community:
people who live on the same territory and have common
origins, traditions, ideas, interests, economic goals and
policies. The ‘them’ is represented by the alien, the other,
the ‘ghost’ (in the original Indo-European sense): the
extraneous to the community; one who comes from
outside (from the clan first, from the village and the State
then) and it carries with it something that could destroy
what we have always been, our self-representation. It is
an element that comes from outside and, by definition, it
belongs to the chaotic world and for this reason it must be
eliminated. But in Egypt the society can also choose to
control it and integrate it within the community: in fact
the culture in Egypt establishing estrangement from the
outside, but integration inside. The choice of the stranger,
if it can be said choice, is necessarily that of ethno-
extinction, the third phase of the development of cultural
memory, preceded by an uncountable number of attempts
to rebirth and rebuilding, recovery of identity, until it
reaches the cultural extinction. This can only happen by
the exchange with other traditions, because the identity
does not exist outside the individuals in the community.
Following these methodological assumptions here I will
try to reconstruct the behaviour of foreigners in Egypt,
whether and how it maintains the figures of memory or if
he is intended for immediate cultural extinction.
The Stranger in the ritual of ‘controlling chaos’
When the ethnic groups merge into larger ethno-political
structures, or when, as a result of migrations, conquests,
or overlap, they are included in another ethno-political
group, problems of integration will produce: the
dominant culture marginalizes cultural formations to
which it overlaps. In Egypt, the community forms a
complex series of rituals to maintain its cultural identity,
the most important is the so-called controlling chaos
(Kemp 2000, 21-66). In this repetitive ritual the pharaoh
renews its universal power through the use of a series of
representations in order to demonstrate that it is the
reigning pharaoh, and the balance of Maat, the universal
harmony. In these representations the stranger has its
place. The typologies are two, attested since the Proto-
historic Period (tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis - 3400 BC.):
The warrior defeated, kneeling, taking the hair from the
winning warrior / pharaoh, who is ready to give him the
final stroke (Figure 1), the prisoner, also kneeling, but
with his arms tied behind his back (Figure 2). This
typological choice fully responds to the need of
integration of strangers, a peculiar problem of the
Egyptian culture, where the desire to distinguish
themselves from foreign domination seems to emerge
only within the Greek period. The stranger thus becomes
part of the Egyptian social system. The archaeological
analysis shows that there are still other types of
representatives, who obviously do not deviate from the
previous concept. One of these is found for the first time
on the Narmer Mace Head (I Dynasty - 3100 BC, Figure
3), where the enemies/prisoners make a ritual procession
within the borders of Egypt in front of the throne of the
pharaoh, an evidently attestation of the control of the
enemy ritual. The other is on the base of the statue of the
pharaoh Khasekhem, from Hierakompolis, belonging to
2nd Dynasty (2890-2700 BC), stored at Cairo Egyptian
Museum, and its twin kept at the Ashmolean Museum of
Oxford (Figure 4): the enemies of the pharaoh are
carved, with simple scratches, in a unusual position as
overwhelmed by the power of the king, probably dead,
followed by an indication of their quantity. A fifth type is
represented on statue bases or temple walls decorated
with enemy heads (see the example from Saqqara,
probably an Asian and a Libyan, IIIrd Dynasty 2700-
2630 BC, Cairo, Egyptian Museum, Figure 5), which are
under the foot of the pharaoh, and by which they are then
trampled, as in the base of the throne of Khasekhem. In
this way, through sympathetic magic, the pharaoh
controlled magically all foreigners represented in this
manner. This last example brings the analysis of the
problem to a new level: if the figure in the first
representations of the prisoner/stranger/enemy was very
stylized, already during the Old Kingdom we see how the
Egyptian culture feels the need to better identify the
stranger figure, probably due to greater knowledge of the
outside world, which were growing due to the
enlargement of the social and military horizon. In fact,
these faces are associated with the Libyan and Asian
model. On this way on the pyramid causeway of King
Unas (last king of the Vth Dynasty) were found some
reliefs showing starving Bedouin of the eastern desert,
emaciated by the lack of food. Towards the end of the
Old Kingdom, in particular under the Pharaoh Pepi II
(VIth Dynasty), the artists produced in 3D the basic
figure of the stranger, that will become classic:
represented as a kneeing captive with the arms locked
behind his back with a rope (Figure 6, prisoner statue,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). It will be
the standard representation with few variants involving
mainly the face and clothing, which was also used to
indicate the ethnic group, from the Egyptian point of
view, of a not yet integrated stranger, in the Egyptian
social system. A strong symbol, however, and an
interesting variation of which is present in the stele of the
military expedition of Senuseret I in Nubia: Nubian place
names are included in theirs cartouches surmounted by
the bust of a kneeling tied prisoner, an evolution of that
attested on the Narmer’s mace head (Figure 7, Florence,
Egyptian Museum).
502
The integration
Therefore, if the stranger is, also in literature, only ever
seen as the enemy defeated, archaeology shows us
another aspect of reality. From the First Intermediate
Period (but it is plausible from the Old Kingdom) the
Egyptian society is substantially changed. The stranger is
now present and settled in the country, keeping the
characteristics of their culture of origin. An extraordinary
example of this change is the painted wooden models of a
group of black-skinned Nubian bowmen, hired as soldiers
for the Egyptian army (Dynasties 11-12, 2040-1780 BC,
Egyptian Museum, Cairo). This is not a mere insertion of
foreign populations as mercenaries because belonging to
the First Intermediate Period the limestone stele of Nenu
(The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), a Nubian soldier
from Gebelein and dating to the First Intermediate Period
(2250-2035 BC). Nenu has a short, curly, Nubian
hairstyle and close-cropped beard, he is wearing a kilt
tied with a characteristically Nubian leather sash and he is
holding a bow and arrows. He is also wearing a short kilt
and a long leather sash. His wife Sekhat-Hor and his two
children and dogs are shown. But excluding the ethnic
elements, the typology is merely Egyptian. If
unfortunately the image of the stranger is not represented,
often his name is found together with an indication of its
ethnic origin, as, for example, in the Stela of the valet
Minhotep (XIIth Dynasty, Egyptian Museum, Florence).
Under the chair of the owner of the stele you can read the
name of his servant, the Aamu Wakha ‘Wakha the
Asian’, which maintains, necessarily, its ethnic identity,
but seems to have lost his culture. The cognitive-affective
relationship with their place of origin is maintained in
this case by the Egyptian point of view.
The arrival of Asians and Nubians and many more, is
documented by archaeology in other examples: the Tomb
of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan (Kingdom of Senuseret
II) records the arrival in Egypt of 37 Aamu, the generic
term of the inhabitants of the Syro-Palestinian group,
who are pictured in their costumes and represented in
their physical characteristics. Also their leader, with the
Semitic name ‘Absha’, has the title heka-khasut ‘Prince
of the foreign country’.
The foreign pharaohs
The foreign element has become part of the Egyptian
world. In the Second Intermediate Period during the
Dynasties XIII and XIV (1790 – 1630 BC), the royal
king-lists report a chaotic period with 60 kings for 150
years. Among the many names of the kings of the XIII
Dynasty one bears the name Amenemhat Aamu
(‘Amenemhat the Asian’), probably the builder of a
pyramid at Dahshur, along with a well-know king of the
XIV Dynasty, Nehesi ‘the Nubian’. Also the name of the
king Userkara Khendjer, with a small pyramid in South
Saqqara, if the interpretation is correct and if it is Semitic,
means ‘Boar’.
During this moment happened something new inside the
Egyptian society. In the Delta region is well attested a
different Kingdom under the rules of an immigrant
culture: the so-called Hyksos (heka-khasut) Kingdom.
These were perhaps Palestinian (?) settlers in the eastern
Delta with their own peculiar culture, completely
opposite to the Egyptian one. For example, in the capital
Avaris/Tell el Da’ba, every construction belongs to this
different culture: some tombs have a donkey as a owner,
or a servant, with a narrow-bladed axe, wall
representations are very close to those of the Palace of
Knossos’ Frescos and scarabs of Egyptianized kings, as
for the foreign Prince Skr-hr. In this case the foreign
culture maintained a great number of characteristics and
control over a large part of the country even if the
Egyptian language continued to be used (e.g. Rhind
Mathematical Papyrus). It is a remarkable fact that one of
the major memory figures, the funeral rite, in this case is
maintained. Especially considering the fact that the
commemoration of the dead is one of the first links that is
set up by a community in order to maintain its identity. It
is the basis of the culture of remembrance, as it has
reference to the past, and instructs its holders, institutions
and rituals. The Hyksos rulers are able to maintain this
memory figure during this particular moment of the
country’s history. A moment when the dominant culture
was in a phase of regression, leaving a cultural void that
would have been otherwise filled.
The New Kingdom and the return to the harmony of
the past
During the New Kingdom the Egyptian have the control
of the country, the dominant culture is totally Egyptian.
The position of the stranger in once again dual: he can
maintain his link with his ancestral culture or he is
represented in the old way, as a prisoner and a defeated
enemy. A good example of this first case is the tomb of
the Semitic Ben-Ia ‘Son of (the God) Iah’ (TT343),
supervisor of construction work under Thutmosis III,
where are also recorded the names of his parents Irtenena
and Tirkak of non-Egyptian origin, but where the reliefs
motives are totally Egyptian (figure 8). Independently
from their origin and meaning the presence of this name
represent the will and the possibility for foreign people in
Egypt to preserve a link with their past. But they use and
accept the burial custom of the new culture (Egyptian): in
fact in the text we can read ‘[…] his beloved father
Irtenena justified before the great god, and his beloved
mother Tirkak justified’, the Egyptian formula. In another
example the foreigner maintains some of his personal
characteristics. In fact, Maiherpri, a Nubian prince, was
educated at court with the royal princes, one of which
became Amenhotep II, he was buried in the Valley of the
Kings, and even in his Book of the Dead, Maiherpri is
represented as an Egyptian (Figure 9), only his curly hair
and the colour of his skin reminds us that he was a
Nubian.
The Third Intermediate Period and the Egyptianized
pharaohs
With the Third Intermediate Period we have a different
point of view. On the throne of Egypt we find non-
Egyptian ethnical groups: Libyan before and Nubian
after. The new capital was at Tanis, in the Delta region,
503
while the region of Thebes and the southern part of the
country is dominated by the High Priests of Amun. The
Libyans veterans, farmers and military, begin to
organized themselves as a political and social entity in the
Delta region until they establish a real kingdom with the
XXIInd Dynasty (945-715 BC) and the XXIIIrd Dynasty
(880-724 BC). These are sovereigns of Libyan origin, but
of Egyptian culture. With the XXVth, or Nubian or
Cushitic, Dynasty once again we have rulers of a non-
Egyptian ethnic group, even if according to some scholars
they are perhaps the descendants of the Theban families
escaped in Nubia under the pressure of the Libyan
dynasties. In this case though the culture is again
Egyptian. A good example of this situation is represented
by the wall reliefs in the tomb of king Tanutamon (664-
656 BC), here the drawings are in the classical style of
Thebes.
Foreigners at home
During the Assyrian period something on a social level
must have changed dramatically. The Egyptians, when
represented by the Assyrians, have physical
characteristics well known to the modern scholar: the
Egyptian, the inhabitant of the land of the Nile, is the
Nubian and in this way is depicted in Assyrian art. This is
confirmed for example in a detail from an Assyrian wall
relief in the palace at Nimrud, showing the Assyrian
attack on an Egyptian city around 667 BCE. The Cushitic
troops and their officers are represented with the typical
Nubian feathers in their hair being conducted as
prisoners.
We are in the historical moment when Egyptian culture
begins an intense resistance. The country was subjected
for the first time to the pressure of a strong foreign policy
and culture. The self-defence to this cultural extinction is
unfortunately very bad. As Assmann demonstrated, the
Egyptian culture chooses to use the temple as a book
(Assmann 1997). From this moment on all the temples
have the same plant, bordered by high walls and
preserving rituals, images and sacred writings. The
temple becomes a symbol of Egypt, and for this reason,
Egypt will be the sacred land for excellence, and the
temple of the whole world. But in this way the
transmission of culture is limited to a small number of
people and no longer touches the majority of the country.
With the Greek and Roman domination the Egyptian
culture seems to be an exotic element to the various
rulers. Still, this is not enough yet to determine its death.
It is only with the arrival of a new religion that Egyptian
culture makes foreign its own home, undergoing a real
coup de grâce with a religious conversion. The collective
identity fades, until it becomes completely empty. The
decline of the Egyptian culture in this case is not a matter
of physical extinction but a cultural and collective
forgetfulness.
Conclusions
The case of the stranger in Egypt has shown a very
interesting level of relationship between conservation and
loss of identity, allowing us also to perform an analysis
on the individual and not just of a community; in contrast Bibliography
to the definition that identity does not exist outside the
individuals of the community. Assmann, J. 1997, La memoria culturale. Torino,
The stranger has a dual function within the Egyptian Einaudi.
order. The first is unconscious. It is the enemy to defeat,
the prisoner to be presented to the Pharaoh and gods in Kemp, B. 2000, Antico Egitto. Anatomia di una civiltà.
ritual ceremonies for the renewal cycle of cultural Milano, Electa.
identity. Initially it is a generic figure, perhaps of
Egyptian origin, then it begins to be associated to the
appearance of different peoples around the Egyptian
state: Nubians, Syrians, Palestinians, etc. This is parallel
to the triggering of the second function of being a
stranger in Egypt. Once in the country, he enters a
universally Egyptian order, embraces the Egyptian
culture, especially in its funerary rites, but he can
maintain a link with his culture of origin: the name, the
costumes, the ethnonym. The Egyptian culture is
inclusive but not exclusive. A third function, a third kind
of relationship, is that of foreigners, now Egyptianized,
who take the reins of the country. Starting from a few
individual doubtful examples, we proceed to the Hyksos
case. These are considered pharaohs under all aspects,
using Egyptian language, but which differ in the first
place in the classical Egyptian literary tradition of the
‘war of liberation’, even though within the royal king-
lists they are inserted between the legitimate pharaohs
with the special term heka-khasut. This fact is contrast for
example with the Amarna pharaohs, considered heretics,
who were completely eliminated from the king-lists.
Also, to what archaeology has made it possible to
uncover, graves, burial and funerary rituals are of an
entirely different typology from that of Egypt. This
Egyptianized culture has maintained ties with its remote
(?) past while taking most of the local customs. With the
New Kingdom we return to the previous dichotomy. But
while the number of foreigners in Egypt increases, which
is also confirmed by the large amount of non-Egyptian
words in the lexicon, the examples of preservation of
their original identity augments, accepting in toto the
Egyptianization. At this point we are coming to the end of
Egyptian history, even if the epilogue will last almost a
millennium. The country is first ruled by Libyan
mercenaries settled in the Delta and Nubian warriors,
both entirely Egyptianized, then it is invaded and ruled by
the Assyrians, Greeks and Romans. It is at this stage that
ad absurdum the Egyptian becomes a stranger in his own
land. The Egyptian culture with its rituals closes in on
itself, it is annihilated, imploding and becoming more and
more assets of a small number of people of the religious
sphere, where the court or the administration, was
remotely lapped. Until the arrival of a religious culture
with more aggregative ability and because of several
other historical events, the Egyptian man has become a
stranger in his own home, its ancient culture is entirely
supplanted and forgotten. A real ethno-cultural
extinction.

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