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Funerary feasts and the function of early offering-dishes

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Cahiers Caribéens d’Egyptologie

Nos 13-14
2010

Les Ankhou
 Cahiers Caribéens d’Egyptologie nos 13/14 2010

Funerary Feasts and the Function of Early

Offering-Dishes

Geoffrey J. TASSIE
Egyptian Cultural Heritage Organisation

Introduction
The holding of funerary feasts and the making of offerings to
the deceased and deities are part of the well known rituals of
ancient Egypt. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic graves many
different types of objects were placed: ceramic vessels, stone
vessels, jewellery, cosmetic items and sometimes weapons and
tools. These items are usually viewed as an index of wealth and
status and a provisioning the deceased individual for their
journey into the Afterlife (Emery 1961). However, the grave goods
are only one aspect of the funerary rites, the actual rituals that
surrounded the burial and feasts that accompanied them are
harder to elucidate. One type of ritual object is the offering-dishes
that can be found scattering the surface of many archaeological
sites from the Old to the New Kingdom and beyond.

61
Rather than using the higher level of interpretation of offering-
dishes these vessels are often termed miniature plates or bowls
followed by a modifying noun such as straight-sided or flat-
bottomed (Wodzińska, 2009b: 136). The use of these dishes has often
been thought to be for offering small amounts of foodstuffs to
nourish the k3 of a deceased individual or to make an offering to a
deity. Rare finds in the Nile Delta have shed some much needed
light on the function of these objects, indicating that not all of
them were used for offering of foodstuffs. The discovery of
various types of pottery vessels together at another Delta site
indicates the probable use of small bag-shaped vessels in eating
and drinking.

Miniature Vessels
Miniature vessels are first attested at the site of Merimde Beni
Salame in Layer I, the Urschicht. Miniature vessels, generally
made of burnished and polished fabrics, some with herringbone
design are in the form of cups, basins and hemispherical bowls
(Midant-Reynes 2000: 109; Wodzinska 2009a: 37-61). These miniature vessels
continued to be produced in Layers III-V with all the
elaborations of lips, necks and feet of the full-scale vessels
(Eiwanger 1992; Wodzinska 2009a: 37-61). The miniature vessels at this
period cannot be proven to have been used as offering-dishes,
and their function must remain speculative at present.
Miniature and small vessels also occur from Naqada II into
Naqada III (Jucha 2005: 53), generally being made of medium to
fine Nile clay. These vessels have been found at many sites,
such as Buto, Hierakonpolis, Kafr Hassan Dawood, Naqada
KH2, Nag ed-Der, Tell el-Farkha, Tell el-Ginidba and Tell
Ibrahim Awad. Both open and closed forms occur at this
period, the closed forms usually taking the form of bag-shaped
vessels, some carinated others with straight walls (Fig. 1) and
with more or less external thickening of the rim, with a round
or flat base, while the open forms are usually dishes or plates
(i.e. Jucha 2005: 53, pl. 79, 106.6, 8; Köhler 1998: 20, Abb. 14, Taf. 15, 16, 18).

62
 (photograph Ken Walton)
Figure 1. Large cooking assemblage from Grave 970 at Kafr Hassan Dawood.

During this period the closed form of miniature vessels are

generally more numerous at sites than the dishes or plates. A
less common form of closed miniature vessel is the votive jar,
which is found in the Old Kingdom at such sites as Giza
(Wodzińska, 2009b: 126). At the site of KH2 in the Naqada region
several offering-dishes have been found in the large Dynasty
I mud-brick mastaba tombs (Hassan 1989, 1999; Tassie et al. 2010). The
size of these dishes varies, but they are generally small flat
plate-like ceramic vessels with a diameter between 5 and 10
cm and roughly made by hand.

Function
These vessels have been found in graves and also within a
settlement context (Jucha 2005: 53) however, the function of these
vessels is still debated. One means of ascribing function is
through association and context. In Grave 970 at the site of
Kafr Hassan Dawood (KHD) a miniature bag-shaped vessel
was found inside a large cooking vessel that was resting on a
potstand with a jar lid placed on top of the cooking vessel (Hassan
et al. 2008: Fig. 4.e). A similar ensemble of ceramic vessels was also
found inside the large (6 x 4 m) mud-lined grave 913 at KHD.

63
On the base of the potstand were black soot stains, indicating
that the stand had been placed on a hearth, probably with the
large cooking vessel resting on top, which was covered by a jar
lid. Although it is uncertain what was being cooked, the
implications are that the stew-type dish was served in the bag-
shaped vessel. Therefore, it appears that the function of this
small bag-shaped vessel was as a drinking vessel. Although not
all forms of closed miniature and small vessels can be assigned
the same function, the finding of the bag-shaped form in
association with a cooking vessel would indicated that this is
what this form of vessel was used for.
Small offering dishes have been found at the Early Dynastic to
Old kingdom site of Tell Ginidba. The site is located 15 km north
of Kafr Saqr, and to the east of Sangaha and Tell el-Farkha. The
site covers 3 hectares and has many mud-brick dwellings, one of
the larger ones appearing to be a storehouse or administrative
building, the walls of its long axis measuring 7 metres was made
with a bond of three courses of stretchers and a row of headers
(Spencer’s A5, A7 or A8 bond), a bond usually found in the Early
Dynastic Period. Found in this large Early Dynastic building
were 16 offering-dishes with a long, thin piece of fired clay
placed in the middle (George Rizq Pers comm. 2009). (Fig. 2).

Figure 2. Early Dynastic offering dishes from Tell Ginidba

with a pottery flame/smoke indicating that they were used for burning incense
(photograph courtesy George Rizq).

64
The long piece of fired clay would seem to indicate a flame or
plume of smoke, suggesting that they were used for burning
incense rather than for placing food offerings in them. It
cannot be shown that all small offering dishes were used for
this purpose, but at least some of the dishes should be seen as
incense burners and analyses of any residues may indicate what
type of incense was used.

Funerary Feasts
The importance of feasting in many prehistoric, historic and
traditional societies has been documented in considerable
detail (Dietler & Hayden 2001; Jones 2007). One of the central themes to
come from these studies is that feasts were an occasion for
the hosts to invite and feed as many people from as large an
area and as high rank as possible. Feasts were critical in
obtaining political, social, and economic advantages for the
hosts (Hayden 2001). The guests at funerals would have been kin,
affines, and allies, or those that could potentially be one of
these groups; as such funerals represent an ideal environment
to reaffirm relationships of alliance and support, and to try to
cultivate even more advantageous relationships (Hayden 1987;
1995). Moreover, the age at death in ancient Egypt was
relatively low (Hassan 1981), which means that funerals within
these support or alliance groups would have happened
regularly enough for these relationships to be affirmed on a
fairly frequent basis with each family hosting a funerary feast
several times per generation.
Feasting may be defined as any sharing of special foods (or
large quantities of food) between two or more people in a
meal for a special purpose or occasion, often with people that
one does not normally see all the time (Jones 2007: 149; Hayden 2001:
28). In ancient Egypt feasts were originally a means of
providing abundant food for the community. With the
introduction of new foods and technologies, particularly, but
not exclusively intoxicating beverages during the fourth

65
millennium BC (Joffe 1998), the concentration of resources
among fewer individuals increased, implying wider social
control networks to procure supplies of rare or expensive
foodstuffs (Sherratt 2002: 69-70). The nature of feasting changed
during this period to demonstrating conspicuous displays of
consumption, illustrating the wealth and power of the
individual or family hosting the feast.
The large and impressive Predynastic and Early Dynastic
graves at such sites as Abydos, Hierakonpolis, Naqada and
Saqqara have been the focus of much scholarly debate
(Wilkinson 1999). However, the rituals that surround the burials of
these individuals were probably just as elaborate in the social
realm as their funerary monuments were in the material.
Although the poor would have had funerary rituals and
probably a meal in association, these were not lavish affairs
affecting the socio-economic and political relations of the
community (Hayden 2001). In many societies there is good
evidence that the elites practiced feasting and the funerary
feasts would have been an occasion of unprecedented scale and
lavishness (Hayden 2001; Jones 2007). This evidence comes from
material remains, artistic depictions, and written records
(Wengrow 2006; Wilkinson 1999). The funerary feasts of the local
chiefs and other important families were usually one of the
most important community events that existed. Banqueting
scenes in tombs from the Old Kingdom and later are part of
the well known Egyptian iconography (Harpur 1987). These
scenes are thought to portray the funeral feast that
accompanied the deceased’s funerary rites. However, the
material remains of these funerary feasts rarely show up in
the archaeological record, and so the only indications of how
lavish these feasts may have been are the actual graves and
grave goods accompanying the dead. Another source of
evidence is the labels, seals and funerary stelae from
Protodynastic and Early Dynastic tombs, which show various
aspects of the funerary rituals.

66
Several questions arise, such as whose possessions were the
grave goods, the deceased or gifts from mourners and what
was the reason for having such elaborate tombs and contents?
Inscriptions on vessels indicate that some of them at least were
gifts from people, whereas others probably belonged to the
family of the deceased (Tassie et al. 2008). The holding of funerary
feasts involves not only an enormous amount of time and
resources, but is done for deceased individuals who are
incapable of repaying these efforts or expressing appreciation
of the lavishness of the event. Excessively lavish funeral feasts
could be considered the height of economic and self-interest
irrationality or due to belief systems that follow logics of their
own (Carr 1995). Funerary feasts can also be viewed as a means to
favourably impress the dead so that as ancestors they will
dispense fertility, wealth, and success on their living
descendants, as Kemp (2005: 115) states offerings are a type of
“special currency by means of which transactions are possible
between humans and the spiritual world”. Tombs are also a
means of acquiring and demonstrating power in the landscape,
a means of affirming a family’s legitimate right to the land and
power as well as a means of perpetuating social differentiation
(Parker Pearson 1999: 93, 193; Endesfelder 1984: 98-9). Funerary feasts were
an occasion where members of the community would meet, a
chance to broker or reaffirm relationships of alliance and
support, and to try to cultivate even more advantageous
relationships and solicit favours (Hayden 2001). The ostentatious
nature of the tomb and the feast was meant to impress the
guests, to show the power and wealth of the family, their
fitness and legitimacy so that they may gain socio-economic
and political advantage by attracting other individuals or
groups into relationships that are beneficial to those who made
the displays (Hayden 2001).
During the Protodynastic (probably also in the Predynastic)
and Early Dynastic there was a belief that for the deceased to
maintain a posthumous existence they needed to be supplied
with food and drink (Blackman 1918: 160). These provisions can be
67
seen in the earliest Naqadian and Maadian tombs (Midant-Reynes
2000), during the Protodynastic symbolic potsherds were
sometimes placed to represent breadmoulds and cooking
stands (Hassan et al. 2003) and in the elite tombs at Saqqara Emery
(1961: 243) discovered remains of the funerary repast placed in
front of the deceased in several of the tombs. At Kafr Hassan
Dawood in the large mud-lined graves 913 and 970 remains of
such a feast, in the form of a leg of an ox were found placed on
oval plates (Hassan et al. 2003). The large amounts of wine jars in
the tombs at such places as Umm el-Qa’ab, in tombs such as
U-j are an indication of the amount of food and drink that may
have been consumed at the actual funerary feast (Porat & Goren
2002). The early niche stelae at Helwan and Saqqara (Köhler & Jones
2009) indicate aspects of the funerary rites. Blackman (1918: 160)
proposes that these rites began with the pouring out of water
over the officiant’s hands and the burning of incense - acts that
represent the washing of the deceased banqueter’s hands and
fumigation with incense-smoke, preludes to feasts of the
living. Acts of anointing, presenting napkins and censing then
followed before the pouring of libation water, which may have
represented mouth-wash, and the bringing of the viands
(Blackman 1918: 160). The more developed Old Kingdom beliefs in
the daily joining of the celestial realm do not replace these
older beliefs but accommodate and incorporate them in the
new rites and belief system.

Conclusion
Various aspects of ancient Egyptian mortuary practices have
been illuminated due to the finding of miniature dishes used
for burning incense and bag-shaped vessels used for drinking.
Although the iconography and writing have indicated that
incense was used in the funerary rituals, the finding of
offering-dishes with plumes of smoke consolidates these
findings, and indicates that these rituals were already taking
place in Dynasty I, and probably in the Protodynastic period.

68
As the location of funerary feasts was not likely to be at the
actual graveside, the remains of funerary feasts are virtually
impossible to recover. Therefore the iconographic, written and
ethnographic examples provide a means to interpret the
evidence that does exist of the funerary rites. Utilitarian
cooking vessels placed in tombs are an indication of the types
of foods likely to be consumed and the vessels used to serve
the food at these funerary feasts.

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