The authors report a summary of the results of six seasons of excavation at one of the cemeteries of Tell el-Amarna, the celebrated city of the ‘monotheistic’ revolutionary, Akhenaten. The osteology shows a workforce enduring stress and injuries to bone and muscle. The burial rites indicate low investment and personal interpretations as to spiritual meaning. In this exploration of a slice of a whole Egyptian urban society, the contrast between the working lives of the elite and its workforce becomes striking.
Burial grounds are increasingly being considered as components of lived urban environments in the past. This paper considers how the ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaten, built by king Akhenaten (c. 1349–1332 bc), was constructed and experienced as a space inhabited both by the living and the dead. Drawing upon results from ongoing excavations at the burial grounds of the general population, it considers how the archaeological record of the settlement and its cemeteries segue and explores how the nature of burial landscapes and the need to maintain reflexive relationships between the living and the dead in the midst of a changing religious milieu contributed to the unique character of Akhetaten as a city. It asks what kind of city Akhetaten was, and what it was like to live through the Amarna period.
The archaeological record at Amarna offers scope to enhance current understanding of domestic religion at this site. The material evidence suggests that conduct undertaken included offering rituals and the use of magic and amuletic images, and involved the royal family and Aten, some 'traditional' deities and private ancestors. Domestic religion appears to have interacted with daily, secular conduct and to have been subject to influence by a variety of factors. The picture of domestic religion at Amarna presented here has potential relevance for domestic religion in general in New Kingdom Egypt.THE creation of theoretical subsets of religious conduct can be an important stage in the analysis and comprehension of ancient religions, whether in broad groupings, such as state or funerary religion, or more specific subsets, of which domestic and fertility religion can be considered examples. Domestic religion, defined here as religious conduct undertaken strictly within the confines of the house.' is a particularly useful subset for scholars using archaeological data. In this case, the basis upon which conduct is grouped-a common household environment-has a relatively direct archaeological correlate in the physical remains of the house and its contents. The potential of archaeological data to enhance understanding of domestic religion in ancient Egypt is illustrated particularly well at Deir el-Medina. The structure of domestic religion remains poorly understood, however, and the potential of the archaeological record to provide information on this realm has not been exhausted.Amarna provides an appropriate context in which to explore domestic religion and is a site where the archaeological evidence is particularly significant, given the overall lack of direct textual and epigraphic sources. Archaeological evidence has certainly not been excluded from previous studies of 'non-state' religion during the Amarna Period * This article derives from research being undertaken towards a PhD dissertation on the material evidence for non-state religion at Amarna in the Centre for Archaeology and Ancient History, Monash University, Melbourne. I would like to thank Colin Hope and Olaf Kaper for their very helpful comments on versions of this paper and 10 Aitken for proofreading a draft. I am also grateful for the advice I received from the lEA reviewers; their observations have had a significant impact on the structure and scope of this article. I wish to thank the Egypt Exploration Society, Barry Kemp and the Agyptisches Museum und PapyrussammJung, Berlin, for permission to discuss a number of objects that are previously unpublished, or published in limited detail. Gratitude is also expressed to the EES, the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft and the Deutsches Arcbaologisches Institut for permission to reproduce the figures in the text.I Conduct undertaken outside the house, including that which occurred in the garden or house compound, is excluded.
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