Private Religion at Amarna: The material evidence

Personal Piety in Ancient Egypt

“…More recent studies, although partly based on older data (Posener ), could convincingly show that personal piety, the way it is intended in the present article, did exist long before supposed by Assmann (Luiselli ) and that Amarna did not have the impact described, since even in Tell el‐Amarna, i.e. the city of Akhenaten himself, other gods were worshiped by the population (Stevens ) and private letters quote the daily talk to Aton (Bickel ). Other investigations concentrated on social issues related to the phenomenon, not only in the sense of social strata (Baines ; Kemp ) but also on social practices related to the Ramesside personal piety stelae (Morgan ; Exell , esp.…”

“…Thus, following this path, the actual search for the closeness to the divine during life can be traced back at least in the Middle Kingdom during the Osiris festivals in Abydos (Luiselli , p.16–18; Baines ), although numerous rock inscriptions from Elkab dating to the end of the Old Kingdom reveal the existence of great processions for the vulture goddess Nekhbet already at that time (Seidlmayer , p. 104). The investigation of votive offerings (Pinch ; Pinch & Waraksa ) and of installations for domestic cult performances (Stevens , , ; Weiss ) has contributed tremendously to the reconstruction of personal piety (the way it is used in the present paper) during the New Kingdom. From the Third Intermediate Period (1069–664 BC) onwards, although the sources decrease in terms of general quantity, the patterns developed in the past appear to be kept (Adderley ): the gods were being offered to in shrines and at home, they were prayed to, their nature was proclaimed, the closeness to them and the role played in their cult were a relevant part of public self‐presentation (Exell , pp.…”

“…With respect to methodologies, philological work still prevails in the research on personal piety; because of the higher informative value of texts and the doubtless relevance and numerical superiority of sources dating to the Ramesside Period, this focus has very much influenced the research. Nonetheless, new attention has been given to the visual display of personal religious practices (Luiselli , ; Exell ), on material culture and archaeological remains (Sadek ; Pinch ; Stevens , , ; Pinch & Waraksa ; Weiss ), helping to widen the perspective, by shifting the attention to aspects like domestic religion, gender, ritual performances, etc. Starting from the relevance given in other studies to the cultic context of personal piety Ramesside stelae (Kessler , ; Adrom ), the recent application of theories of agency and identity has emphasized the meaning of personal piety experiences, understood as religious practice (Weiss , p. 201), in daily life.…”

“…There is no agreement among Egyptologists on the use of one specific term to describe the religious attitude characterized by deep devotion and loyalty to one or more deities and the desire for direct contact with them. Suggested alternatives, such as ‘popular religion’ (Sadek ; Pinch, ; p. 325), ‘practical religion’ (Baines ), ‘private religion’ (Stevens ), ‘individual religiosity’ (Bickel ), ‘personal religion’ (Baines & Frood ), ‘religious practice’ (Weiss , p. 201), ‘closeness to (a) god’ (only in German publications as ‘Gottesnähe’, Assmann , p. 16, Luiselli ) all aim to avoid the Christian implications of ‘piety’ (Luiselli , p. 2, Mohn , p. 731) and to cover the numerous aspects of this religious phenomenon. The problem roots in the lack of any Egyptian term for this religious dimension.…”

From representation to reality: ancient Egyptian wax head cones from Amarna

“…XIX.C7; der Manuelian 1999: 256, no. 175; Stevens 2006: 87; Weatherhead & Kemp 2006: 240–43, 262–65, 409–10, fig. 3.33a–c, pl.…”