Inscriptions from Lisht

This volume incorporates all of the inscribed material associated with more than one hundred burial chambers and graves found at Lisht North and Lisht South, two sites excavated by the Egyptian Expedition of The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1907 until 1934 and from 1984 to 1991.

The inscribed objects found in or close to the burial chambers of Middle Kingdom officials and others provide an important addition to our appreciation of ancient Egyptian funerary culture. These include the coffins and sarcophagi as well as canopic chests and jars, mummy masks, ivory wands, miniature coffins, and shawabtis. Two kings, members of the royal family and many elite persons, as well as a community of middle-class people, found their resting place in and around the royal pyramids at Lisht, which served as the principal cemetery for Egypt's capital during the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2030-1650 B.C.). The material published here represents a sequence of seven chronological phases at Lisht that range from the reigns of the kings Amenemhat I and Senwosret I through the late Dynasty XIII and the Second Intermediate Period.

The inscribed texts presented here are transliterated and translated, and are accompanied by extensive drawings that meticulously detail these texts, as well as annotations to some previously published material. The lavishly illustrated volume includes heretofore unpublished photographs from the Department of Egyptian Art's archives. Each object has been assigned a code referring to the primary individual associated with it, and its description includes transliterations of the deceased's name(s) and title(s). Because the location of an inscription on a coffin or sarcophagus is usually significant and because some of these include multiple texts, the author has designed a system of references that reflects the location on the object. Further, the catalogue of objects draws on Museum archives and also provides information concerning the findspot and current location of the object as well as relevant archival material and bibliography.