A New Group of Middle King dom Em balming Deposits? Another look at Pottery Dumps an d Repositories for Building Materials in Middle King dom Cemeteries

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Although mummification is assumed to have been a common practice during the mid-late Middle Kingdom, there are no confirmed examples of so-called “embalming deposits” – intentional deposits of waste created during the mummification process – from cemeteries of this period. The only Middle Kingdom deposits of this type date to the early Middle Kingdom and come from the Theban necropolis. This paper examines the archaeology of a hitherto overlooked group of intentional cemetery deposits from the mid-late Middle Kingdom and explores the possibility that the deposits might represent an alternative tradition of embalming or deposition of embalming waste.