Abstract
The paper presents a study of the context, functions, and rationale behind architectural replicas sealed off in ancient Egyptian tombs, the finest exemplars of which having been excavated in the Theban tomb of Meketre (ca. 2000 B.C.). The analysis is preceded by clarifications regarding the terminology used, the point of view from which they have to be considered, and the developments that led to their presence in the funerary assemblage. It is suggested that in the sealed ‘replicas chamber’ or burial chamber in which they were deposited, it was mainly the winged ba, a connective agent between the worlds of life, death, and eternity, that was meant to enter the imaginary realm of the replicas and feed the deceased in order to revivify him.
Highlights
This paper aims to reevaluate the paradigm to which ancient Egyptian architectural)
Architectural replicas were made to revivify the deceased, providing him, in the inaccessible part of the burial, with the sustenance and the ability to oversee essential activities that may have been under his responsibility when he was alive
During the First Intermediate Period-Middle Kingdom, architectural replicas enabled the best possible actualization of the elite funerary model inscribed in the Coffin Texts: as a connective agent between the worlds of life, death, and eternity, between humans, images, and gods, the ba played its part, along with other aspects and manifestations of the deceased, in the rebirth of his integrated self
Summary
Citation: David, A. Small WORLD: Ancient Egyptian ArchitecturalReplicas from the Tomb of Meketre.Humans 2021, 1, 18–28. https://doi.org/10.3390/humans1010004Academic Editor: Kevin M. KellyReceived: 16 July 2021Accepted: 8 September 2021Published: 15 September 2021Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
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