Excavating the Egyptian State and Economy in the Late Third Millennium BCE: a New Investigation of the Causeway of Sahura at Abusir

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Martin Andreas Stadler
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: since 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 389349558

The main reason for Egypt’s outstanding achievements during the Old Kingdom was a very efficient administration, capable to deal with the production and distribution of huge amounts of goods, which had to be resourced according to the needs of a complex culture. To finance the major building projects, the state collected taxes which was usually paid over a large portion of agricultural surplus, in connection with a mobilization of workforce for the king. The royal funerary domains represented special types of state establishments, which played an important role in the economic system of the Old Kingdom. Starting point for phase 1 of the current research project were the newly discovered scenes from Sahura’s causeway showing the personified domains in procession. The king founded them to provide, i.a., for the building workforce of his pyramid and other royal construction projects, as well as priests and servants executing his funerary cult. The domains’ foundations played an important part in the integration of the country, the development of its infrastructure and the consolidation of its central government. They show also that the system of domains and its organisation was hierarchic. In phase 1 excavation campaigns were undertaken to search for further reliefs that would help to understand the full decoration programme of the causeway. The results of the excavations in phase 1 have surpassed all expectations because seven additional large blocks with scenes and inscriptions have been found apart from a great number of fragments that fill gaps in our picture of the causeway’s decoration. Moreover, new indications to find more blocks could be collected. This revolutionizes our knowledge of the decoration programme of Sahura’s causeway.In the follow-up phase, two final campaigns shall be undertaken in Abusir to finish the causeway’s northern side. However, the chief objectives of phase 2 are an in-depth study and research to get a full publication of the newly discovered material out: One monograph will be the full excavation report alongside a catalogue of archaeological finds with chapters on topics such as a pottery analysis, faunal analysis, 3D documentation techniques and small finds. A second monograph will present a full study about the state of Egypt in the Old Kingdom and its economic process of “internal colonization”. The discovered reliefs of funerary domains shed new light on the organization of the state during Sahura’s reign, allow new insights into the Egyptian economy at that time, and into the policy that enabled the central power to solidify its position and, consequently, to control the surplus products. They give an idea of how the communication was organised inside and among the domains. New information regarding the royal family as well as the publication of the oldest royal narrative text (and up to now the only one of its kind from the Old Kingdom) will provide outstanding new information that will change old paradigms.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants