Dissertation: An Analysis of Private Sector Craft Specialization in the Artisan's Village of Deir el Medina of Ramesside Period Egypt

在Betsy Bryan博士的指导下，Kathlyn Cooney女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将利用现存的书面记录和幸存的对象来分析位于底比斯附近的古埃及村庄Deir el Medina的手工艺生产的经济和社会组织。古埃及的大多数居住地都位于尼罗河的冲积平原上，从那时起就被数千年的淤泥沉积物所覆盖。另一方面，Deir el Medina代表了一个保存在沙漠中的非凡的居住地。这些保存完好的泥砖房屋和相关的生活垃圾属于十八、十九和二十王朝时期在帝王谷建造、雕刻和装饰皇家坟墓的工人。这些人中的许多人都有文化，除了他们的官方工作外，他们还担任半独立的工匠，制作棺材和其他与仪式和葬礼有关的物品，供私人销售。看来国家支持这种私营企业，并提供必要的木材和其他原材料。这些工作大部分是在合同的基础上安排的，因为个别项目是按订单制作的，干燥的沙漠环境保存了数千份书面文件，包括工匠和购买者之间的许多合同。 这些提供了一个前所未有的机会，了解经济和社会组织的工艺行业的背景下，一个中央集权的国家控制的企业。虽然具体的物品和合同不太可能匹配，但Deir el Medina工人生产的许多物品已被收回，在博物馆收藏中展出，可供研究。 在国家科学基金会的支持下，库尼女士将访问包含文件副本的档案馆，我在几个博物馆研究手工艺品，并在Deir el Medina遗址进行实地考察，以深入了解手工艺品生产的空间组织。导致埃及文明兴起的过程独立地发生在世界许多地方，因此反映的不是历史偶然性，而是一个潜在的背景原则。为了实现理解复杂社会如何演变的目标，考古学家必须在很大程度上依赖于通过挖掘恢复的物体，通常是陶瓷，然后利用这些遗骸重建它们间接反映的社会和经济体系。近年来，科学家们一直关注这些物品产生的背景。在此基础上，我们可以进一步推测社会组织和政治集权的程度。然而，由于很少有独立的控制，很难知道这种分析框架和由此得出的结论是否正确。Deir el Medina的情况为解决这一问题提供了一个独特的机会，因为可以将实物的图案与来自书面记录的信息进行比较。例如，初步工作表明，集中控制和个体控制之间的区别可能过于简单，因为两者同时存在，并且可能在现场相互加强。它将为许多考古学家提供感兴趣的数据，并有助于完善考古学理论的一个重要领域。它还将协助培训一名有前途的年轻研究人员。

Under the direction of Dr. Betsy Bryan, Ms Kathlyn Cooney will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will utilize extant written records and surviving objects to analyze the economic and social organization of craft production at the ancient Egyptian village of Deir el Medina, located near Thebes. Most habitation sites in ancient Egypt were located in the Nile's alluvial plain and have since been covered with millennia of silt deposits. Deir el Medina, on the other hand represents an extraordinary and rate habitation site preserved in the desert. The remarkable well-preserved mud brick homes and associated living debris belonged to the workmen who built, carved and decorated the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings during the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties. Many of these individuals were literate and, in addition to their official work, functioned as semi-independent craftsmen who fashioned coffins and other ritual and funerary related objects for private sale. It appears that the state supported such private enterprise and provided the necessary wood and other raw materials. Much of such work was arranged on a contractual basis as individual items were made to order and the dry desert environment has preserved thousands of written documents, including many contracts between artisan and purchaser. These provide an unprecedented opportunity to understand the economic and social organization of a craft industry within the context of a centralized state controlled enterprise. Although it is unlikely that specific items and contracts can be matched, many objects produced by Deir el Medina workers have been recovered, are curated in museum collections and available for study. With National Science Foundation support, Ms Cooney will visit archives which contain copies of the documents, study craft objects themselves in several museums and conduct fieldwork at the site of Deir el Medina to gain insight into the spatial organization of craft production.The processes which led to the rise of civilization in Egypt occurred independently in many parts of the world and thus reflect not historic chance but rather an underlying set of principles. To achieve their goal of understanding how complex societies evolve, archaeologists must rely heavily on objects, most often ceramics, recovered through excavation and then use these remains to reconstruct the social and economic systems they indirectly reflect. In recent years scientists have focused on the context within which such items were produced. On this basis further speculation about social organization and degree of political centralization are possible. However because there is rarely an independent control, it is difficult to know whether such an analytical framework and the conclusions which derive from it are correct. Deir el Medina situation offers a unique opportunity to address this issue since it is possible to compare the patterning of material objects with information derived from the written record. Preliminary work, for example, indicates that the distinction between centralized and individualized control may be overly simple since both existed side by side, and likely reinforced each other at the site.This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and help to refine an important area of archaeological theory. It will also assist in training a promising young researcher.