Visualizing an Ancient Egyptian Queen - The Tomb of the 1st Dynasty Queen Meret-Neith at Abydos

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Dietrich Raue, since 10/2022
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 434209459

Queen Meret-Neith was one of the most influential woman at the royal court during the 1st Egyptian Dynasty around 3000 BCE. Based on the archaeological and inscriptional sources, scholars have suggested that she may have been a daughter of king Djer, chief wife of king Wadji and mother of king Den. But she was not only a woman of royal descent - thereby simply securing the continuity of the royal blood line - but rather, her influence, and indeed power, went even further; she was the only woman to receive her own proper tomb in the royal ancestral cemetery at Abydos - Umm el-Qaab that in size, execution and furnishings rivaled that of a king. Since her tomb's discovery by W.M. Flinders Petrie in 1899-1900 the historical significance of this woman has been a matter of debate. Opinions range in scope from her having been a regent queen in charge of government until her young son and heir to the throne had come of age to being a fully-fledged ruler in her own right. This debate remains unsettled, which is mainly due to the scarcity of the inscriptional evidence employed in the discussion, as well as the many questions still surrounding her precise lineage and political significance at the time. While she has obviously been included in general studies on Egyptian queens, this woman and what remains of her time and life have never been the object of an independent study. What has also been neglected in past scholarship is the material evidence surrounding her tomb, identity and time. Although the royal necropolis at Umm el-Qaab has been under intensive investigation by the German Archaeological Institute since 1978 (with most of the royal tombs of the 1st and 2nd Dynasty now having been fully re-excavated), Meret-Neith's tomb, her reign and her persona as one of the most important historical women during the formation of the early Pharaonic state have never received due attention. This project proposes to 1. re-excavate the tomb complex of queen Meret-Neith at Abydos; 2. collect all archaeological and inscriptional evidence available from her tomb and her reign (including material from the early 20th century excavations at Abydos and Saqqara located in Egypt and various museums in Europe and the USA); 3. analyze and critically assess this material, and compare it with that of her royal relatives and contemporary courtiers to consider its place within Early Dynasty materiality, technology, chronology, administration and economic distribution; 4. investigate if and how this data may assist in reconstructing this elite woman's funerary, social and gender identities in comparison to non-royal and non-elite women of the time, and 5. preserve, reconstruct and visualize with modern visual computing technology (Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)) the tomb architecture, material culture and culture-historical background of queen Meret-Neith for virtual public and scholarly access.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria
• Partner Organisation: Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF)
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr.-Ing. Peter Ferschin; Professorin Dr. Christiana Köhler
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Stephan Johannes Seidlmayer, until 9/2022