Stones, ancestors, and pyramids:

Investigating the pre-pyramid landscape of Memphis.

 

Serena Love

Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University

 

 

Past peoples knowingly inhabited landscapes that were palimpsests of previous occupations.  Landscapes were occupied and re-occupied.  Rarely was this a meaningless or innocent re-use” (van Dyke and Alcock (ed). 2003. Archaeologies of Memory).

 

This paper explores the implications of this quote in the context of the pre-pyramid landscape of early Memphis.  It is argued that the Memphite necropolis is an inscribed landscape of social memory that contributed to a developing Egyptian identity. 

 

Egyptological research appears to be entering a new paradigm, focusing on how the pyramids built Egypt rather than how the Egyptians built the pyramids.  This paper aims to further the notion that pyramid construction contributed to the creation of social identity and ideology by examining the pre-pyramid landscape of early Memphis, from a purely symbolic approach.  Building from over 50 years of research concerning the pragmatics of pyramid construction this paper will focus on the lesser-known symbolic associations of the Memphite landscape, such as the archaeology of natural places and the cultural appropriation of local topography. The accumulation of this material suggests that the deliberate placement of monuments was an act to acknowledge the ancestors and legitimize power. 

 

The intention of this paper is to illustrate the degree of cultural activity that preceded pyramid construction.  The purpose here is to examine two ideas: 1) the landscape was sacred before it was used for pyramid building and, 2) the patterns of Predynastic and Early Dynastic land use and how it may have influenced later pyramid placement.   Over 1,000 years of life and death are represented in Memphis before the first pyramid was conceived, although the archaeology is very thin as not all activities leave a mark upon the land.   There is substantial archaeological material to suggest long-term occupation and sedentary communities.  It will be suggested here that these early communities of Egyptians had created specific symbolic associations with the landscape, where symbolic meaning and cultural significance was gained from repeated use.  Memphis was thus ‘marked’ hundreds of years before a pyramid was ever built.