Annual ARCE Convention - Day 1

     My daughter and I attended the first day of the annual American Research Center in Egypt convention today and heard some interesting papers. Here are two of the highlights of  the day (my next post will mention a few others):

1.     Julia Troche (Brown University) spoke on "The Origins of Apotheosis in Ancient Egypt" and discussed how to recognize when a private person had been deified. Some of the examples she gave of this include Djedi (lived in Dynasties IV - V, deified  somewhere between Dynasty V and VII), Mehu (lived in Dynasty VI, deified in Dynasty VI), Kagemni (lived in Dynasty VI and deified in Dynasty VI) and several others. These individuals met one or more of the following characteristics:

• They had enduring fame long after their deaths
• They were specifically referred to as "ntr" (god)
• They were invoked in "htp di nswt'' formulas
• A priesthood is known to have "supported" the person after their deaths
• A shrine was built in their honor

2.     Maggie Bryson (Johns Hopkins) in a lecture entitled "Man, King, God? The Deification of Horemheb", examined the posthumous elevation of a number of New Kingdom Pharaohs to a status or ranking higher than those of other Pharaoh's of the period and conclude that there was
nothing special about how Horemheb was remembered after his death particularly when compared to other Pharaohs such as Amenhotep I who clearly were fondly "remembered" for centuries after their deaths.