ARCE - Day 2

     The second day of the annual ARCE meeting started with Christine Lilyquist presenting her work in digitizing the Metropolitan Museum's mostly unpublished manuscripts pertaining to the Carter and Carnarvon excavations near Hatshepsut's temple at Dier el-Bahri. The documents, including photos by Harry Burton, notes written by Carter and digital copies of relevant books are being incorporated into a website that will be turned over to the Metropolitan Museum soon.

     Next up, Ann Macy Roth of NYU presented on "Porters and Offering Bearers in Old Kingdom Tomb Chapels". She noted an interesting division of labor in these scenes. In the tomb of Meysankh III food was brought by women, not me. Men did however do the work of slaughtering cattle. Also, when nobles are carried in chairs to view their estates the men are carried by men while the only lady known is shown being carried by women. She also noted that in some tombs estates are personified by men and women with labels next to them bearing the name of the estate they represent. Dr. Roth divided the offerings being brought to the deceased into five categories:

• Food
• Animals
• Equipment
• Ritual Materials
• Estates