Kerry M. Muhlestein

Sacred Violence: When Ancient Egyptian Punishment was Dressed in Ritual Trappings

According to the evidence at hand, it appears that during the period spanning from the Old Kingdom through the Libyan Era, institutionally sanctioned ritual violence centered around two main ideas: interference with cultic practices (temple and funerary), and rebellion (both the uprising of conquered enemies rebelling against Egypts hegemony and the rebellion of actual Egyptians). It seems that while there were many crimes that the ancient Egyptians felt merited capital punishment, and many ways such punishment could be inflicted, most did not include a ritual element. However, it is clear that there were many executions that did include a ritual element, and in many cases it is likely that information conveying a ritual context is unavailable. For now, it can only be concluded that some executions were ritualized and others probably were not. Evidence regarding the forms of punishment that received ritual trappings remains inconclusive.

Teaching Egyptian History: Some Discipline-Specific Pedagogical Notes

This paper was originally given at the professional workshop In Search of Egypts Past: Problems and Perspectives of the Historiography of Ancient Egypt; A North American workshop at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, inaugurating the Journal of Egyptian History, April 23–24, 2008; most of the remaining papers of which will appear in Fascicle 2 of this journal. While many Egyptologists teach Egyptian history, we often fail to carefully conceive of just what this means. Teaching history is more than conveying facts about a time period, it is also teaching how to analyze and (re)construct history. Our classes may often teach this aspect as well, but is it explicit? And are we equipping graduate students with the ability to both do and teach history well? This training has a direct impact on their employability as well as their scholarship. A survey and study of History Department outcomes reveals areas we can improve our history teaching and our training of graduate students. Moreover, as Egyptologists, we have a significant offering to make to teaching history.