Der agyptische Hof des Neuen Reiches: Seine Gesellschaft und Kultur im Spannungsfeld zwischen Innen-und AuBenpolitik.

• Author: Frood, Elizabeth
• Position: Book review

Der agyptische Hof des Neuen Reiches: Seine Gesellschaft und Kultur im Spannungsfeld zwischen Innen-und AuBenpolitik. Edited by ROLF GUNDLACH and ANDREA KLUG. Konigtum. Staat und Gesellschaft fruher Hochkulturen, vol. 2. Wiesbaden: HARRASSO-WITZ VERLAG, 2006. Pp. vii + 284, illus. [euro] 64.

This volume is the second in a series which aims to explore relationships between king, stale, and society in ancient cultures, especially Egypt, with emphasis on the impact of foreign relations. This series, which consists of conference proceedings, as here, as well as individually authored monographs, is pan of a long-standing project developed at the Johannes Gutenburg-Universitat Mainz under the stewardship of Rolf Gundlach and his research group to study features of royal ideology.

The focus of this volume is the social and political structure of the royal court in the Egyptian New Kingdom (ca. 1539-1075 B.C.), particularly as a mechanism of communication and interaction with the outside world. It consists of seven papers, five of which treat Egypt. The final two offer comparative perspectives from Biblical studies and classical archaeology. The volume is framed by Gundlach's preface (p. vii) and conclusion (pp. 267-68), which describe the background to the project, offer directions for further research, and aim to give a sense of cohesion to the whole.

Gundlach also contributes the first major chapter (pp. 1-38), which attempts a larger conceptual introduction, focusing in particular on how the cosmological role of the king shaped social, spatial, and political elements of the court. Diagrams are used throughout to map the physical environments of royal residences and places of appearance, both in this world and the next, as well as their social configurations. While this structuralist presentation offers few new perspectives, it provides a useful overview of key areas of evidence, some of which are taken up in more detail in the following papers (more nuanced general discussions of Egyptian court society include: Laurent Coulon, "Cour, courtisans et modeles educatifs au Moyen Empire," Egypte Afrique et Orient 26 [2002]: 3-20; and Kate Spence, "Court and Palace in Ancient Egypt: the Amarna Period and Later Eighteenth Dynasty," in The Court and Court Society in Ancient Monarchies, ed. A. Spawforth [Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007], 267-328).

Christine Raedler's paper (pp. 39-87) examines how court structures and ideologies were thematized and...