Compulsion and Control in Ancient Egypt

Alexandre Loktionov is Professor of Egyptology at HSE University, Moscow and Budge Fellow in Egyptology at Christ’s College, Cambridge. He is also a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College, London, a Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His main research interests lie in Ancient Egyptian justice, exchange of intellectual culture between Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the history of Egyptology. He holds PhD, MPhil and BA degrees from the University of Cambridge and has also previously worked at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Preface – Alexandre Loktionov


Introduction: Pluralisms of Compulsion and Control in Ancient Egypt – Alexandre Loktionov







I. Compulsion and Control in the Temple Sphere


1. The Turin Indictment Papyrus (P. Turin C. 1887): an Enquiry about the Forms of Compulsion in

the Text – Marcella Trapani


2. The Egyptian Temples of Oxyrhynchus and their Personnel Under the Roman Empire – Leah Mascia







II. Compulsion and Control in Religious and Funerary Thought


3. ‘You shall not constrain my bꜢ’. Control through and of the bꜢ.(w) – Anne Landborg


4. Ancestors as a Source of Legal Authority – Renata Schiavo







III. Compulsion and Control around Borders


5. Fort-building and Violence as the Mode of Control of the Margins in Late Middle Kingdom Nubia – Adam Fagbore


6. Compulsory Foreign Labour in Late Bronze Age Egypt: Towards Understanding a Forced

Migration-Unfree Labour Nexus – Christian Langer


7. Unwritten Compulsion: Social Integration, Norms and Self-Control at Kurgus in Medieval Nubia – Loretta Kilroe







IV. Compulsion and Control in the Administration of Labour and Human Resources


8. Controlling Workforces at the Palace: Some Perspectives on Administrative Practice at

Kom Medinet Gurob – Fredrik Hagen


9. Bureaucratic Control of New Kingdom Tomb Building Projects – Rune Olsen







V. Compulsion and Control in Text and Image


10. Images of Control and Submission in Old Kingdom Funerary Iconography: The Egyptian Tomb

as a ‘Disciplinary Institution’ – Matthieu Hagenmüller


11. Social Control in Middle Kingdom Egypt: Embodied Experience and Symbolic Violence – Margaret Maitland


12. Human Branding Practices during the New Kingdom: A Form of Control between Metaphor

and Reality – Marta Valerio







VI. Compulsion and Control through Patronage and Unequal Status Relationships


13. Patronage and Protection in Late Pharaonic and Ptolemaic Egypt – Brian Muhs


14. “When Dad says no”: Paternal Authority and Control in the Context of Egyptian Men’s First Marriages – Steffie van Gompel







VII. The Language of Compulsion and Control


15. Words that bind: Earlier Egyptian Language of Compulsion and Control – Sami Uljas


16. How to tell of Compulsion and Control in Demotic: a Prospect from Contextual Narratology – John Tait


17. Perceptions of Liberty in the Coptic Period: Affective Responses to Socio-religious Pressures

in the Western Desert – Victoria Fendel