This book provides an innovative analysis of the conditions of ancient Egyptian craftsmanship in the light of the archaeology of production, linguistic analysis, visual representation and ethnographic research.During the past decades, the "imaginative" figure of ancient Egyptian material producers has moved from "workers" to "artisans" and, most recently, to "artists". In a search for a fuller understanding of the pragmatics of material production in past societies, and moving away from a series of modern preconceptions, this volume aims to analyse the mechanisms of material production in Egypt during the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550 BC), to approach the profile of ancient Egyptian craftsmen through their own words, images and artefacts, and to trace possible modes of circulation of ideas among craftsmen in material production.The studies in the volume address the mechanisms of ancient production in Middle Bronze Age Egypt, the circulation of ideas among craftsmen, and the profiles of the people involved, based on the material traces, including depictions and writings, the ancient craftsmen themselves left and produced.ContentsSculpture Workshops: who, where and for whom? - Simon ConnorThe Artistic Copying Network Around the Tomb of Pahery in Elkab (EK3): a New Kingdom case study - Alisee DevillersAntiquity Bound to Modernity. The significance of Egyptian workers in modern archaeology in Egypt - Maximilian GeorgEpistemological Things! Mystical Things! Towards an ancient Egyptian ontology - Amr El HawaryCentralized and Local Production, Adaptation, and Imitation: Twelfth Dynasty offering tables - Alexander Ilin-TomichTo Show and to Designate: attitudes towards representing craftsmanship and material culture in Middle Kingdom elite tombs - Claus JurmanPrecious Things? The social construction of value in Egyptian society, from production of objects to their use (mid 3rd-mid 2nd millennium BC) - Christelle MazéFaience Craftsmanship in the Middle Kingdom. A market paradox: inexpensive materials for prestige goods? - Gianluca MiniaciLeather Processing, Castor Oil, and Desert/Nubian Trade at the Turn of the 3rd/2nd Millennium BC: some speculative thoughts on Egyptian craftsmanship - Juan Carlos Moreno GarcíaLanguages of Artists: closed and open channels - Stephen QuirkeCraft Production in the Bronze Age. A comparative view from South Asia - Shereen RatnagarThe Egyptian Craftsman and the Modern Researcher: the benefits of archeometrical analyses - Patricia Rigault, Caroline ThomasThe Representation of Materials, an Example of Circulations of Formal Models among Workmen. An insight into the New Kingdom practices - Karine SeigneauStaging Restricted Knowledge: the sculptor Irtysen's self-presentation (ca. 2000 BCE) - Andreas StauderThe Nubian Mudbrick Vault. A Pharaonic building technique in Nubian village dwellings of the early 20th Century - Lilli Zabrana

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Dr. Gianluca Miniaci is Senior Researcher in Egyptology at the University of Pisa, Honorary Researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL - London, and Chercheur associé at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris. He has held research fellowships at the British Museum, Petrie Museum, University of Salerno, and Musée du Louvre.His main publications include Rishi Coffins and the Funerary Culture of Second Intermediate Period Egypt (2011); Le lettere ai morti nell'antico Egitto (2014) and, together with Stephen Quirke and Marilina Betrò, Company of Images: Modelling the Imaginary World of Middle Kingdom Egypt (2017).He is currently editor-in-chief of the international series "Middle Kingdom Studies", GHP-London and co-director, together with Richard Bussmann of the archaeological mission at Zawyet Sultan (Menya, Egypt). Juan Carlos Moreno García (PhD in Egyptology, 1995) is a CNRS senior researcher at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, as well as lecturer on social and economic history of ancient Egypt at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He has published extensively on the administration, socio-economic history, and landscape organization of ancient Egypt, usually in a comparative perspective with other civilizations of the ancient world, and has organized several conferences on these topics.Recent publications include Dynamics of Production in the Ancient Near East, 1300-500 BC (2016), L'Égypte des pharaons. De Narmer à Dioclétien (3150 av. J.-C.-284 apr. J.-C.) (2016) and Ancient Egyptian Administration (2013).He is also chief editor of The Journal of Egyptian History (Brill) and area editor ("economy") of the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Prof. dr. Stephen Quirke is Professor of Egyptology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He was previously curator of hieratic manuscripts at the British Museum, and curator at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.His publications include Hidden Hands: Egyptian workforces in Petrie excavation archives, 1880-1924 (2010), Going out in Daylight: the Egyptian Book of the Dead - translation, sources, meanings (2013), Exploring Religion in Ancient Egypt (2014), Birth tusks: the armoury of health in context (2016). Prof. dr. Andréas Stauder is Professor of Egyptology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études/PSL Research University in Paris. He was previously a researcher with the Swiss National Science Foundation and the University of Basel, and a post-doctoral fellow at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. He directs the project "Scripta-PSL. History and Practices of Writing" (2017-) and is a scientific co-editor of the section "Language" for the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (UEE). He has previously co-directed the module "Materiality and Semantics of Writing" in the National Centre of Competence in Research "eikones" (2013-2017, SNSF and University of Basel) and directed the SNSF-project "The Old Egyptian Verb. Functions in text" (2012-2016). He is the author of The Earlier Egyptian Passive. Voice and Perspective (2014) and Linguistic Dating of Middle Egyptian Literary Texts (2013).