Material Culture, Kinship and Social Transformation: Social groups, production and circulation of stelae from the Serapeum of Memphis during the reign of Darius I (522-486 BCE)

• Grant number: 25/02177-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: August 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Aparecido Rede
• Grantee: Dirceu Almeida Pires
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The following project is part of the research line of the Laboratório do Antigo Próximo Oriente (LAOP-USP), "Empires and local communities: powers, sociabilities and cultures (9th century BC - 1st century AD)". The research project aims to analyze a corpus of stelae from the Serapeum in Saqqara dating from the First Persian Period in Egypt (c.526-404 B.C.E.) during the reign of Darius I (c.522-486). The stelae, as objects that commemorate individuals who were involved in the cult of the Apis bull located in the temple of Ptah in Memphis and in his funeral at the Serapeum, are important sources for investigating the diachronic changes of the groups that circulated in the social environment of this institution. First, we look at the groups represented on the stelae to investigate how they use these objects as a way of commemorating, displaying and legitimizing their social status in the face of Persian rule and its resulting political and administrative changes. To do this, we will analyze the production and circulation aspects of these objects in order to highlight the artisans/scribes involved in their manufacture and their relationship with the individuals who commissioned them. In order to do this, it will be necessary to understand their materiality and the visual aspects that enable this legitimization at the same time, we aim to define what is meant by commemoration. Secondly, these groups are portrayed as constituting family genealogies, that is, with their members relating to each other through kin ties. This offers us an opportunity to investigate the importance of this dimension and the understandings that these subjects have of it in this context of representation. To achieve this goal, we incorporated an anthropological approach to include kinship as a theoretical tool for analysis.