This Element demonstrates how ceramics, a dataset that is more typically identified with chronology than social analysis, can forward the study of Egyptian society writ large. This Element argues that the sheer mass of ceramic material indicates the importance of pottery to Egyptian life. Ceramics form a crucial dataset with which Egyptology must critically engage, and which necessitate working with the Egyptian past using a more fluid theoretical toolkit. This Element will demonstrate how ceramics may be employed in social analyses through a focus on four broad areas of inquiry: regionalism; ties between province and state, elite and non-elite; domestic life; and the relationship of political change to social change. While the case studies largely come from the Old through Middle Kingdoms, the methods and questions may be applied to any period of Egyptian history.

This publication discusses the pottery that was discovered by Zahi Hawass’s excavations at Giza, including the Cemetery of the Pyramid Builders, the Western Cemetery, and the settlement beneath the modern suburb of Nazlet el-Samman. It is a comprehensive study of Old Kingdom pottery that includes a typology for these recent finds, as well as discussing the interrelationship between pottery from cemetery and settlement contexts.

Despite many years work on the technology of pottery production it is perhaps surprising that the origins of the potter's wheel in Egypt have yet to be determined. This volume seeks to rectify this situation by determining when the potter's wheel was introduced into Egypt.