The Performative Structure: Ritualizing the Pyramid of Pepy I

Billing, Nils

ISBN 10: 9004372369 / ISBN 13: 9789004372368

Published by Brill Academic Pub, 2018

About this Item

626 pages. 9.50x6.25x2.00 inches. In Stock. This item is printed on demand.

Seller Inventory # __9004372369

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Performative Structure: Ritualizing the Pyramid of Pepy I
• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9004372369
• ISBN 13: 9789004372368
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 1.07 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

In The Performative Structure: Ritualizing the Pyramid of Pepy I, Nils Billing investigates the ancient Egyptian pyramid complex as a performative structure, ritualized through the operative faculty inherent in monumental architecture, text, and image. The main body of research is given over to an analysis of the Pyramid Texts found in the pyramid of king Pepy I of the Sixth Dynasty (ca 2300 BCE). It is demonstrated that the texts were distributed on distinct space-bound thematic and ritual levels in order to perpetuate a cultic activity from which the lord of the tomb could be transformed by moving through the different chambers and corridors towards the exit. Just as the decoration program of the mortuary temple once delineated the ritual and ideological structure of the royal mortuary cult, the corpus of texts distributed in the pyramid provided a monumentalized performative structure that effectuated the perennial rebirth for its owner.

About the Author

Nils Billing, Ph.D., Th.D. (1965), is Associate Professor of the History of Religions at the Faculty of Theology, Uppsala University, Sweden. His main field is Egyptology in which he has published a number of monographs, translations and articles.