Pottery soul houses and offering trays at the agricultural museum of Cairo

Abstract EN

Soul house are domestic structures of one or more stories while the term of offering tray will be utilized to allude to the clay tray; which are made by hand and takes various shapes.

On the court of the house and the surfaces of the trays are modeled offerings consisting of meats, vegetables, and loaves of breads.

Drainage channels may be present also.

Furthermore, soul houses are used as inexpensive substitute miniature rock tombs or chapels for elite people, while offering trays are used as cheap modest offering table of stone to emblematically provide food to the deceased during the funerary ceremonies.

They have been found throughout Egypt from El-Lisht to the fortress of Nubia.

However, no model was found in the delta.

All of them can be dated to the Middle Kingdom.

The current paper presents an investigation on seven models of soul houses and offering trays[1] among collections exhibits in the Egyptian Agricultural Museum in Cairo, among of these collections pottery soul houses, and offering trays.

This research also aims to suggest the provenance and the date of each model.

[1] These models are the only models in this Museum.