Baked Clay Figurines and Votive Beds from Medinet Habu

Teeter is the author of a wide range of scholarly and popular articles that have been published in journals in the United States and abroad. Among her books are Ancient Egypt: Treasures from the Collection of the Oriental Institute; Ritual and Legitimacy in Ancient Egypt: The Presentation of Maat; Egypt and the Egyptians (with Douglas Brewer), which has appeared in an Arabic edition, and most recently, Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt. In her role as Coordinator of Special Exhibits at the Oriental Institute Museum, she has curated the shows The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt and Before the Pyramids: The Origins of Egyptian Civilization and edited the shows' catalogs.

This catalog presents the entire corpus of 272 baked clay figurines and votive beds excavated at Medinet Habu in Western Thebes by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago during its 1926--1933 campaign. The figurines represent women, women with children, men, deities, and animals. They date from the sixteenth century B.C. to the ninth century A.D., illustrating permanence and change in themes of clay figurines as well as stylistic development within each type. The group of votive beds and the small stelae made from votive bed molds are among the largest and most diverse collections of such material. Each object is fully described and illustrated and is accompanied by commentary on construction, symbolism, and function.

Emily Teeter (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is an Egyptologist and Research Associate at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Her area of specialization is the history and religion of second millennium B.C. Egypt with emphasis upon popular religion and cult ritual. She was instrumental in reviving the project to publish the small finds from Medinet Habu, starting with the volume Scarabs, Scaraboids, Seals, and Seal Impression from Medinet Habu (2003) (with Tery Wilfong).