This new edition of Dr Navratilova’s pioneering Visitors’ Graffiti of Dynasties 18 and 19 in Abusir and Northern Saqqara presents an enhanced edition of the graffiti of the necropoleis of Abusir and Saqqara, together with a comprehensive survey of graffiti across the entire Memphite region. This important corpus reveals multiple aspects of the social and cultural history of the New Kingdom — a period that was characterised by significant developments in Egyptian society.

The identities of Dynasty 18 elites, innovative interpretation of archaism and tradition, as well as the formation of skilled workmen communities, are all reflected in the visitors’ texts in the Memphite royal pyramid complexes. Furthermore, this book investigates the status of the specific personalities who were known to have left graffiti — from interested courtiers and high echelon administrators to craftsmen and junior administrators (“scribes”) — and the motives that inspired them to record commemorative inscriptions.

This is a revised and substantially expanded version of a previous catalogue of texts, which has been supplemented with commentaries and interpretative essays, together with an introduction to graffiti research and to graffiti epigraphy. The publication also includes new records of recently discovered graffiti as well as hitherto unpublished archive material.

Dr Hana Navratilova is an Egyptologist with specific interests in the Egyptian New Kingdom, Egyptian historiography, and the history of Egyptology. She studied at Charles University in Prague, where she wrote theses on the Egyptian revival in Bohemia (2002) and a study on Egyptian historical thought (2006). A former assistant on the Topographical Bibliography at the Griffith Institute (University of Oxford), she is currently engaged in the recording and publication of visitors’ graffiti in the Pyramid complex of Senwosret III, Dahshur (Egypt), for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and work on a new biography of Jaroslav Černý.