Bibliographic Essay

For overviews of early Egypt and the role of violence in the society see the following: S. Hendrickx, Analytical Bibliography of the Prehistory and the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt and Northern Sudan (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1995); D.

F. Lorenzi-Cioldi, Les Representations des groupes dominants et domines: collections et agregats (Grenoble: PUG, 2002) and S. Khodzhash, ‘The Image of Pharaoh in Egyptian Glyptics', in Ancient Egypt and Kush (Cairo, 1993) present the Pharaoh as war leader and protector of the state and its people. The Pharaoh played a crucial role as symbolic defender of the state and protector against foreigners. Thus, E. S. Hall, Pharaoh Smites his Enemies (Munich: Deutscher Kunst Verlag, 1986). Similarly, C. Booth, The Role of Foreigners in Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2005) explains how foreigners played important roles in Egyptian identity formation. The significant role of foreigners in Egyptian identity formation, architecture and arts can be seen in works such as D. Valbelle's Les Neufs arcs: l'egyptien et les etrangers (Paris: Armand Colin, 1990), where military violence is shown to be an important marker of power.

Imperialism and the violence inherent therein are well demonstrated by K. Zibelius- Chen, Die ägyptische Expansion nach Nubien (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988).

G. P. Gilbert, Weapons, Warriors and Warfare in Early Egypt, BAR International Series 1208 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2004) and A. Schulman, ‘Siege Warfare in Ancient Egypt', Natural History 73.3 (1964); also see E. Morris, The Architecture of Imperialism (Leiden: Brill, 2005) for Egyptian images of their expansion and empire.

With regard to the role of violence in maintaining order see D. Redford, ‘Ma'at', in E. Orlin (ed.), The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), pp. 553-4. Several works provide good discussions of violent punishments in Egypt, including the following: A. G. McDowell, ‘Crime and Punishment', in D. B. Redford (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egypt, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), vol. I, pp. 315-20; A. Leahy, ‘Death by Fire in Ancient Egypt', Journal of the Economic and Social History ofthe Orient 27 (1984), 199-206; T. Holm, ‘The Fiery Furnace in the Book of Daniel and the Ancient Near East', Journal of the American Oriental Society 128.1 (2008).

Finally, violence was also a crucial part of Egyptian belief systems and the world of myth. Thus, several works focus on the role of the god Seth, who challenged the order of both the divine and human spheres, including H. Te Velde's Seth, God of Confusion (Leiden: Brill, 1967), and E. Cruz-Uribe's ‘Seth', in Orlin (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions. For an overview of the Egyptian afterlife and violence see E. Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, trans. David Lorton (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999).