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Tombs reveal Ancient Egyptian religion was constantly evolving, book reveals

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0100

Ancient Egyptian religion was not as fixed and unchanging as many people imagine, according to new research by Manchester Egyptologist .

His new book reveals that beliefs and funerary practices evolved even within a single generation, showing that ancient Egyptian religion was dynamic, adaptable and shaped by changing social priorities.

The study focuses on tombs at Saqqara, one of Egypt’s most important burial sites, and explores how tomb owners commissioned and decorated their burial spaces in ways that reflected both tradition and contemporary change.

Key insights

Ancient Egyptian funerary texts were not fully standardised during this period, and varied between tombs
Tomb decoration involved the choices and priorities of the tomb owner or commissioner
Religious practices and funerary fashions could change within a single generation
Local traditions shaped how beliefs were expressed in places such as Saqqara
Egyptian religion was flexible and evolving rather than completely fixed over time

Why this matters

Ancient Egypt is often portrayed as a civilisation governed by rigid traditions and unchanging religious beliefs lasting thousands of years.

However this research challenges that perception, revealing a society in which religious ideas and funerary practices adapted over time, even across the span of a single lifetime.

Rather than being rigid, Egyptian religious culture responded to changing tastes, priorities and local traditions.

A human story told through tombs

At the heart of the book is the idea that tombs were highly personal spaces.

The decoration, inscriptions and arrangement of funerary texts within tombs at Saqqara reflected the involvement of those commissioning them. While these tombs drew on established religious traditions, they also reveal changing fashions and evolving approaches to the afterlife.

Two tombs built only a generation apart could already show noticeable differences in style, emphasis and religious presentation.

What the research found

Drawing on archaeological evidence from Saqqara, the study shows that:

Funerary texts and images differed between tombs during this period
Tomb decoration reflected individual commissions rather than a single rigid template
Religious styles and practices evolved noticeably over relatively short periods of time

The findings challenge the long-standing image of Egyptian religion as static and entirely controlled from the top down by priests and kings.

Why Saqqara matters

Saqqara, the necropolis of ancient Memphis, provides an unusually rich record of religious and artistic change.

The book demonstrates how local traditions shaped tomb decoration and funerary expression, revealing how broader religious beliefs could be adapted differently within particular communities.

A different view of ancient religion

The research presents ancient Egyptian religion as:

Evolving rather than fixed
Influenced by local communities and changing fashions
Shaped through personal commissions and lived experience

In short, the study suggests that ancient Egyptians were not simply preserving ancient traditions unchanged - they were continually adapting them for new generations.

Publication details

The Transmission of the Book of the Dead in New Kingdom Tombs at Saqqara will be published in paperback by on June 25^th, but is also currently available to read online via .

Iron Age Research Student Symposium celebrates Zoom success

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 16:25:03 +0100

Lockdown conditions did not hold IARSS 2020 (the 23^rd Iron Age Research Student Symposium) back from being a success.

Organisers of the event, which was due to take place on 3-4 June 2002 at The University of Manchester, chose to take their outing online via Zoom rather than cancel, with more than 250 registering. This is more than three times as many attendees than the event would have been able to host had it taken place the old fashioned way.

IARSS 2020 was led by four PhD students from Classic, Ancient History, Archaeology & Egyptology in SALC, who worked with IT services to deliver it as a free conference using the popular video-conferencing platform. Jane Barker, Emma Tollefson, Catherine Jones and Matt Hitchcock (studying various aspects of the British Iron Age with supervisor Dr Melanie Giles) enabled 16 research students from across Britain, Ireland and the near Continent to deliver exciting news of their latest research, as well as a keynote lecture and two guest lectures from Early Career Scholars.

This novel format allowed for more attendees, and enabled people to ‘dip’ in-and-out of sessions around their other commitments.

Virtual attendees tuned in from Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and Australia – enabling research students from across the globe to share in the event.

Comments from attendees noted how this format helped people with care responsibilities to participate while home-schooling, or ‘listen in’ on mute, while commercial and professional archaeologists were able to engage in the conference while working from home. Lecturers and researchers, curators from national museums, experimental archaeologists and budding applicants to university all joined in on the discussion: using the ‘chat’ function to send in questions to speakers or share ideas and news in between sessions. This cost-free way of delivering a conference helped to democratise access to this research event, which would otherwise have had a much more restricted audience.

“This was a remarkable feat by my students: one of whom had been ill with Covid-19 and another who was shielding at the time,” said supervisor Dr Melanie Giles. “Undaunted, they used their initiative to deliver a much bigger, interactive event which tripled the audience and created a wonderfully supportive online atmosphere, sharing research ideas together. It shows the creativity and generous spirit of The University of Manchester at its best. I am very proud of them.’

To add to the success of the day, organiser Matt Hitchcock was awarded the Annual Prize of the Later Prehistoric Finds Group, for a paper on his School of Arts, Languages and Cultures-funded PhD, ‘Re-framing Iron Age Shields’.

Mother-in-law as figure of fun in classical literature debunked in new book

Thu, 28 May 2020 12:22:03 +0100

The mother-in-law is perceived to be as much the butt of the joke in antiquity as it is today, but a new publication by Alison Sharrock, Professor of Classics at The University of Manchester, goes through the evidence to show that this is not necessarily the case.

, edited by Sharrock and Alison Keith, and published by the University of Toronto Press, explores this trope and its gendered connotations and similar devices including the ‘evil stepmother’.

“While there is indeed some abuse of mothers-in-law in ancient literature, it is no greater than the abuse widely meted out on older women in the comic literature from the ancient world,” said Sharrock. “The real hate-figure in the Roman world is the stepmother, who of course has plenty of bad press in modern fairy tales. The mother-in-law, by contrast, is usually presented in a positive light. To declare otherwise is an assumption based on modern expectations, rather than on careful reading of what the Romans actually say.”