page_title: Execration texts
section_title: Sites where execration texts were found
hierarchical_section_title: Execration texts / Sites where execration texts were found
caption_attribution_description: English: Egyptian Execration Figurine from the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels (E.7465)
context_page_description: Execration texts, also referred to as proscription lists, are ancient Egyptian hieratic texts, listing enemies of the pharaoh, most often enemies of the Egyptian state or troublesome foreign neighbors. The texts were most often written upon statuettes of bound foreigners, bowls, or blocks of clay or stone, which were subsequently destroyed. The ceremonial process of breaking the names and burying them was intended to be a sort of sympathetic magic that would affect the persons or entities named in the texts. The fragments were usually placed near tombs or ritual sites. This practice was most common during times of conflict with the Asiatic neighbors of Egypt.
context_section_description: There have been over 1,000 execration deposits found, with sites at Semna, Uronarti, Mirgissa, Elephantine, Thebes, Balat, Abydos, Helwan, Saqqara, and Giza. Because the execration jars, figurines, vases, and statues were almost destroyed during the rituals, archaeologists have to put all the pieces they find from execration pits back together to learn about the rituals.  Four deposits have been uncovered at Giza, which contained figurines packed into pottery jars.
  At the Middle Kingdom fortress of Mirgissa, execration remains included 200 broken inscribed red vases, over 400 broken uninscribed red vases, nearly 350 mud figurines, four limestone figures, small traces of beeswax dyed red-probably the remnants of melted figurines, and one human-whose head was ritually severed. Other evidence of human sacrifice and execration victims, as well as animal sacrifice was found at Avaris, probably from the 18th dynasty.  Two execration pits were found: one containing skulls and fingers while the other had two full male skeletons.
  Georges Posener published his findings from Saqqara in 1940, which later became known as the Brussels texts.  Figurines there name over 60 enemy cities, people, and tribes.
caption: Execration figurines from the Brussels Collection (Royal Museums of Art and History)
exif: {}