Egyptian Gardens and Greek Grids: The Middle Kingdom Funerary Garden at Dra Abu el-Naga, the Stele of Moskhion, and Greek Stoikhedon

 

The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, invites you to attend a lecture by Dr. Patricia Butz, UC Riverside:

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Egyptian Gardens and Greek Grids: The Middle Kingdom Funerary Garden at Dra Abu el-Naga, the Stele of Moskhion, and Greek Stoikhedon

Sunday, May 10, 3 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time
Live Oak Community Center (New venue!)
1301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley
This is an in-person lecture, not virtual. The lecture will not be recorded.

About the Lecture:

Dr. Butz explores her research on a remarkable cross-cultural connection between Egypt and Greece in their use of grids and gridded texts. The word stoikhedon in Greek is used to describe the layout of alphabetic inscriptions in a grid formation from the late 6th century BCE onward. Dr. Butz argues that the phenomenon is attested to by Greeks, not because of a static crossing of horizontal and vertical lines but because of their understanding and incorporation of the dynamic inherent in Egypt’s own use of grids, specifically for garden planning and water distribution. Tomb paintings beginning in the Old Kingdom have long depicted gridded gardens, but the spectacular archaeological discovery in 2017 by Dr. José Galán and his Spanish mission (Scribe 6, Fall 2020) of a gridded funerary garden at Luxor dating to the Middle Kingdom has supplied the on-ground evidence. Dr. Butz shows how modules (stoikoi) were used in Egyptian agriculture, matching the only literary attestation for stoikhedon ever found -- on the bilingual (demotic and Greek) magical Stele of Moschion, where the movement of letterforms on magical grids acts like water passing through these squares.

 

About the Speaker:

Patricia A. Butz (pronounced “Boots”) specializes in research addressing the Greek presence in Egypt and the Egyptian presence in Greece. Her attention to the paleography and layout of ancient inscriptions is longstanding, especially on the Greek stoikhedon style and its origins. She is the author of The Hekatompedon Inscription at Athens and the Birth of the Stoikhedon Style (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2010) and many articles on the subject of visual literacy in antiquity, including, “Dialogue at Edfu? The Dedications of Lichas, Son of Pyrrhus, and the Concept of Egyptian Double Composition” in the Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Egyptologists (2023) and “The Memorial of Metrodoros: Greek Stoichedon from North Africa” in Abgadiyat, the Journal of the Center of Writings and Scripts at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (2013). She received her PhD. from the University of Southern California in Ancient Art History, where she also completed the master’s program in Museum Studies/Art History. She is affiliated with the University of California, Riverside, and is teaching courses, including Egyptian Art History, at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.


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Live Oak location and parking:

This month, we’re meeting in the Fireside Room of the city’s Live Oak Community Center in north Berkeley. It’s in Live Oak Park, less than half a mile from the northern edge of campus. Parking is mainly on neighboring streets: Shattuck, Berryman, Milvia, etc. If you need disabled parking, please arrive early as spots are few.

Useful links:

Live Oak Community Center website

Google map of vicinity

About Northern California ARCE:

For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://www.facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://arce-nc.org, https://bsky.app/profile/khentiamentiu.bsky.social, and https://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/membership/ and select "Berkeley, CA" as your chapter when you sign up.