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This chapter summarizes key discussions in chapters 5 to 7. During the Old Kingdom, experts during served their king in his task of ensuring that life on Earth followed the rules of Maat—the cosmological order of the gods. The experts handled a variety of tasks, among which mathematics must have played an important part. Skillful handling of numbers and numerical data was required to administer the available resources and carry out the large-scale building projects, expeditions, and other tasks for the king. These activities have left indirect sources of information about mathematics during the Old Kingdom. Various documents attest the development of metrological systems, indispensable prerequisites to control resources. Their handling is also depicted in scenes in tombs of these experts and must have constituted an area of professional pride.

This epilogue considers some of the challenges that lie ahead for the Czech archaeological team, led by Ludwig Borchardt, with regard to exploration of Abusir. After Borchardt's archaeological excavations before World War I and subsequently more than half a century of Czech explorations, it seems like all important archaeological monuments in Abusir have already been found and examined and no more major discoveries can be expected. However, the opposite is true. The chapter discusses the problems concerning the dominant monuments in the Abusir royal cemetery—the pyramids. It also highlights the fact that many large tombs in the immediate vicinity of the pyramids remain unexplored and concludes with an overview of another archaeological challenge facing the Czech team in South Abusir: the unfinished excavation of the cemetery from the Early Dynastic Period, adjacent from the east to the Old Kingdom cemetery.

This chapter surveys the textual and archaeological evidence for libraries in ancient Egypt c.2600–1600 BCE, discussing surviving administrative ‘archives’ as models for how literary texts could have been circulated and stored. The implications of the material form of surviving manuscripts for issues of manufacture and storage are discussed. Possible evidence for extensively centralized systems of circulation and storage is reviewed, together with specific case studies of private archives form the town of el-Lahun and examples of Middle Kingdom tomb-libraries—collections of manuscripts deposited in private individual’s burial chambers as displays of culture and prestige.

This chapter focuses on South Abusir, the southern section of the Czech archaeological concession in the Memphite necropolis. It first describes the Valley of Abusir, which is supposed to have been the easiest access way to the Saqqara cemetery, and how the North Saqqara escarpment and the Lake of Abusir not only dominated but also helped shape the archaeological landscape of South Abusir. It then looks at the Lake of Abusir and its surroundings in the Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom, along with the mastabas of Fifth Dynasty officials such as Kaaper and Neferinpu. It also discusses tombs found in South Abusir, including the tomb of Fetekti, the tomb of Meryheryshefpepy, and the tomb complex of Qar.

This chapter discusses the use of mathematics in the Old Kingdom. A number of sources provide information about the kind of mathematics and its context at that time. At least indirect evidence for the use of mathematics in administration can be drawn from the Abusir papyri, which originate from the mortuary temples of two kings of the Fifth Dynasty at Abusir. They document the running of a mortuary temple and include duty rosters for priests, lists of offerings and inventories of temple equipment, and letters and permits. These texts also indicate the assessment of cattle at regular intervals. How mathematical techniques developed or what they were exactly at this time remains unknown. Nevertheless, some scribes of the Old Kingdom left descriptions of their lives and careers within their tombs that at least allow assessing the cultural environment in which they worked.

Ay is one of the prominent figures of the late Eighteenth Dynasty. He appears in the records of Akhenaten's reign. His tomb at Amarna gives him the title Fan Bearer on the Right Hand of the King, but the most widely used in his titles is the God's Father and this title makes him unique at the courts of Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. At Amarna he seems to have been known simply as The God's Father par excellence based on the three ostraca that refer to orders being given by this so-titled individual. This title is not just a contraction of the priestly title of “God's Father of [GOD],” but rather a version of a title that goes back to the Old Kingdom. One bearer of this title was Tutankhamuns's tutor, Sennedjem.

Al-Shaykh Saʻid (Middle Egypt) covers the southern part of the archaeological concession area of the Dayr al-Barsha Project, directed by Harco Willems. The site is named after the nearby tomb of a local saint. An ensemble of Old Kingdom tombs (end of Fifth Dynasty–beginning of Sixth Dynasty) was cut into the steep western cliff face of an outcrop between two wadis. Monumental tombs line the principal ridge, with a lower and a higher level of smaller tombs and shafts. This chapter explores the way that monks adapted the tombs of al-Shaykh Saʻid to a monastic community as well as the role of the wall in front of the cliffs. Was it part of the layout of the settlement or did it serve another purpose?

This chapter examines the role of exotica in the Egyptian mind. Egypt’s involvement with exotic flora and fauna began in earnest in the Old Kingdom, which flourished during the final two-thirds of the third millennium. The best evidence for Old Kingdom exotica comes from several pharaonic funerary monuments, but more often from the tombs of the notables buried near their kings. Many of these officials, courtiers, and members of the royal family had commercial and diplomatic responsibilities that brought them into direct or indirect contact with foreign lands and peoples. Cedar, myrrh, turquoise, lapis lazuli, and elephant ivory were among the desirable commodities that had to be obtained from beyond the Nile Valley and Delta. Animals and plants were sometimes shipped as well, either as additional items in a consignment or as early examples of royal and elite gift exchange. Indeed, the notables’ tombs include numerous scenes of exotic creatures being caged, watered, fed, and otherwise tended.

Egyptologists have long noted that Ramesses II commissioned three conflicting versions of the battle of Kadesh to be inscribed together at various monumental sites. This chapter lays out the multiple inconsistencies witnessed between these accounts, and explores how Egyptologists have accounted for this. To our minds, when we encounter conflicting historical accounts, the trustworthiness of both accounts is brought into question. The chapter concludes by exploring the modern notion of historiography—largely a phenomenon that emerges only in the nineteenth century—and premodern notions of history-telling in the writings of the so-called historians of ancient Greece and Rome, and the medieval Church fathers. These premodern notions of historiography provide us with a discourse through which to understand how ancient Egyptians could have overcome the glaring contradictions between these multiple, juxtaposed versions of the same event.