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18/02 - Lezing: Stairway to heaven

Stairway to heaven. Design, function and meaning of staircases in Ancient Egypt and neighbouring cultures

Alexa Rickert  (postdoctoraal onderzoeker Université de Namur)


In addition to its purely practical function, which consists of overcoming a height difference between two levels, the staircase had already a highly symbolic character in antiquity. In Egypt, for example, it represented the primeval mound, was used as an image of the passing time in the ‘lunar staircase’ or was an integral part of rituals in the temple. Nevertheless, the design, function and meaning of staircases have received little attention in Egyptology, but also in ancient studies in general. An interdisciplinary research project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and carried out in 2021 and 2022 aimed to fill this research gap by approaching the perspective that the people of the ancient civilisations themselves had on the staircase. For this purpose, staircases were not only examined in terms of their architectural design, but also contextualised within the various sources and studied with regard to symbolism and use.

The lecture will first report on the results of the project and then turn to two special features of the Egyptian staircases in the temples of the Greco-Roman period. On the one hand, it deals with the unusually large number of staircase designations in the temples of Dendara and Edfu and, on the other, with the question of why the participants in the depictions of festive processions on the walls of the staircases never set foot on the next step.


This lecture will take place in MSI room 00.08 (Erasmusplein 2, Leuven) and will be livestreamed online.


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