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Funerary lamentation known as C idīd has been the socially sanctioned mode for the expression of grief by women at funerals in Upper Egypt for millennia. Since the 1980s, however, some women have been more integrated into Islamic practice and lamentation proscribed by religious leaders in Luxor. With the recent destruction of their ancestral homes, women have raised their voices in lament, breaching social convention and the taboo that lamentation should not be performed without a deceased. This article examines this contextual reversal and the theme of destruction in death with reference to the traditional lament repertoire and its ancient precursors.

The distinctive feature of the sung performance of Upper Egyptian funerary laments (ʿidīd) is the convergence and divergence of two intersecting voices: that of 'she who begins', the badāya, usually the woman regarded as the most prolific and gifted lamenter, and that of the collective, led by 'she who responds', illī bitrudd ʿalēha. It is the complex fusion of antiphonal voices, images and vocal interpolations, ranging from ululation to sobs, which creates the poetics and poignancy of the lament, both in its lyrical and musical forms. Via a transcript of a lament performed by two semi-professional lamenters in Luxor, this paper examines the improvisational and poetic qualities of verse, imagery and tonal range of lament that have defined the performance of ʿidīd as a distinguished women's oral tradition and highlights the unique way in which this shared performance tradition seeks to recreate in the minds of the mourners memories of loved ones previously mourned.

This short essay analyzes and compares the multiplicity of theological influences derived from the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods on the events and beliefs, rituals and re-enactments performed in honor of the Islamic sheikh, Sidi Abu'l Hajjaj at his annual mulid or festival. For the descendants of the sheikh, known as al-Hajajiyya and his Sufi devotees, the landscape is imbued with cultural memory: the material artefacts and living symbols of clan identity, genealogical history, and conversion narratives. Using the tools of ethnographic description, oral narrative, and performance as well as iconographic representation, visual archive, and text, I examine the synchronous frames of oral and \"archaeological memory\" and conclude that many of the leitmotifs of Egyptian festival tradition are still celebrated, even though changes in the perceptions of religious and cultural appropriateness have resulted in transformations and, in some cases, reversals of some of the most ancient perceptions of the sacred and the profane. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Jamal Zaki al-Din al-Hajaji, member of al-Hajajiyya clan, folklorist, and friend with whom I explored the mulid of Sidi Abu'l Hajjaj and who died in August 2009.

Funerary lamentation known as cidīd has been the socially sanctioned mode for the expression of grief by women at funerals in Upper Egypt for millennia. Since the 1980s, however, some women have been more integrated into Islamic practice and lamentation proscribed by religious leaders in Luxor. With the recent destruction of their ancestral homes, women have raised their voices in lament, breaching social convention and the taboo that lamentation should not be performed without a deceased. This article examines this contextual reversal and the theme of destruction in death with reference to the traditional lament repertoire and its ancient precursors. ﻋﹸﺮﻑ العديد النسائي لآلاف السنين في الرثاء الجنائزي بوصفه التعبير المصان ﺇجتماﻋﻴﺎﹰ في ﺻﻌﻴﺪ مصر . ومنذ ثمانينيات القرن اﻟﻌﺸﺮﻳﻦ تم إدماج اﻟﻨﺴﺎﺀ في سياق ممارسات إسلامية في الأقصر يقوم دعاتها ﺑﺘﺤﺮﻳﻢ ﺍﻟﻨﻮﺍﺡ على الميت . وﻗﺪ علت أﺻﻮات النساء الأﻗﺼﺮﻳﺎﺕ نائحات عند هدم بيوتهن مع العلم أن العديد لا يكون إلا عندما ﻳﻐﻴﱢﺐ الموت ﻋﺰﻳﺰﺍﹰ . ﺗﺤﻠﻞ هذه اﻟﻤﻘﺎلة السياق المتغير وتيمة الهدم في الموت في إطار منظومة العديد التقليدية وسوابقها في مصر القديمة .

This diachronic and synchronic analysis examines the poetics of funerary lament in Upper Egypt ($\\sp{\\rm c}$idid), using a comparative methodology derived from ethnoarchaeology. The study interprets the meaning of contemporary lament as the ritual expression of grief for an idealized deceased via stylistic, linguistic and thematic comparisons with ancient Egyptian funerary texts, in particular, the earliest corpus of incantations written in hieroglyphics, the Pyramid texts (ca 2,686 BC-2,181 BC). The heuristic of a concordance is adopted and the various themes and motifs of lament are organized under thematic headings from which a holistic view of the contents is gleaned. A subsequent comparison of thematic domains in both ancient and modern funerary lament reveals important metaphoric and cosmological parallels, with respect to the phenomenology of death and conceptions of the afterlife. The rigorous kinesics and codes of lament performance are also analyzed using the same contrastive framework and it is proposed that the conventionalized postures of lament are \"kinesic icons\" which may have acquired semantic significance from \"stick-figure\" postures, formerly used to incarnate human emotions in hieroglyphics. In order to formulate a contemporary cosmology of the afterlife from the lament texts, a series of staged events and transformations experienced by the deceased, is interpreted within the broader rubric of concordance themes, taking as a model, the cosmology and topography of the afterlife elaborated in the Pyramid texts. Significant correspondences become visible through the juxtaposition of texts and iconography and the mapping of the ancient cosmology on the modern. Emergent as key to the interpretation is the notion that the tomb is a watery place, in which the deceased may be inundated and regenerated in the subterranean waters which nourish the Nile. It is argued that this notion derives from a seminal \"core myth\" of lament first documented in the Pyramid texts and present in transformations of Egyptian mythologies of death and the afterlife since the Old Kingdom. Belief in the intrinsic value of dynamic and antiphonal lamentation for the dead to the living is proposed as the force which has shaped and sustained the oral performance tradition over millennia.

Premise of the Study Diatoms are one of the most species‐rich lineages of microbial eukaryotes. Similarities in clade age, species richness, and primary productivity motivate comparisons to angiosperms, whose genomes have been inordinately shaped by whole‐genome duplication (WGD). WGDs have been linked to speciation, increased rates of lineage diversification, and identified as a principal driver of angiosperm evolution. We synthesized a large but scattered body of evidence that suggests polyploidy may be common in diatoms as well. Methods We used gene counts, gene trees, and distributions of synonymous divergence to carry out a phylogenomic analysis of WGD across a diverse set of 37 diatom species. Key Results Several methods identified WGDs of varying age across diatoms. Determining the occurrence, exact number, and placement of events was greatly impacted by uncertainty in gene trees. WGDs inferred from synonymous divergence of paralogs varied depending on how redundancy in transcriptomes was assessed, gene families were assembled, and synonymous distances (Ks) were calculated. Our results highlighted a need for systematic evaluation of key methodological aspects of Ks‐based approaches to WGD inference. Gene tree reconciliations supported allopolyploidy as the predominant mode of polyploid formation, with strong evidence for ancient allopolyploid events in the thalassiosiroid and pennate diatom clades. Conclusions Our results suggest that WGD has played a major role in the evolution of diatom genomes. We outline challenges in reconstructing paleopolyploid events in diatoms that, together with these results, offer a framework for understanding the impact of genome duplication in a group that likely harbors substantial genomic diversity.

Premise of the study: Diatoms are one of the most species-rich lineages of microbial eukaryotes. Similarities in clade age, species richness, and contributions to primary production motivate comparisons to flowering plants, whose genomes have been inordinately shaped by whole genome duplication (WGD). These events that have been linked to speciation and increased rates of lineage diversification, identifying WGDs as a principal driver of angiosperm evolution. We synthesized a relatively large but scattered body of evidence that, taken together, suggests that polyploidy may be common in diatoms. Methods: We used data from gene counts, gene trees, and patterns of synonymous divergence to carry out the first large-scale phylogenomic analysis of genome-scale duplication histories for a phylogenetically diverse set of 37 diatom taxa. Key results: Several methods identified WGD events of varying age across diatoms, though determining the exact number and placement of events and, more broadly, inferences of WGD at all, were greatly impacted by gene-tree uncertainty. Gene-tree reconciliations supported allopolyploidy as the predominant mode of polyploid formation, with particularly strong evidence for ancient allopolyploid events in the thalassiosiroid and pennate diatom clades. Conclusions: Whole genome duplication appears to have been an important driver of genome evolution in diatoms. Denser taxon sampling will better pinpoint the timing of WGDs and likely reveal many more of them. We outline potential challenges in reconstructing paleopolyploid events in diatoms that, together with these results, offer a framework for understanding the evolutionary roles of genome duplication in a group that likely harbors substantial genomic diversity.

That far-off time when the Prince of Wales came to dance.