Chapter 2 notes the available sources for exploring kinship and marriage in ancient Egypt in the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom. Decoding modes of display is necessary to discover what monumental sources can reveal about relationships.

In order to assess a possible change in monumental display of social groups from the First Intermediate Period to the Middle Kingdom, the sites of Naga ed-Deir and Abydos are taken as case studies for each of those periods respectively. These sites show that stelae were often grouped into clusters in either tombs or memorial chapels, both sharing a commemorative purpose.

Chapter 2 illustrates the importance of a group approach for stelae in order to extract relevant information about emic constructions of the social fabric. In particular, an alleged clear-cut differentiation between funerary and commemorative stelae is questioned, as these monuments were always mediated through memorial practices. In addition, the articulation of iconographic and inscriptional evidence is shown to provide a more complete assessment of stelae; for example, formulaic phrases often add references to collateral relatives who are not represented iconographically on stelae.

Chapter 9 summarises the most important contributions of the book. Weaving together archaeological and anthropological approaches makes it possible to characterise forms of relatedness in ancient Egypt as a process, as a phenomenon based on practice.

The main methodology relies on group approaches to monuments and people. Stelae need to be integrated within clusters into so-called memorial chapels, and analysed as parts of a wider landscape. Those objects can be regarded as agents, having a clear impact on their audiences and affecting the perception and construction of social fabric.

As people should not be treated in isolation, this book focuses on kin groups instead of individual kin types. Kin group is seen as an etic grid that acquires emic content through careful analysis of the primary sources. Although six attributes of these groups are proposed, not all need to occur at the same time. Kin groups are then analysed through koinography, taking the kin group as the preferred unit of social analysis in a diachronic framework. Overall kinship is understood as a process that by being displayed in monuments contributes to creating and disseminating ideas about ancient Egyptian social fabric.

Chapter 3 addresses the use of emic and etic categories to study kinship and marriage in ancient Egypt. Family and household are widespread but problematic concepts; the former is an emic term of our own Western culture, and the latter presumes that a group is bounded to a physical space. Kin group is proposed as the preferred analytical category, since it simply refers to a group connected by kinship, which should be understood in very broad terms. The chapter goes on to discuss the most appropriate categories for exploring material culture, outlining the difference between an object cluster (i.e. ANOC group, workshop) and its embodiment of a social group.

Terminology for individual kin types as well as for kin groups in ancient Egypt is explored. A limited terminology of kinship for individuals (basically lineal ascendants, lineal descendants, and collaterals) contrasts with a wealth of terms for kin groups in the primary sources. A productive way to understand kinship terminology may be to focus on what those individuals and groups do rather than on what they are. In this sense, a performative definition is advocated, in line with the theoretical framework of processual kinship.