{{Short description|Egyptian offering trays}} thumb|right|A soul house '''Soul houses''' were pottery offering trays often moulded to include a model of a house that are associated with tombs dating from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.<ref name=BMMohassib>{{cite web |url=http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=119423&partId=1 |title=soul house |website=British Museum Collection online |publisher= British Museum |access-date=21 October 2018 }}</ref><ref name=UCL>{{cite web |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/burialcustoms/soulhouse.html |title=Soul-houses |date=2002 |website=Digital Egypt for Universities |publisher=University College London. |access-date= 21 October 2018}}</ref><ref name=BMstairs>{{cite web |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=109841&partId=1 |title=soul house |website=British Museum Collection online |publisher= British Museum |access-date=30 November 2018 }}</ref> Designs range from simple trays with no house at all to ones which included a comprehensive model of a house.<ref name=UCL /> As well as the house there would be clay depictions of food offerings.<ref name=BMspout /> Some have spouts allowing liquid to be ritually poured over the soul house and flow away.<ref name=BMspout>{{cite web |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=111623&partId=1&object=230535&page=1 |title=soul house |website=British Museum Collection online |publisher= British Museum |access-date=30 November 2018 }}</ref> Many well preserved examples were found at Rifeh.<ref>Marisol Solchaga: ''The Earthly Realm: ‘Offering-trays’ as material traces of the encounter between the living and the dead in Egypt, ca. 2200-1650 BC'', London 2024, ISBN 9781906137892, pages 160-176</ref>
It has been suggested they were used to mark the tomb on the surface.<ref name=UCL /> Another suggestion was that the house was meant to be a place for the dead person’s ''ka'' to live although this theory has become less popular over time with the modern view being that the trays were primarily meant to provide food offerings or rather clay models of them.<ref name=BMspout />
The model houses have been used as a source for what typical houses of the time would have looked like.<ref name=BMspout />
==Method of manufacture==
An example in the Fitzwilliam Museum was constructed by building clay around a wooden structure before firing.<ref name=Keating>{{cite web |last1=Keating |first1=Jessica |last2=Shaw |first2=Emma |date=28 July 2025 |title=4000-year-old ancient Egyptian handprint discovered |url=https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/Fitzwilliam-Museum-discovers-4000-year-old-handprint |website=cam.ac.uk |publisher=University of Cambridge |access-date=6 August 2025}}</ref>
{{Commons category|Soul houses}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
Category:Ancient Egyptian funerary practices