The Cleopatra of legend (Cleopatra VII) was not buried in a massive stone pyramid. Such monuments were built over 2,000 years before she was born and were probably almost as mysterious to her as they are to us. Studies of Egypt often ignore chronological variation and consider the lives of women from the age of the great pyramids to be the same as those of women in the age of Cleopatra.1 This would be like describing contemporary British women through evidence from the time of the rebel queen Boudicca. The perception of Egypt’s great achievements, and their seeming timelessness, is partly due to the monumentality of its material culture, which suggests an unchanging never-never land, focusing our minds on kings and great men.
Women’s fortunes waxed and waned from the Predynastic Period to the Middle Kingdom. The Predynastic Period is sometimes represented as a golden age for women, or a time when women ruled the land. From this period until the Middle Kingdom, the status of women appears to have declined, although as we shall see, the evidence is open to question.
In times of disillusionment, people may seek a golden age in either the past or the future. Some feminists have situated such an age in the prehistoric past, a period in which they believe women were at least equal in status with men. Perhaps the most well-known proponent of this golden age has been Marija Gimbutas, a respected but controversial scholar who claimed that the period up to the Late Neolithic was the age of the Mother Goddess, a peaceful and egalitarian era compared to later aggressive, hierarchical and patriarchal times. The idea of a golden age is attractive but did it ever exist, and if it did, what caused its demise? As usual, reality is more mundanely complex than romantic vision.
Marija Gimbutas (1921–1994), a Lithuanian scholar who later became professor of archaeology at the University of California, saw the period up to the late Neolithic as one in which women had particular power and status, largely through the religion of the Mother Goddess. Gimbutas was mainly interested in the European Old World, although her vision of the Mother Goddess and corresponding pre-Bronze Age golden age has been applied to ancient Egyptian culture. Sadly for romantics, her attractive ideas are now rarely taken seriously in academia. Gimbutas claimed, for example, that certain figurines are evidence of the Mother Goddess, even though they are often separated in time by thousands of years, and geographically by thousands of miles. It is now recognized that some of these figurines may not be goddesses at all, but rather toys, self-representations, or depictions of other categories of non-divine women. It has also been argued that some of these figurines may not even be women.2 However, while one may dismiss many of Gimbutas’ ideas as speculative, more recent scholars still support the notion of a Mother Goddess in Predynastic Egypt. Others believe that before the rise of the state, women in ancient Egypt had more status.
It is undeniable that in Dynastic Egypt, Hathor and later Isis were paramount female goddesses. While not usurping the role of male gods, Hathor and Isis were essential to kingship, and thus to the survival of the state in Egypt. However, we know little of the importance and function of Predynastic and earlier goddesses. In the 2,000 years of Predynastic Egyptian history, it seems likely that some deities were female.
It is sometimes claimed that the fact that only women can give birth must have given rise to the idea of a female goddess.3 However, the knowledge that the male is also vital for life is not unique to modern societies, and indeed, for the Pharaonic Egyptians it was the male who was considered crucial to life. Besides this, patriarchal societies with a male godhead can exist in societies where the woman is regarded as more important for reproduction.
One of the early proponents of the Egyptian fertility goddess was a pioneering Egyptologist of the twentieth century, Elise Baumgartel,4 who cited the evidence of the female form of some pottery vessels and so-called ‘cow amulets’. More recently, the respected Egyptologist, Fekri Hassan,5 argued for the importance of a Mother Goddess, usually taking cow form, in Predynastic Egypt, extending the idea of a mothering cow goddess back to 7000 BC. Writing in 1992, Hassan suggested that this goddess was the paramount deity, although by 1998 he admits that she was not to the exclusion of male gods. He sees the location and economy of Egypt as being critical to the importance of the female cow goddess – the life-giving importance of the woman, milk and water in an increasingly desert environment. The idea of a Predynastic cow goddess is also supported by other Egyptologists,6 although this goddess is not seen as a paramount deity.
It is certainly true that many pastoral cultures revere the cow, and see her as a nurturing entity, or perfect mother. However, this does not mean that all pastoralists inevitably adopt a cow goddess. Evidence for a paramount cow goddess in Predynastic Egypt appears based upon three related and contestable assumptions: that beliefs surrounding Hathor, or other cow goddesses of the Dynastic Period, can be extended backward into the Predynastic Period; that depictions of cattle are to be identified as cow goddesses; and that women are associated with cattle.
There is clear evidence of the symbolic importance of cattle in Predynastic Egypt, but little evidence of the particular importance of the cow, as opposed to the bull.7 The most cited ‘evidence’ for a Predynastic cow goddess is that of the Naqada II to First Dynasty depictions of a bovine head shown facing forward in conjunction with five stars, one on each ear and horn, and one on top of the head. This head is similar to a later, little-known deity, Bat, a bovine with curled horns and human-shaped eyes and mouth; it is also sometimes said to be like Hathor.
Bat8 represented the seventh nome (Egypt was divided into territories called ‘nomes’ and the authority of the nome deity was usually restricted to this territory). She is shown, for example, in one of a series of triads depicting King Menkaure of the Fourth Dynasty accompanied by Hathor and one male or female nome deity.9 Thus, as far as we can tell, she was never a major deity. Hathor, as we shall see, was a major goddess who sometimes took cow form.
Three particular depictions of a Predynastic bovine head with stars are commonly cited as evidence of a sky goddess, but other images of bovine heads without stars are also claimed to be cow goddesses. The most famous depiction with stars is a Naqada II oversize palette from Gerza. A palette is a flat piece of stone used for grinding minerals to make make-up. Its large size and decoration suggest that it was a ceremonial object. Another bovine occurs on a First Dynasty black and white porphyry bowl from Hierakonpolis reconstructed from fragments held by the Ashmolean and Petrie Museums.10 The third is on a seal impression of the Naqada II Period from a burial at Abydos.11 In all three cases, the bovine is not identical to the later Bat (in particular, the horns of the later Bat appear to end in spirals) and the head is certainly unlike that of Hathor.
The cow depicted in the Gerza palette, in particular, has been cited by scholars as evidence for a celestial cow goddess as her head is surrounded by ‘stars’.12 Some even go so far as to identify the stars as Orion. Admittedly, the ‘stars’ may be a device to set apart these depictions from those of earthly bovines, and might indicate a bovine sky goddess. The ‘stars’ on either side of the face of the bovine could alternatively be ‘rosettes’, which some have seen as depicting kingship,13 though the symbols between the horns look more starlike than rosette-like. However, stars do not prove that this is Hathor or Bat. The Pyramid Texts describe a celestial goddess as ‘the Great Wild Cow who dwells in Nekheb’14 and as ‘She who bears a thousand bas’15 (the ba here may be simplistically equated with the soul). The Pyramid Texts are a collection of religious texts which were carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqara during the fifth and sixth Dynasties of the Old Kingdom. Unlike the Book of the Dead into which parts of the Pyramid Texts later evolved, these spells were reserved for the king. Moreover, the Pyramid Texts also described the deceased king as a ‘Bull of the Sky’.16 The Gerza palette cow could just as easily be a bull. Thus, we seem to have two main contenders for the starry bovine, either the king in the sky, or a celestial goddess, and it is difficult to say which is correct.
Other items that are sometimes claimed to represent the cow goddesses are not associated with stars. Particularly well known is the Narmer palette, a Naqada III or Early Dynastic ceremonial item, which was found at Hierakonpolis over a century ago. Like the Gerza Palette, this too is an oversized ceremonial item. The Narmer palette has depictions of bovines on the top row of decoration, two on each side, which have been interpreted as Bat or Hathor. Again, these bovines are shown face on, and here, as on the Hierakonpolis bowl, the features of eyes, nose and mouth look human. Elsewhere on the Narmer palette, bulls represent the victorious power of the king. It is difficult to understand why examples such as those depicted on the Narmer Palette should be assumed to be cows, rather than bulls. Egyptologists do not always present such images as female. One such example is the frontal view bovine head, with straight horns, upon a serekh or shrine excavated from a Tarkhan grave (dating to the time of Narmer) which has been considered a bull.17
A further problem with assuming that the Predynastic bovine is related to Bat or Hathor is that we cannot simply assume that the same divinities continued from the Predynastic Period into the Dynastic Period. Even though it is usually claimed that religions are slow to change, it is dangerous to extend the importance of known deities far back into little-known periods; the state emerged in Egypt during the Predynastic Period, a time when religious change may have been momentous. The earliest clear indication of Bat comes from Pyramid Text 1096, where the king is identified as ‘Bat with her two faces’. Although written down in the Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Texts were composed much earlier. However, whether this was as early as the Gerza and Narmer Palettes, is debatable. Other indications of Bat are from later periods and include a Sixth Dynasty stela depicting a woman said to be an overseer of the ḫnr18 (khener, meaning musical troupe) of Bat. The first clear attestation of Hathor is in the reign of Khafre of the Fourth Dynasty.19
We cannot say that there is clear evidence of a Predynastic cow goddess, but assuming such a deity existed, is there evidence for her link with human women? The apparent connection between cow goddesses and human women is sometimes cited to further the idea of a Golden Age for women in the Predynastic Period. Evidence for the link between women, cattle and goddesses is sometimes said to lie in depictions of women with arms curved enigmatically upward. These depictions occur in different forms, on pottery and as figurines, which some Egyptologists have interpreted as goddesses with arms raised in imitation of cow horns. Several of these figurines with curved arms are known from two Naqada I Period tombs at Ma’amerieh,20 but their purpose is unclear. They are found in graves, but were they intended to serve the deceased in the afterlife, or facilitate an afterlife? They may be depictions of goddesses, but equally they could be fertility figurines, or depictions of the deceased or other women. Fekri Hassan,21 following the lead of Elise Baumgartel,22 sees a connection between the curved arms of these figurines and cow horns. The present-day Sudanese Dinka (Nilotes) women have a dance termed the ‘cow dance’, which they perform with their arms upraised in a similar posture.23 However, the Dinka are far removed in time from the period under discussion, and there are several other problems with the assumption that the figurines are dancing in imitation of the cow. One of these problems is that the figurines are known mainly from two tombs and generally, female figurines without arms are more common than those with arms,24 suggesting no general correlation between women and pottery figurines with upraised arms. Another problem is that the fact that the arm positions are similar to a dance known from the Fifth Dynasty25 does not mean that the Predynastic representations of raised arms are also a dance. There are major differences between the Dynastic and Predynastic images. The Dynastic scenes, for example, show dancers in groups, while the Predynastic scenes show single individuals with raised arms; the arm position could alternatively represent birds flying, or women dancing (possibly imitating cows or birds), praying, or perhaps simply exuberance. Indeed, the beak-like faces of these figures suggest more affinity with birds than cows.
Women with such raised hands are also shown in two dimensions on a type of pottery called ‘Decorated Ware’ (D-ware) which is common in the Naqada II Period. The figures on the pottery are often shown in association with boats, and figures with raised hands are recognized as females by their wide hips. Ithyphallic males accompany them and have been seen in some quarters as precursors to the Dynastic god, the ithyphallic Min. Alternatively, these could simply be earthly men. The women are often shown larger than the men, perhaps indicating their superior, or god-like, status. Again, like the pottery figures, the women with upraised arms may not necessarily be mirroring cows’ horns, but by their size, they do seem to at least show important female figures.
The situation gets more complicated if we consider the rarer white, cross-lined ware (C-ware) pots of Naqada I. On first impression, these vessels show only male figures with raised arms.26 There is, however, some ambiguity of gender here; three vessels appear to show taller human forms among smaller ones. The taller ones have raised arms and protuberances from the tops of their heads. In two cases, these larger figures have elongated protuberances with swollen ends extending from their waists, while the hips are not enlarged. The assumption might be that these protuberances are phalli. The third figure does not have any semblance of a phallus, but is placed among a group carrying maces. Thus, we might interpret the elongated objects with swollen ends appearing from the waist area as maces. Hence, the figures could be women carrying maces, though there is debatable evidence that it was mainly men who were associated with maces.27
There is a fourth source of figures with upraised arms, but again this source does not give any definitive answer. The rock art of the Eastern Desert includes several sites depicting figures with arms positioned in this manner.28 Like the D-ware pottery representations, rock art figures are found in association with boats, but the rock art examples are notoriously difficult to date and the gender of the figures is unclear.29 Not all the figures with upraised arms exhibit the enlarged hips usually associated with women.30 Occasionally, figures with raised arms are depicted with apparent phalli which are clearly not maces.31
To sum up, the idea of a Prehistoric, nurturing cow goddess, while plausible, needs further study, as indeed does Predynastic religion more generally. As is frequently said of prehistoric archaeology, ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’; while a paramount mother goddess seems unlikely, it also seems unlikely that there were not at least some female goddesses, though identifying them is not easy. We have more evidence for Neith, a primeval goddess often shown with a bow and arrow, than for any other goddesses. She is discussed more fully in Chapter 8.
Although we cannot prove the existence of a Predynastic mother goddess, this does not demolish the notion of women’s high status in this period. Many scholars have postulated that pre-state Egypt was an age when the sexes were more equal compared to later periods. The large women of D-ware vessels have already been discussed, and there is other tantalizing evidence that Predynastic women had higher status.
Initially, it should be conceded, on the basis of mortuary evidence, that while men and women had different roles in Predynastic Egypt, there is little evidence for a significant difference in status.32 However, use of mortuary evidence is problematic, involving the assumption that how a person is buried relates to his or her role in life. This might not be the case since in death, social roles may be inverted and, moreover, mortuary evidence reflects the ideal rather than the actual. There are also problems with the quality of data; most burials were excavated in the early twentieth century, when sexing of human remains was relatively inaccurate. Additionally, excavations were not always recorded to ‘modern’ standards and graves were often found to have been plundered. In studies of Predynastic data, 2,000 years of evidence is often conflated so that any chronological variation in status or role of women remains hidden. Nevertheless, the studies of mortuary evidence which have been carried out suggest that generally in Predynastic Egypt, men and women were relatively equal.
The richest Badarian grave at Mahasna contained a woman’s skeleton.33 She wore several ivory bracelets, and necklaces of carnelian and green glazed steatite beads. Nearby were two tusks, one hollow and one solid, which were interpreted as ritual objects representing the male and female. The grave also contained a pottery bowl decorated with depictions of hippopotami and an ivory statue of an ithyphallic male. However, was it only in exceptional circumstances that women achieved high status, or were they generally equal with men?
A study of Predynastic–Early Dynastic graves at Tarkhan showed that women’s graves contained more artefacts and more types of artefact than those of men, but men’s graves were larger and more variable.34 Slate palettes and beads were more common in women’s graves. At Predynastic Naga-ed-Deir Cemetery N7000, excavated in 1902–1903, a recent study showed no differences in sizes or shapes of graves between the sexes.35 This cemetery dates largely from Naqada I-II, with a few possible Naqada III graves. Clusters of artefacts occurring together were studied and assumed to indicate social roles. Results showed women had a greater variety of clusters, and thus a greater variety of social roles, than men. However, we need not assume that this relates to status. An early study of 635 Naqada I-II graves from Naga-ed-Deir showed that fishtailed knives and maceheads were associated with male graves, and hairpins, blue beads, tusks, tusk amulets and palettes were most common in female graves.36 However, as a significant number of unsexed graves were also associated with palettes, and only two maceheads were actually found, these correlations with gender may not be real. In size of tomb and diversity of grave goods, there was no real difference between men and women.
In a study of 426 graves from five cemeteries of Predynastic Egypt – once again from early excavations – it was apparent that while male graves appeared hierarchical, female graves were more homogeneous.37 However, there was no significant gender difference between size of tomb and number of grave goods. Women were buried with more toiletries, amulets, ornaments, red and rough pottery, high-value items and possibly cattle in the form of figurines. They also seemed to have been associated with the colour green. Men had more projectile points, stone artefacts and skins. One may wonder if projectile points were associated with warfare, hunting, or both (on rock art and grinding palettes, men seem to be associated with hunting).
Using not only evidence from graves, but also rock art and other representations, some scholars identified a connection between women and water, and women and birds, with the bird representing the soul. Pottery figurines of women, which had not only raised arms but also bird beaks, have been discussed above. Additionally, palettes used for grinding eye paint38 often have bird-like beaks, or occasionally cow heads. It is suggested that the ostrich, in particular, was associated with the female, a connection which continued in the equation of the female goddess Maat with the ostrich feather. Ostrich eggshells were frequently used in Predynastic times and ostriches appear on pottery.
There has been speculation that women were connected with vegetation in the Predynastic Period39 as some figurines seem to depict females decorated with symbols which could be interpreted as vegetation.40 This may link female goddesses with the earth,41 and Pyramid Text references to Isis and Nephthys as the two banks of the River Nile may be a throwback to this earlier belief. However, there is no proof that the figurines are goddesses. It would be interesting if women were associated with the earth in the Predynastic Period, as this appears to contradict a later association of goddesses with the sky. It has been suggested42 that the Dynastic Period association of men with the earth and women with the sky arose because the water supply in Egypt derived from the annual inundation, rather than rainfall. However, in the Predynastic Period, there were much higher levels of rainfall.
Thus, there is evidence of a difference in the roles of men and women in Predynastic Egypt and some evidence supporting equality of the sexes, though this is not to suggest a Predynastic matriarchy or matrilineal descent. The general equality in the Predynastic Period contrasts with later times; by Naqada III, male graves ‘began to outpace’ female graves.43 As time progresses, there is increasing evidence of male dominance, though as we shall see, not all women of later periods were lacking in status. The question is, ‘Does the decline in women’s status lie in the increased power of the state, or is it due to some other factor, such as the growth of agriculture?’ This question is not easy to answer. The later Predynastic Period coincides with the decline in the status of women, the secondary products revolution (the exploitation of animals for milk, blood, traction and wool, rather than simply for food is discussed below), and the growth of the state. Both the secondary products revolution and the growth of the state have been blamed for loss of women’s power.
The loss of equality with the rise of the state is not confined to Egypt, and several gender theorists have considered the problem of why women seem to lose power at this time.44 Some see this loss of power as inevitable in a state-level society, but arguably gender equality can continue to exist so long as elites are organized through kinship.45
Fekri Hassan46 specifically considers the relationship between gender inequality and state formation in Egypt. He interestingly suggests that while the female goddess was used to legitimize male rule and formation of the nation state, women lost power partly because it was transferred from the female domain of kinship and the home to the male domain of the state. The idea of the female goddess aside, support for this argument demands proof that women were confined to the family and the home. The claim that it is natural for women to work in the home due to the restrictions of child rearing is debatable. Furthermore, while it is clear that the early Egyptian state did indeed rely to some extent on kinship, this is an area which is not clearly understood. The continuing importance of kinship perhaps explains the importance of the king’s mother (discussed below), and the family ties in Hathorian priesthood (see below). Hassan47 also emphasizes the part played by warfare, an area from which women were largely excluded, in the construction of the state. Not only was warfare seen as prestigious, but women were possibly given as rewards to the victors.
Finally, it is sometimes stated that gender is produced by economic class; certainly, the growth of class and gender division in Egypt coincides with state formation. One expert has shown48 that in the Naqada III Period, control was increasingly in the hands of a small elite and this continued until the Early Dynastic Period. The mechanisms by which class disadvantages women are, however, debatable.
Cereal production became increasingly important in Egypt between 4000–3500 BC,49 roughly coinciding with the beginning of a decline in women’s status. Those studying the Old World often claim that the farming revolution resulted in the loss of women’s status.50 It is argued that in the Early Neolithic Period, women would have played a vital part in horticulture, sowing, weeding and harvesting. The later Neolithic Period saw a change in subsistence with the development of farming innovations. This, it is claimed, led to men playing the dominant role in handling large livestock, while women were relegated to the less prestigious domestic sphere and were particularly occupied in spinning and weaving wool. Why domestic work should be considered inferior is not usually explored.
Can this model be applied to Egypt? The so-called ‘secondary products’ revolution (the harvesting of milk, wool and other goods) would have taken place during the Fourth Millennium BC,51 and the problem is that we do not have finely detailed chronological frameworks for women’s status. Moreover, cross culturally this model assumes women would have been primary producers in the Early Neolithic Period, an assumption for which there is no evidence.52 It also assumes that only men would have handled livestock in the Late Neolithic Period, again something for which there is no evidence. Finally, in Egypt, linen, not wool, was the main textile produced and this dates back to the Badarian Period,53 thereby pre-dating the Egyptian secondary products revolution.
There does appear to be evidence for the decline of the status of women from the Old to the Middle Kingdom. In the Old Kingdom, there is evidence that royal women, especially the queen mothers, were particularly important. By the Middle Kingdom, this was no longer the case. Secondly, women seem generally to have had fewer administrative titles in the Middle Kingdom than in the Old Kingdom.54 Thirdly, in temple hierarchy, women appear less important55 and the decline of the priestess of Hathor is particularly noticeable during the Middle Kingdom. Finally, it has also been suggested that in the Old Kingdom women were particularly well rewarded as weavers and perhaps were even important in trade.
This change may well have been a part of the general social upheaval of the First Intermediate Period. This period is generally thought to have been one of weak kings and a growth of the middle classes. Inscriptions describe civil war and the possibility that women actually gained in status in this period is discussed below. However, other theories could be posited. The Middle Kingdom decline in women’s status might be seen as related to the decline of kings. If, as has been suggested,56 the kings of the Old Kingdom were all part of a single extended kin-group, the changing roles of women, and indeed other social changes, might all be ascribed to the decline of this group. Indeed, the areas I now describe are largely those of elite women who would most likely have been affected by change in a ruling group. We need not assume that this was also part of a general change in the status and roles of all women. For this, we would need to look more extensively at evidence encompassing the non-elite.
In 1910, the American archaeologist George Reisner unearthed an enigmatic, stone statue from the Valley Temple of King Menkaure. The statue, now in the Museum of Fine Art at Boston, showed two figures standing side by side – a woman embracing a king. The male figure was clearly Menkaure of the Fourth Dynasty as comparable named statues of him were known, but the woman was more of a mystery. She was obviously of high-status and some have even suggested she was a goddess. She is not only shown as being as tall as the king but, like him, strides forward with her left foot. Statues of Egyptian women of the period would generally show wives as shorter than their husbands, and with their feet passively together. So who was this high-status individual? The statue was tantalizingly uninscribed, but Reisner assumed the woman to be the principal wife of the king. However, the status, particularly of queen mothers of reigning kings, appears particularly high in the Old Kingdom and we may wonder if this was, in fact, his mother rather than his wife (against this theory, in private sculpture when a man and woman are modelled together, the woman is usually indicated by text as the man’s wife and private sculpture tended to copy royal sculpture). The mother of the reigning king was always important in ancient Egypt, partly because of her influence upon the head of state, but also because of her religious role. It is also clear that for much of Egyptian history, the mother, whether royal or non-royal, was held in high regard. However, in the Old Kingdom, the role of the elite mother is particularly pronounced. During this period, the mother of the royal heir, not his wife, was his official consort.57
A number of queens of the Old Kingdom appear to have been accorded particularly high status. Old Kingdom queen mothers were listed on the Palermo Stone, a large fragment of a stela that records the names of the kings of Egypt and which is known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom. The first known royal mother, Merneith, had a tomb of similar size to other First Dynasty rulers. Two queens, both called Khentkawes, appear to have been regents58 and had pyramid complexes of their own. Pepi II, who ascended to the throne at the age of five, is shown in a smaller scale than his mother, and is seated on her lap.
The importance of the queen mother in the Old Kingdom may have been in part due to the importance of kinship at this date. It may also have been due to the general prominence of the mother during the Old Kingdom; while women are generally shown as having secondary status to men in ancient Egypt, in tombs of the Old Kingdom, some prominence is given to them.59 This may also be due to inheritance of wealth which, in some cases, was passed on from the mother. A First Intermediate Period inscription declares: ‘I acquired the house of my father, Iti; it was my mother, Ibeb, who did it for me’.60 But lest we get carried away with the high status of Old Kingdom mothers, outside the tomb, the father is also usually mentioned.
However, none of this explains the decline of the queen mother’s importance. Perhaps, during unstable times, kings died young and the young were more easily influenced by their mothers. A long period of stability allowed for kings to develop into adults, and possibly lessened the power of the queen mother.61 During the Middle Kingdom, the king’s mother was given a tomb, often near her son’s pyramid, and often larger than that of the principal queen. In fact, until the New Kingdom, the royal mother remained more important than the spouse.62 However, in general, the status of royal women significantly declined during the Middle Kingdom and queens were no longer depicted alongside kings in statues and reliefs.63
In contrast to the declining importance of the royal mother, there is some evidence of the importance of elite, non-royal mothers continuing into the Middle Kingdom. On Middle Kingdom stelae, there is a strong maternal bias,64 though this varies throughout the period.65 In the Twelfth Dynasty, the mother is even more important than the wife, although in the Eleventh Dynasty it is the wife who is more important. A study of 600 Middle Kingdom documents show that 48 per cent name both parents, 46 per cent name the mother only and 5 per cent the father only.66
Administrative roles taken by women are more thoroughly explored in Chapter 5. In all periods, women’s important administrative titles tended to be held by royal women, or those who served royal women. In the Old Kingdom, women held particularly powerful political offices.67 We even know of a woman vizier, an official of the highest rank in ancient Egypt, second only to the king himself, and a possible overseer of women physicians. It is possible that the evidence is biased; in the Old Kingdom, most records come from courtiers buried near Memphis, while Middle Kingdom evidence largely consists of stelae listing female servants. Additionally, it should be pointed out that far more tomb inscriptions are known for the Old Kingdom than later periods. Tomb inscriptions would be more likely to document royal women.
In the Old Kingdom to the First Intermediate Period, women held high-status roles with the title ḥmt nṯr (meaning ‘servant of the gods’ or more loosely, ‘priestess’), but this role seems to have declined during the Middle Kingdom. This general decline of female priests has been seen as a product of the nature of ancient Egyptian priesthood which was more suited to men than women. It is also possible that this decline may have been caused by a more general weakening of women’s power within the higher rungs of Egyptian society. The decline of the role of priestesses of Hathor, in particular, has received much attention. Some have seen this decline as part of royal policy.
From the Old Kingdom until the Middle Kingdom, large numbers of elite women were servants of the gods,68 or priestesses. The title was not inherited but its allocation, whether given according to aptitude, or purchased, is unclear. It seems most likely that it depended on knowing the ‘right’ people, as is the case throughout history.
The first known Priestess of Hathor was Neferhetepes, daughter of King Radjedef,69 though in the Old Kingdom, over 400 women seem to have held the title. In the Fourth Dynasty, royal women often took the title,70 but these were princesses, not wives or mothers of kings, and thus not mythically important to kingship. The fact that the title rḫt nswt (Royal Acquaintance) is often linked with the title ‘Priestess of Hathor’ suggests that Hathorian priestesses were part of the court circle. A few women who were priestesses also held what appears to be the higher title ẖkrt nswt (‘King’s Ornament’71).
In some cases, ḥmt nṯ r ḥtḥr (Priestesses of Hathor) had their own tombs (one example is Hetep72), although this fact does not mean that they gained their wealth solely through their profession. While at least some were paid a stipend, this need not have been a large amount. Priestesses of Hathor in the Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period came from several levels of Egyptian society, but were nevertheless always drawn from the elite.73 This was not a means by which women from poverty-stricken families could improve their lot.
While Priestesses of Hathor did not inherit hereditary titles, their families were often involved in the cult.74 However, the fact that not all in-laws of the Priestesses were titled suggests that in the Old Kingdom the social status of women was not defined by relation to their husbands or fathers.
It is clear that the role of Priestess of Hathor was not simply an honorary one, certainly in the Middle Kingdom,75 but this role is not entirely understood. Given Hathor’s strong links with music and dance, we may assume that all priestesses of the goddess would have played musical instruments and danced, but it seems, with few exceptions, Hathor’s Priestesses did not play instruments.76 While there are Old Kingdom depictions of women dancing, shaking sistra and offering menit-necklaces for Hathor, such as in the tomb of Senebei at Meir,77 these are rarely specifically identified as ‘priestesses’.
Examination of the role of priestesses of other deities in the pantheon gives further clues. There were general differences between the roles of male and female priests, whatever god or goddess was being served. Only male priests performed the purification rituals and rites associated with the god’s morning toilet.78 Instances of women offering and censing for deities are not extant in this period. However, female administrators are known in the Old Kingdom, and it seems likely that women also took administrative duties in serving the deities, although perhaps not always of the same rank as the men. In the Old Kingdom, most priests of Hathor were female, but it was men who were overseers of these priests. Women were sometimes overseers of dancers and singers, while professional musicians are nearly always men.79 Additionally, there are no female lector priests – the priests who spoke the ritual texts in funerary and temple rites – and it has been suggested that women funerary priests held their titles in name only.
The roles of men and women did however overlap; women serving at the temple of Min at Akhmim in the Old Kingdom, like the men, kept watch through day and night.80 A Fifth Dynasty papyrus from Abusir81 shows that priestesses received the same payment as men, and were therefore not considered of lesser status.
We gather some clues about the different priestly roles of men and women through a study of ἰrἰ ḫt (iri khet, meaning ‘doing things’). Carolyn Routledge82 has studied the term and shown that it is used of elite males carrying out cultic duties. It refers to the maintenance of cosmic order and is never applied to women. While women could certainly perform certain cultic duties, Routledge explains that in such roles they are described as ἰrἰ ἰrw (iri iru, meaning ‘performing performances’) and were excluded from others which involved ἰrἰ ḫ t. The latter phrase is used of lector priests, a role which women never fulfil. There is little evidence that acts listed as ἰrἰḫt, such as giving of offerings to deities, or libating and censing in temples are practised by women priests. However, it should also be noted that this avoidance of labelling women as those practising ἰrἰ ḫt probably reflects an ideal rather than a reality. The question, of course, remains as to why it was only men who were involved in maintaining cosmic order.
The title, Priestess of Hathor, seems to have been very common for elite women in the Old Kingdom, but by the end of the Middle Kingdom, it had all but disappeared.83 Instead, men took on this role. By the end of the Old Kingdom, Priestesses of Hathor held such authority that King Mentuhotep Nebhepetre married at least one of them to legitimize his claim to the throne. However, not long after, priestesses of this goddess disappear from the record, perhaps because kings used their own wives and children in this role to the exclusion of others.84 So, only royal women remained Priestesses of Hathor and the role was increasingly associated with kingship and state fertility. By the New Kingdom, royal figures such as Meritamun, daughter of Rameses II, occasionally held the title, but by then it was only given to demonstrate legitimacy.85
The decline in the role of Priestess of Hathor seems to have been linked to a decline of priestesses more generally. Was this general decline a ‘natural’ usurpation of power on the part of men? There are several possible explanations. One is the possibility that priests had to be pure or wab, and women may have been considered impure because of menstruation and childbirth. Certainly, following childbirth women underwent a 14-day period of purification and there is some evidence for purification rites at menstruation. But if we believe that the decline of women priests was due to women’s impurity, there remains the question of why women were not considered impure in the Old Kingdom.
The wab-priests, or ‘Purifiers’ were usually men; these were lay priests who assisted the ḥmt nṯr in rotas, of one month in every four. However, we know that in at least one instance in the Old Kingdom, at Tehneh, a Hathorian priestess performed wab for the goddess.86 Female wab-priests are also known from two Middle Kingdom stelae; one was a wab-priest of Khons and another of Wepwawet.87 As is shown from a Fifth Dynasty papyrus from Abusir,88 wab-priestesses received the same payment as men.89 It may be assumed that, like men, they served in phyles (work crews);90 evidence from a Twelfth Dynasty papyrus (the Kahun Papyrus discovered by Flinders Petrie in 1889; its many fragments are kept at University College, London) records that Irer, a Mistress of the House, needs to take one month of leave from the weaving workshop to fulfil temple duty as a wab-priestess. However, an alternative translation gives a different interpretation,91 stating that the woman went to the temple on day 20 for purification.
Perhaps the decrease in women priests was due to the increasing extent to which the priesthood had become part of state bureaucracy. The growing professionalism and specialization of the priesthood may have been to blame.92 In earlier periods, priestly functions were carried out on a part-time basis, thus purity was only required part-time and women didn’t need to be excluded. Indeed, one might explain the general decline in the power of women from the Old Kingdom as a rise in state bureaucracy which placed increasing value on the male role of scribe.
However, women retained an important role in religion, particularly as providers of music. And they were not always to remain secondary to men; during the Late Period, the roles of God’s Wife of Amun and Divine Adoratrice are almost on a par with the king himself. These exceptional women are discussed later in this book.
Textile production was the second most important industry in Egypt after agriculture. Textiles were essential to clothe the living and the dead, and also to make furnishings, sails for boats, awnings, bags and innumerable other items. Wages were paid in food, but also in metalwork and textiles. For much of Egyptian history, women were at the heart of this industry, and during the Old Kingdom their rewards for such work seem to have been particularly marked.
From the Old Kingdom on, weaving was carried out by women. This is usually seen as a domestic industry, although there is evidence for specialized workshops.93 Some scholars believe that the term pr-ἰrἰwt, often translated as ‘houses of women’ (that is, harems), should rather be construed as ‘weaving workshops’, while others argue that there is little evidence for domestic weaving in the Old Kingdom (there have been few extensive modern excavations of Old Kingdom settlements that might test this claim). It is likely that weaving was carried out in workshops attached to elite households, thus these places were both extensions of the domestic environment as well as outside the home itself.
In the Old Kingdom, women not only manufactured cloth, but oversaw its production; several women are recorded as overseers in ‘the house of weavers’ (presumably a workshop) at this period, though men also held the same title.94
The hieroglyph for weaver, which represents a sceptre, designates the weaver as ‘one who is adorned’ or ‘rewarded’ and suggests the high status of weavers in the Old Kingdom.95 Women are shown being given costly ornaments for their services, something which does not appear in later representations. It has been claimed96 that the depictions of women weavers receiving necklaces were a public recognition of their worth, and furthermore97 that the payment of weavers can be equated to payment given to Old Kingdom tomb workers. Women engaged in such activities would have had a certain amount of financial independence and thus would have been more able to build their own tombs.
By the Middle Kingdom, texts show that weaving was still primarily the job of women, though there is not the evidence for their being given such substantial rewards as earlier. A papyrus from Kahun suggests that several servant women were employed together as weavers98 and another document shows that of 29 servants within a particular household, 20 were employed in weaving.99 At other times, production seems to be within the family.100 Tomb paintings suggest that although women were largely involved in spinning and weaving, men generally took charge as overseers.
In Old Kingdom tomb scenes women were not only shown engaged in the cloth trade, but are often represented as both buyers and sellers of goods more generally, although they are still outnumbered by men. These women appear to have worked near harbours selling bread, beer, fish and vegetables, as well as manufactured goods such as cloth and sandals.101 The most important marketplace scene is perhaps the Fifth Dynasty scene from the tomb of the two ‘brothers’, Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, at Saqqara.102 Both women and men seem to be engaged in buying and selling at the port. The tomb of Feteka shows a similar scene, but here only men are shown trading, with women as customers.103 There are rare depictions of women engaged in trade from ships. ‘Give bread (with) thy arm’ and ‘Don’t obstruct my face while I am putting to shore’ commands a woman steering a cargo ship, which, in other words, means ‘Get me food and keep out of my way as I’m doing something important’.104 This is depicted in a scene from a Fifth Dynasty chapel at Saqqara.
There is also some evidence of women in the marketplace in the New Kingdom105 and it is possible that the extensive number of Old Kingdom scenes is more a product of the wealth of scenes mirroring everyday life in tombs of this date. Again, the type of goods women sell in the marketplace could be seen as an extension of domestic production.106
While it seems that in grave goods, religious practice and trade, women of the Old Kingdom enjoyed more parity in status with men than in the Middle Kingdom, we must be aware that there are problems with the evidence. Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom evidence differs significantly; while Old Kingdom material may be biased because it focuses on women of the royal court, the Middle Kingdom may give more evidence on women outside the court. Thus, we may simply be seeing a weight of evidence for the high status of elite Old Kingdom women compared to their lower-class sisters. Additionally, we must not assume that, even in the Old Kingdom, women held the same status as men. In Egyptian art, status was often depicted by size and Old Kingdom royal princesses are shown dwarfed by their husbands.
It has been suggested that the status of the Priestesses of Hathor may have declined due to the changing fortunes of kingship but other theories may be posited. It could be that the decline in women’s status was a deliberate policy or a side effect of increasing male bureaucracy. Another possibility can be suggested from tantalizing evidence from First Intermediate Period stelae.
The pattern in decline in women’s status from the Old to the Middle Kingdom is not a simple linear pattern, nor evident in all areas of material culture. During the First Intermediate Period, for example, there are several stelae which show women standing in front of men. For the rest of Egyptian history, the men always come first, in the position of superiority. During this time of civil war, women had more power at home, built their own tombs, and so on. We might hypothesize that while the men were off fighting and being killed, it was the women who assumed positions of leadership and responsibility at home.
Unfortunately, the First Intermediate Period is an era which is difficult to understand, for while the kings of the Seventh and Eighth Dynasties ruled from Memphis, they controlled very little of the country. During the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties, a series of rulers originating from Herakleopolis Magna controlled the north of Egypt. Around the same time, rulers of the Eleventh Dynasty, from Thebes, in the south, began to assert power. Provincial art flourished and funerary inscriptions of regional governors show their allegiance to either Herakleopolitan or Theban rulers. Eventually, the Theban King Mentuhotep II (2055–2004 BC) succeeded in controlling the entire country.
One might draw a parallel with the situation during and after World War II. During the war years, women had taken on many of men’s roles. After the war, division of labour became more enforced as men took back their jobs. The evidence for a shortage of men in the First Intermediate Period is unproven, although one scholar107 attests evidence of polygamy in the Herakleopolitan Period, in contrast to earlier periods. This perhaps bears witness to a shortage of men. We cannot assume an increase in women’s status from stelae alone, though there are other tantalizing pieces of evidence including a First Intermediate Period false door from a woman’s tomb at Busaris in the Delta.108 Most false doors of men contrast the corpulent appearance of age with the slender youth. Women, by contrast, are shown as eternally youthful. Yet this First Intermediate Period door shows the woman as a naked girl with pigtails and as a thin old woman with sagging breasts. This is the tomb of a woman who is unafraid to flout traditional rules.
Later periods of Egyptian history show further changes in women’s status. The Late Middle Kingdom to Early New Kingdom sees resurgence in the apparent status of women. Statuettes of non-royal women of the late Seventeenth Dynasty show women as more active, with the left foot advanced for the first time, and with one arm bent across the chest, either fisted or holding a flower.109 In the Eighteenth Dynasty, the reign of Thutmose III shows women as more prominent in tomb chapels, making offerings to the deceased and dedicating monuments. This period seems to coincide with an increase in the importance of royal women.110 There is a small variation in coffin prices between men and women in Rameside Deir el-Medina.111 Then, in the late Twentieth to early Twenty-second Dynasty, perhaps with Libyan influence, funerary monuments of women appear free of male kin, and one woman, Neskhons, is even charged with governing Kush.
One Egyptologist, in discussing Third Intermediate Period coffins, notes that, ‘In statues they [the priestesses] were apparently as prestigious as men, as is obvious from the quality of their coffins. Although qualitatively the corpus can be divided into three main groups – bad, mediocre and (very) good – their distribution shows no significant difference. In other words, women were able to spend as much ‘economic resources’ or ‘money’ on their tomb equipment as were men’.112 The same seems to hold true for papyri as well. We must understand, however, that women did not usually have such high status as men.
One might state that even in today’s western world, with its apparent emphasis on equality and understanding of social problems, men are still much more likely to reach positions of status than women. Today, we argue over the reasons for this state of affairs – the most common perception is that women are hampered by their traditional role as homemakers and childrearers and bearers. Indeed, it has been argued that there has never been any matriarchal society and that men have always run the show throughout history. This chapter cannot conclusively answer the question of why women lost status, but the fact that they once held power suggests that it was not exclusively biological factors which were to blame.