In ancient Egypt, birth, life and death were significantly different for men and women.
In many societies, the birth of a boy is seen as more desirable than the birth of a girl, so much so that at times baby girls have been put to death while boys were celebrated. In childhood, it is common for boys to receive the best food and care, and in later life to be better educated than girls. This does not seem to have been the case in ancient Egypt, though it is true that boys could be educated as scribes, a high-status occupation, while women were rarely given this chance, if at all.
It is only in the Graeco-Roman Period that we have evidence of female infanticide, and, one might argue, this is due to Greek and Roman influence. Before this date, infanticide does not seem to have been practised in Egypt. Moreover, while there is evidence that male children were preferred – medical prescriptions, for example, ask for the milk from the mother of a male child – there is also evidence that the birth of a girl was at times celebrated. At New Kingdom Deir el-Medina, we have a reference to celebrations on the birth of a girl child at ‘the place of hard drinking’.1 We may assume that both men and women joined in these festivities.
Nor does it seem that female children were disadvantaged through diet. Scholars2 have studied the dental enamel of males and females from the Old Kingdom to the Graeco-Roman Period as dental enamel can indicate levels of stress. The results showed no statistical difference between the sexes, suggesting that both were subject to similar amounts of childhood stress.
It is difficult to be specific about the lives of female children.3 Both boys and girls enjoyed games and a number of artefacts have been discovered from Kahun which were interpreted as toys. These include wooden tip-cats and tops, a model boat and limestone hippopotami; baked clay models of animals and a man were also found. While girls and boys are often shown playing separately in tomb scenes, such as in those in the tomb of Mereruka, other evidence suggests that, at least in the Old Kingdom, children were not always separated by sex. A statuette from an Old Kingdom Giza tomb shows a boy and girl playing together.4 There is also one instance of a game shown on a tomb wall where two boys stand upright and twirl girls around them.5 Tomb scenes may simply be depicting the ideal of gender separation, something which is also shown to be practised by adults. Or it could be that, as in the west of today, boys and girls often choose to play in separate groups.
We may expect that there were specific games that were played by girls and others that were played by boys. True to the stereotype, girls are rarely shown playing aggressive games. In Old Kingdom scenes, only boys are shown doing balancing acts, and a Middle Kingdom limestone figurine from Kahun shows two boys wrestling. In Middle Kingdom tombs, in particular, girls are shown juggling balls. Although girls are not shown playing the rough games enjoyed by boys, in the New Kingdom tomb of Menna, there is a depiction of two girls pulling each other’s hair!
The childhood of women would have varied according to social status. Even for the wealthy, however, women were rarely trained to become scribes and, compared to men, their formal education, outside the domestic sphere, seems restricted. This meant that women could not usually take up male professions demanding high levels of literacy, such as scribes and other bureaucratic offices, nor could they become lector priests.
While we know that boys could be sent to school, references to girls’ education are severely limited. Some have pointed to the scribal kit depicted in front of the Old Kingdom princess Idut as evidence of female literacy. However, this tomb was previously carved for a vizier called Ihy, and as his figure was replaced by hers,6 the kit may have been intended for him. The evidence of scribal kits shown under the chairs of elite women in the New Kingdom (the wife of Menna in Menna’s tomb in Thebes, for example) also need not suggest literacy. It may simply suggest status. It is true that there are letters sent from women, though it is possible that these were penned by men on their behalf. However, there were certainly some cases of literate women; four female scribes are known from the Middle Kingdom,7 though some have suggested that this was only an honourific title. At Deir el-Medina, on one occasion, a pupil at school was a woman.8 A Late Rameside letter implying a female student is also known.9 By the Graeco-Roman Period, literate women were more evident, though still unusual.
One would think that in order to competently run a large household, women would have had to, at least, been able to read. If they were totally reliant on men to both read and write for them, they would have been wide open to unscrupulous practices. Additionally, one would expect female merchants, of which there appear to have been several, to have some ability to read. At the same time, this competence may not have been equivalent to that of a scribe.
We now turn to the question of when the ancient Egyptian woman was considered an adult rather than a child, and whether or not this was marked by any coming of age ceremony, or outward form such as change in dress. But, before we study age demarcation we need to realise that many historians believe that childhood is largely a recent construction, and even if childhood was recognized in ancient Egypt, the age at which an individual would have been considered an adult probably occurred earlier than in today’s societies.
In our society, girls under the age of 16, or even 18, are considered children. This is not the case in many other contemporary societies. Elsewhere, the onset of menarche or marriage may herald womanhood. A passage from the Instructions of Ani, urging a man to take a wife and teach her to be a ‘human’, suggests that women were only considered fully grown up once they had married.10 Both marriage and menarche could well have taken place when the individual was around 12 years old. Thus, we should not be shocked by sexualization of adolescents in ancient Egypt.
The genre of the sexualized adolescent is particularly known in Egypt from the late Eighteenth Dynasty. Ritual spoons are shaped like youthful, swimming females. Ritual spoons and ring bezels show adolescent girls playing lutes. Their forms are also used as handles on mirrors, and they appear as servant girls in tomb chapels. All these girls are nude, or almost nude, and wear the heavy wigs associated with the erotic. These girls appear by their body shape to be immature, post-pubescent females, and are possibly those referred to in literature as nfrwt (neferut, meaning ‘beautiful or youthful ones’11). The story of a boating party in Papyrus Westcar suggests that nfrt refers to a woman who has not given birth. An older women would be st (set) or ḥmt (hemet) and would often have a title, most notably that of nbt-pr, meaning ‘Mistress of the House’.12
The symbolism of the spoons refers to fertility, birth and rebirth. Other decoration on the spoons can include Bes (a deity often considered erotic) and the lotus, a symbol of rebirth. Some spoons are in the shape of elaborate bouquets for which the word ‘ankh’, also meaning life, was given. Mirrors have a ritual aspect13 and handles are often in the shape of Bes, a Hathor head or papyrus stem, all of which are rebirth symbols. In the tomb chapels, naked girls are shown pouring drinks for guests. The words for ‘pour’ and ‘impregnate’ were the same, stἰ. This, together with the fact that these depictions are shown on tomb walls – places highly charged with rebirth imagery – suggests a rebirth function for such motifs. In a more secular context, the Turin Erotic Papyrus shows adolescent girls with a ‘sidelock of youth’ participating in erotic scenes, where they are assisting sexual acts but are not themselves being penetrated. We may conclude that it does not appear to have been considered morally wrong to show adolescents in sexual scenes.
However, the contexts in which sexualized adolescent girls are shown are, with the possible exception of the Turin Papyrus, religious; therefore, they might not, reflect the everyday. There is little evidence for the sexualization of pre-adolescent girls; erotic scenes depict girls that appear at least pubescent (their body shape suggests this). Thus, sexualization may have been seen as an advertisement for marriage, and that once married, girls became respectable women who were then shown more fully clothed.
The Egyptians did recognize and mark differences between female children and adults. We have already discussed the textual differences between nfrwt and st. Tomb paintings include markers of women’s age from childhood to adulthood in hairstyles and clothing, and indeed from adulthood to middle age and old age.14 Young children of both sexes, and possibly adolescent girls, seem to have worn a hairstyle called the ‘sidelock of youth’. Older, presumably married, women are shown with different hairstyles to younger women. Adolescent girls serving at banquets are shown wearing very little but a girdle, while older servant women appear more covered. It has also been suggested that the V-necked dress of the Old and Middle Kingdoms was largely worn by mature women.15
Some countries today practise genital mutilation of females and even attempt to justify it through appeal to tradition, claiming that the ancient Egyptians did the same. It is sometimes stated that it was a rite of passage for Egyptian females. However, there is absolutely no evidence for Egyptian female circumcision or genital mutilation from the pre-Roman Period. No evidence for it has been found on female mummies, though admittedly such evidence would not be obvious, nor is there any evidence in pre-Roman Egyptian literature. By the Roman Period, things may have been different, but even here there is room for debate. The Roman writer Strabo, in his Geography, said of the Egyptians: ‘They circumcise the males, as also the females, as is the custom also among the Jews, who are of Egyptian origin . . .’ (Book XVIII). However, we may wonder just how accurate Strabo was, as he was certainly not accurate in all matters. Further evidence concerns a petition of 163 BC, suggesting that at this date circumcision was practised on girls prior to marriage.16 Yet, the girl in question is associated with the Syrian goddess Astarte at Saqqara, and so her circumcision may be due to foreign influence.17
Thus, while we cannot be sure of any formal rite of passage, girls do seem to have been differentiated from women by their clothes, hairstyles and titles.
As stated above, adulthood may well have been heralded by the onset of menarche. Menstruation in patriarchal societies, it is often claimed, is considered in a negative light and often associated with impurity. There is difficulty in understanding ancient Egyptian attitudes to menstruation, but it seems it was not considered entirely negative. Some of the confusion concerning Egyptian attitudes to menstruation results from the translation of the word ḥsmn (hesmen). While ḥsmn is usually taken to mean menstruation, it has been argued that the word may also mean purification. It may have covered a variety of meanings, including blood loss from menarche, menstruation, abortion or childbirth.
However, we can say that menstruation was identified with the Nile flood, an archetypal symbol of renewal and fertility for the Egyptians, although it was also considered to be a dangerous time. Thus, it had some positive symbolism. Menstrual blood seems sometimes to have been used in medicine for women; in Papyrus Ebers, menstrual blood smeared over the breasts is given as a remedy against breasts ‘going down’ (which could translate as sagging breasts18). Sanitary towels or loin cloths were worn and are mentioned in laundry lists,19 and that they are included with other clothing suggests that they were not considered impure. Some believe the Isis knot, a form of amulet often made of red stone, represents female sanitary protection, though such an interpretation is only one of many. The use of such an article as an amulet again suggests a positive image.
However, other evidence suggests that menstruation was considered impure. In the Satire of the Trades, the washerman complains that he must clean the clothes of women soiled with menstrual blood, though one might argue that this does not mean menstrual blood was considered impure, but rather indicates a ‘natural’ disgust. There is possible textual evidence for a purification ritual following menstruation from Middle Kingdom Lahun. This occurs in a letter from the Mistress of the House, Ir, explaining her absence ‘because this humble servant had gone into the temple on day 20 for monthly purification’.20 The need for purification might suggest her monthly period was considered impure. However, one might interpret the passage more positively as meaning that menstruation itself was a purification necessitating a celebratory trip to the temple.21 It has further been suggested that women’s monthly cycles excluded them from priesthood.
In some societies, menstruating women are sequestered from the rest of society. Again, this can be seen in either a positive or negative light. At times, women are separated because they are considered impure, while at other times seclusion might be seen as a time to rest from hard work, or a time of communing with other women and perhaps even celebrating this symbol of femininity. Ostracon OIM 13512 from Deir el-Medina has been seen as evidence for a place where menstruating women resided.22 The relevant section reads: ‘The day when these eight women came out [to/from the] place of women while they were menstruating’. However, the piece could alternatively be translated as ‘place of women while they were being purified.’ Whether this separation only took place at menarche, or each month, is debatable. As we shall see below, there is evidence for separation and purification following childbirth, and possibly following abortion. One might see the roofs of small houses being used for this purpose of seclusion, or, in large houses, rooms or suites of rooms may have been set aside. However, the text describing ‘the place of women’ seems to imply a place separate from the main house, and that eight women are involved suggests a substantial area. From a much later period, a document concerning the transfer of a house at Thebes, dated to 267 BC, describes an area to be used by womenfolk during menstruation.23 The document seems to imply an area within the main home, rather than, as at Deir el-Medina, a place separate from it.
Also from Deir el-Medina, we have evidence that men were sometimes absent from work on account of a female relative’s ḥsmn, and that in one instance food or gifts are brought to the woman.24 While one might imagine that from time to time it would be necessary for men to either look after a woman with a particularly problematic period, or to carry out household duties while she was inactive, this may also be explained as an absence to carry out rites concerned with menarche.
Thus, menstruation, if only at menarche, would seem to be a time which was particularly important for women, probably marked by seclusion and other rituals. But we do not know if it was seen in a positive or negative light; following the inundation metaphor, it could well have been both a time of danger and a time to celebrate renewed fertility.
Given the desirability of having many children, women in ancient Egypt married young. The Egyptian name for wife was ḥmt (hemet) and some have suggested that the title nbt-pr (‘Mistress of the House’) also indicated marriage. We might assume that the onset of menarche heralded their marriageable age. During the Graeco-Roman Period, it seems the average age for women marrying was 10 years or older and even in nineteenth century Egypt, girls often married at 12 or 13 years of age.25
The Instruction of Ani advises:
Take a wife while you’re young,
That she may bear a son for you;
She should bear for you while you’re youthful,
It is proper to make many people.
Happy the man whose people are many,
He is saluted on account of his progeny.26
Nevertheless, there is some evidence that a large age difference between men and women was not uncommon, and Naunakhte from Deir el-Medina was some 42 years younger than her husband.27 Such age discrepancies could be accounted for by the death or divorce of the first wife.
There was little virtue attached to being a virgin; indeed, there was no word for ‘virgin’ in ancient Egyptian.28 Here again, the picture regarding morality is not clear. In Papyrus British Museum 10416, there is evidence that married men could not have sexual relations with unmarried women. This papyrus narrates how a group of men and women go to seek out and punish a woman who is accused of having an eight-month affair with a married man.29 But the papyrus does not conclusively state that the woman was unmarried, and the punishment specifically relates to the fact that the man is married. Love poems are sometimes cited as evidence of premarital sex. While Egyptian sexual behaviour described in love poems appears to be between unmarried couples, we cannot take such works as proof that sexual relations before marriage were sanctioned or encouraged. Literary works very often portray events which are not normally sanctioned.
It could well be that marriage was arranged, or at least engineered, by parents, specifically the father. In the New Kingdom Tale of the Doomed Prince, a daughter refuses to accept her father’s choice of groom. In the Graeco-Roman Period, a father is urged, ‘Choose a prudent husband for your daughter; do not choose for her a rich husband’.30 The process of choosing a partner is not clear, and Egyptologists disagree as to how common close kin marriages were in the Dynastic Period.
Certain phrases are generally seen as representing marriage: ‘to make as a wife’, ‘bringing a bundle’, ‘to live with’, ‘to found a house’, and ‘to moor’ [a boat]. The ‘bundle’ seems to have been given to the father of the bride by the groom;31 such gifts are now usually termed ‘bride-price’. There is also some, though slight, evidence of dowries, that is, transfer of property from the bride’s parents to the bride.
It is generally agreed that there was no formal marriage ceremony, at least for the pre-Ptolemaic Period. The phrase ‘spending a happy day’ (ir hrw nfr) with the household and guests suggests some sort of celebration, and is attested from the Ptolemaic The First Tale of Setne Khaemwes.32 There is one possible reference to an oath to solemnize a marriage,33 though other Egyptologists see this as more an oath regarding property, and not essential to the marriage itself.
There is clear evidence that kings frequently took more than one wife. Given that there was no reproach against men sleeping with other women, unless they were the wives of other men, or servants, there remains the possibility that Egyptian men, other than kings, had more than one wife. It is sometimes stated that this is unlikely to have been the case, as it would have been expensive to take more than one wife; however, the earning power of women may actually have advantaged men with several spouses. Despite all this, there is no clear evidence that men commonly took more than one wife. There are a few examples of men being represented with several wives, but these can be explained as successive wives, each wife in turn being divorced or dead. Furthermore, house size generally would make it difficult for a man to have more than one wife. It therefore appears that if polygamy existed, it was a rare occurrence.
The few possible examples of polygamy outside of the royal family all concern the elite of Egyptian society. The four wives of the Old Kingdom vizier, Merefnebef, are shown playing harps for him.34 There is also the First Intermediate Period example of Mery-Aha, whose tomb at Hagarseh shows six wives.35 These may be evidence of polygamy, but could also be the result of bad luck, that is, a succession of wives dying. Both examples are unlikely to be the result of divorce, as surely divorced wives would not merit inclusion in tomb depictions.
Women’s titles might give clues as to whether or not men had secondary wives. The term ḥbswt (hebsut), as used in the Middle Kingdom, is sometimes translated as ‘bride’ or ‘concubine’, but some believe36 this refers to a legal wife taken after another was divorced or had died. In the Eleventh Dynasty Letters of Hekanakht, there is an appeal not to mistreat a woman who is called a ḥbswt; the woman, Iutenheb, is being abused by the housemaid, Senen.37 Hekanakht orders that the housemaid be turned out of the house and asks the family to respect his ḥbswt. The situation is understandable if we take Iutenheb to be a wife taken shortly after the death or divorce of another. Resentment by the family of a new bride is common in families of our own society.
The most common title for women, at least from the New Kingdom, was nbt-pr, ‘Mistress of the House’, designating the woman in charge of the household. This has been thought to be a title used for married women, although some Egyptologists raise doubts that it indicates married status, and suggest that, at Deir el-Medina at least, this was an honourific title indicating that the woman was in charge of household matters. For the New Kingdom, it has been claimed38 that the main, or legitimate, wife was given the title nbt-pr to distinguish this wife from others.
There are several instances of men having sexual relations with women who were not their primary wives, and who bore them children. In some instances, the children are fully accepted in society. However, in the mythological Tale of Truth and Falsehood, a child is mocked for not knowing his father,39 though goes on to become a member of the elite. The case of a childless couple is documented where the man did not divorce his wife, but the wife adopted the children of a female servant.40 As the names of the children are not given, it is suggested that the husband was their natural father.
The mocking of the boy in the Tale of Truth and Falsehood suggests, however, that illegitimacy, even if not ostracised, was considered undesirable. The will of Wah from Kahun discusses the appointment of a male guardian for Wah’s children, should he die. It seems it was recognized that children would have a better chance in life if a male was there to look out for them. By the Late Period, it seems that illegitimate children may have been ‘given’ to the temple.41 It would seem likely that children without fathers would have been disadvantaged, hence the necessity of fatherless children entering the temple. If such children were accepted and protected by another man, there does not appear to have been any stigma. In some Eighteenth Dynasty tomb chapels, there is evidence of children whose mothers are not official wives.42 The fact that these are shown in tomb scenes suggests no disgrace.
Despite the fact that several children were the hoped for outcome of marriage, contraceptives were known; all of these were for application by the woman.43 One wonders if, as in some modern societies, it was the women who were most desirous of family planning. Contraceptives include concoctions such as crocodile dung mixed in milk used as a suppository to be placed in the vagina. The crocodile dung may have represented Seth, who could take the form of a crocodile, and was credited with causing abortions.44 Elsewhere, fermented vegetable paste is suggested, or a mixture of honey and natron. One would think that their contraceptive efficacy lay only in their being dissuasion from intercourse. However, some recipes may actually have worked45 beyond simply blocking the passage of the seminal fluid; the recipe for fermented vegetables would have produced lactic acid, and lactic acid is used in contraceptive jellies today. Another papyrus records an oral contraceptive using celery. Celery, according to scientific reports, also has antifertility effects.
There were also means to propagate children. The conception of children was believed to be essentially male, thus women were not entirely blamed for failure to produce progeny. Therefore, we may expect to see fertility-inducing artefacts and spells to be associated with men as well as women. Amulets, in particular, were used, though archaeologically speaking it is difficult to differentiate amulets to ensure women’s fertility from those associated with safe delivery in childbirth. Taweret, for example, was a goddess associated with childbirth and the protection of the young. Amulets depicting her image may have been used to ensure pregnancy, to assist in childbirth or to protect the newborn.
Two types of material culture seem particularly related to human sexuality – phallic votives and fertility figurines. Model phalli of wood, stone or pottery were offered at many religious sites throughout Egypt. The phallus of Osiris is often mentioned in texts, and in the Graeco-Roman Period we have descriptions of its worship. While this may seem to denote a purely masculine aspect to religion, there were also phallic offerings to the cult of Hathor.46 Such items may have been given to Hathor by couples desiring children.
Fertility symbols include figurines in clay and faience, as well as the Upper Egyptian and Nubian wooden paddle-shaped dolls of the Middle Kingdom.47 In the past, clay and faience examples shaped in the form of nude women sometimes wearing girdles were called ‘concubine figurines’; it was believed that such items were put in the graves of men to satisfy their sexual needs in the afterlife, and aspects such as the girdle do seem to have sexual connotations. More recent studies have stressed that they are also found in women’s graves and on settlement sites, while those at Amarna were found in the same rooms as domestic altars. Clay figurines showing a nude woman on a bed, sometimes with a child, are also known from domestic sites. The addition of the child reinforces the suggestion that at least some were intended to ensure birth of children. However, other suggestions may be put forward for these, as well as for the faience figures and paddle dolls. They could have been made as votives to ensure menarche, as has been suggested48 for naked and limbless ‘dolls’ from ancient Athens. They may have been given as votive offerings, or involved in other aspects of social actions where fertility would have been uppermost. One Egyptian text even suggests that these were used in healing rites: ‘When he places his hands on the belly, his suffering will begin to be healed – to be recited over woman’s statue of clay’.49 Perhaps they had a variety of functions.
The Egyptians even had pregnancy testing kits. Gynaecological texts in the Kahun Papyrus (1820), Berlin 199 and Ebers Papyrus (1500) and the Carlsberg Papyrus all suggest ways of telling if a woman is pregnant, and even determining the sex of the baby50 – though this need not imply a preference for boys. The most quoted test is in Papyrus Berlin 199, with a damaged version in the Carlsberg Papyrus; this prescribes emmer and barley to be moistened with the urine of the woman. If it grows, she is pregnant; if only the emmer grows, she will bear a girl, if only the barley, a boy. A very similar test was also used in eighteenth-century Germany.51 When put to the test more recently, there was some evidence it might show pregnancy, but it failed to correlate with the sex of the child.
As in many societies today, as well as in the past, childbirth was a dangerous time for both mother and child. A study of human remains from Gebelein and Asyut suggests that Egyptian women had a low fertility rate52 and that women from Gebelein (as well as men) had particularly narrow pelvises.53 This must have reduced the ability of women to give birth safely. Such problems are likely to have affected all classes of women. The body of Henhenet, one of these priestesses of Hathor in the Middle Kingdom ‘harem’ of Mentuhotep II, has been studied.54 It is said that Henhenet must have suffered a terrible death – she died in childbirth at around 23–24 years of age – as her narrow pelvis would not allow her child to be born. The evidence is said to demonstrate a vesico-vaginal fistula – a tear running from her bladder to her vagina, often a result of birth complications. It might be argued that this tear was due to mummification procedures, which means we still need to account for her early death.
Other birthing complications are known. Some scholars55 discuss the birthing history of Queen Mutnedjmet, the second wife of Horemheb, last ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Her remains show that she had had a number of pregnancies resulting in severe blood loss. Her last pregnancy, in her mid-forties, was fatal to her and her child. While these examples show that birth complications were not limited to the non-elite, the poor nutrition of non-elite women can only have exacerbated their problems.
Various measures were taken to ensure a successful delivery and the safety of both mother and child. After giving birth, women underwent a period of rest and purification in a special area set aside for this purpose. Apotropaic wands, birth amulets, dance and ‘women’s beds’ all seem to have played their part. The mysterious ‘apotropaic wands’ appear in the Middle Kingdom to Second Intermediate Period and it is possible that they continued into the New Kingdom as they are depicted in the tomb of Rekhmire. The wands are usually made of hippopotamus tusk, split in half to produce two curved objects with one side convex and the other flat. The material possibly invoked Taweret, a hippopotamus goddess of childbirth. The wands are usually roughly engraved with deities associated with the protection of young infants, such as the frog goddess Hekat, the hippopotamus goddess Taweret and the dwarf Bes. These deities often carry protective knives or snakes. The inscriptions, too, bear witness to the fact that these ‘wands’ are intended to be protective: ‘Cut off the head of the enemy when he enters the chamber of the children whom the lady . . . has borne’ and ‘Protection by night, protection by day’.56
Inscriptions also usually name the mother and the child. The child is invariably a boy. There could be several reasons for this. The first might be that these items were only made for boys. The second might be that most of the tombs in which the wands were found belonged to men, which does not necessarily mean that girls did not have them in life. The preponderance of male names may also be a result of putting names on tusks before the birth of the child, and indicate that male children were usually hoped for.57 However, the fact that these items were repaired, and spells thereon suggest several children, seems to imply that these were used for girl as well as boy babies.
Egyptologists usually claim these wands were used to protect women in childbirth, though most have been found in tombs. The fact that the points of some wands are worn away on one side has suggested to some that they were used to draw a magic circle around the child. Some examples have perforations at each end with a cord running through perhaps to carry or move other objects. On tomb walls, wands are shown being carried by nurses, but here their presence shows that they had a secondary function of protecting the deceased at the time of their rebirth.
More rarely, a similar type of item, the ‘birth rod’ of bone, steatite or ivory, was used.58 Similar rods are known from outside Egypt.59
Texts from New Kingdom Deir el-Medina show that the villagers purchased ‘birth amulets’ to aid in delivery.60 We do not know what form these took, though there are amulets from Egypt depicting the hippopotamus goddess Taweret, ‘The Great One’, who was a goddess of pregnant women. Taweret is often shown pregnant with pendulous breasts and her fearsome teeth bared. She may also carry a knife. Female hippopotami are fiercely protective of their young. Other amulets may have been in the form of apotropaic deities such as Bes and functioned to ensure a safe delivery for mother and child. Charms for childbirth are certainly known for the Graeco-Roman Period.61 It is difficult to separate fertility amulets from those intended to ensure successful childbirth and it is possible that some amulets were used for both.
Acacia seed-pod beads were also worn as amulets by women of childbearing age.62 The acacia contains tannin and phenol. Tannin acts as an astringent and phenol is antibacterial and would thus be useful in preventing haemorrhages and infection. In the recent past, Egyptian women bathed in water steeped in acacia pods in the hours following childbirth;63 it therefore seems possible that acacia was also used by ancient Egyptian women after childbirth and amulets worn by them were associated with protection in childbirth.
There is some evidence that women unbraided their hair in readiness for childbirth64 and men wore their kilts disordered (as described in Papyrus Westcar 10, 265). It could be that both these actions were a sort of sympathetic magic with the undoing of knots of both hair and kilts leading to a loosening of the womb and successful childbirth. Dance also played a part but whether as an aid to childbirth, or in celebration, is not clear.
Several ostraca are known from ancient Egypt showing nursing women seated on beds, often with convolvulus in the background and sometimes with snakes depicted. Women may be shown having their hair done and a mirror may be evident. Similar scenes also appear in the front rooms of some houses at Deir el-Medina. These scenes, which seem to indicate some special area for birth or post-parturition recuperation, are termed by Egyptologists, ‘Wochenlaube’ scenes (the term was coined by Brunner-Traut in 1955 to mean ‘birth arbour’ or ‘maternity bower’). On some ‘Wochenlaube’ scenes, and on the clay model beds showing women nursing children, there are small black figures, sometimes shown dancing.66 These are difficult to explain but the figures could be apes or monkeys (indicating eroticism), or perhaps Nubian dancers.
At New Kingdom Deir el-Medina, ‘women’s beds’ appear to have been purchased along with birth amulets.67 Unfortunately, we don’t know what such beds were like, though there are clues in the ‘Wochenlaube’ scenes and in model clay beds.68 On both, snakes are shown. On the clay models, the bed legs may take the form of Bes, and a snake is depicted on either long edge of the bed.69 But only one complete bed exists which depicts snakes; it is that of Sennedjem.70 Here two snakes are shown painted on the bed frame, one on each side. Depictions of Bes on actual beds are, however, much more common.
The snake, which is either shown as red or red and black, has been identified71 as the protective ḳrḥt snake, a guardian of fertility. The pottery beds on which such serpents appear are dated as Late Eighteenth Dynasty to Third Intermediate Period.72 There is also evidence paralleling the ‘Wochenlaube’ scenes where Isis and baby Horus are flanked by protective serpents.73 Although no definite ‘women’s beds’ have been found, the Egypt Centre at Swansea, however, has a pair of bed legs probably from the same bed (accession number W2052). One leg depicts Bes and the other Taweret; a snake is also apparent. Perhaps this is the remains of a ‘woman’s bed’.
It seems probable that ‘women’s beds’ were not used for the birth itself, but rather for nursing. The evidence suggests that in ancient Egypt, women gave birth squatting over two birth bricks, with one foot on each brick. One text describes a man being chastised by the goddess Meretseger; he says, ‘I sat on bricks like the woman in labour’.74 An actual example of such a brick has been found from Middle Kingdom Abydos75 near fragments of an apotropaic wand. The brick was decorated with a woman holding a baby boy; she is shown with two other women and the scene is flanked by Hathor standards. Protective deities decorate the other sides of the brick.
‘Wochenlaube’ scenes also show women nursing babies with a backdrop of convolvulus. It has therefore been suggested that women gave birth in a pavilion, or birth arbour, constructed in outdoor buildings or perhaps erected on roofs of houses. Given the cold nights in Egyptian winters, one would expect that such arbours would be enclosed. Separate areas for women to give birth and in which women were confined after childbirth are well known ethnographically.76
The post-parturition period is likely to have involved some element of rest, as well as purification, and it is perhaps this that is depicted on the arbour scenes. Papyrus Westcar77 states that the woman Redjedet had 14 days of purification after her delivery. On ‘Wochenlaube’ scenes, women are often shown having their hair done, and a mirror is frequently included. This may suggest that after having loosened her hair prior to birth, the woman is ensuring she is now prepared to resume her everyday life. The mirrors and hairdressing could also relate to purification, or a celebration of the end of the post-parturition period.
In many societies, women are given special treatment shortly after birth, not only with rest, but also with gifts and a special diet. A letter from Deir el-Medina gives information on arrangements for a servant woman who has given birth.78 She is to be provided with bread, meat and cakes, sgnn-oil, honey, etc. as well as wood and water. There is also another example from Deir el-Medina where a husband is given three days off as his wife is in labour.79 Whether this was to help his wife in childbirth, help with the child or to celebrate is unknown.
Fear of the death of the newborn was all too real. Generally, in ancient societies 10–20 per cent of babies died in their first year.80 Berlin 3027, a New Kingdom collection of spells for mother and child, gives a rather chilling indication of this fear, suggesting a spirit ‘who comes in the darkness and enters furtively’ might steal the soul of the child through a vampiric kiss.81 The New Kingdom Instructions of Ani warn:
Do not say, “I am too young to be taken”,
For you do not know your death.
When death comes he steals the infant
Who is in his mother’s arms . . .82
Papyrus Ebers 838 states that, if on the day a child is born, it says ‘ny’, it will live, but if it says ‘mebi’, it will die.83 Other unlikely indications of death include whether a newborn bends its face down or not.
It is sometimes said that in cultures of high infant mortality children were not considered fully human, or mourned like adults. This is seen as a mechanism to stop parents getting too attached to short-lived offspring. Others see this idea as a rather patronising view of other cultures, and believe that the death of children was usually considered devastating for those involved. What was the case for ancient Egypt? While there were cemeteries including young children, and at Deir el-Medina separate cemeteries were set aside for them, burials of young children have also occasionally been found under the floors of houses.84 Flinders Petrie noted that, at Middle Kingdom Kahun, burials of newborns were found.
His journal of 8–15 April 1889 records:
Many new-born infants were found buried in the floors of the rooms, and, strange to say, usually in boxes made for other purposes evidently, by their form. In short, unlucky babes seem to have been conveniently put out of the way by stuffing them into a toilet case or clothes box and digging a hole in the floor for them . . . I fear these discoveries do not reflect much on the manners and customs of the small officials of the Twelfth Dynasty.85
Contrary to Petrie’s opinions, burials in homes need not suggest that young children were considered unimportant. Protective beads and amulets buried with these babies show they were certainly not casually discarded. Many formal burials of adults contain as few grave goods. Home burials could simply represent the desire of the parents to keep the child close to its family. In recent times, Egyptian peasants would bury very young children under the threshold or inside the house wall in the hope that their spirits would re-enter their mothers’ bodies.86 It is clear from depictions of mourning following the death of a child shown in the royal tomb at Amarna (EA26) that the deaths of royal children were met with outpourings of grief. We should expect that other children too were mourned.
As stated above, the ancient Egyptians did not practise infanticide, and attempts were made to rear deformed children.87 At Deir el-Medina, several children probably died from their severe deformities. An unnamed boy who suffered from scoliosis, a condition involving an abnormal curving of the spine, was buried with bread, dom-fruit and jewellery, and another child, Iryky, who had an enlarged torso, head and stunted limbs was buried in a decorated coffin.88 That such children survived, even for a few years, suggests that they were cared for. Mothers very clearly loved their children.
Women are shown nursing children, while continuing to work at their jobs. In the tomb of Menna, a woman picks fruit while she carries a baby in a sling. In the Fifth Dynasty tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep at Saqqara, a mother suckles a baby and tends a fire. Young children seem to have been carried in slings in front of their mothers, on their backs, or in their mothers’ arms. That other members of the family aided the mother in caring for the child is shown by small girls carrying babies in slings.
Ideally, mothers were expected to breastfeed their children. A Late Ptolemaic Period text instructs: ‘Do not give your son to the wet nurse and so cause her to set aside her own’ (The Instruction of Ankhsheshonq89). There is a suggestion in the literature (the New Kingdom Instructions of Ani) that children were only weaned after they were three years old. Such long suckling periods would act as a contraceptive and offer protection to the child from food-borne diseases.
However, despite the ideal, it is usually the lower classes who are depicted breastfeeding.90 Women are shown breastfeeding on the ‘Wochenlaube’ ostraca, but the status of these women is unknown. If, as has been suggested, the ‘Wochenlaube’ scenes mark the end of the immediate post-parturition period, wet nurses may not have been immediately available. Where elite children are shown being suckled, the feeders are either deities or wet nurses, not their own mothers.
One may wonder why elite women were not shown breastfeeding. Several explanations are possible; breastfeeding may have been associated with ‘primitive’ behaviours as has been suggested for the Graeco-Roman world; use of wet nurses may have allowed elite women to engage in other activities, or alternatively, use of wet nurses may have reduced the risk of ruining one’s own figure. The prominence given to the slender, youthful body in ancient Egypt suggests that sagging breasts were not considered beautiful. Cessation of breastfeeding would also enable women to conceive more quickly. One would expect that, generally, wealthy women would be able to care for more children, and it is possible that the pressure upon women to produce male heirs was greater in wealthy families than in poorer ones. Of course, wealthy families would also be more able to provide for a wet nurse.
It was believed that the qualities of the mother could be passed on to children receiving her milk.91 Breast milk was thought to have had magical properties, especially if the mother had borne a boy. It was used for wounds, eye ailments and burns. Spells and amulets were used to ensure its supply (Papyrus Ebers 113, XCVII).
From late in the reign of Thutmose III to early in the reign of Amenhotep III, several pottery vessels were manufactured in the shape of nursing mothers, often with an inverted crescent around their necks. It has been suggested that these were mothers or wet nurses with lives governed by monthly cycles, and that the vessels contained breast milk.92 It has also been suggested that these may represent foreign women, Asiatics.93 However, this does not argue against these being receptacles for mothers’ milk. These vases are usually associated with magic or medicine and midwives and that liquids placed therein, like mother’s milk, would have rejuvenating properties.94 Whether the vessels were normally used by wet nurses for everyday purposes, or for magical or medicinal purposes, is debateable, though the fact that some of these were found in tombs suggests a more than everyday use for several of them.
The magical nature of breastfeeding, in particular its revivication properties, is highlighted by a study95 which showed that the motif of the king being suckled by a goddess specifically occurs in relation to his birth, coronation and death. The milk of goddesses was important to assist the king in crucial stages of his life. It has also been suggested96 that, in the Amarna Period, the role of the wet nurse, as shown in royal scenes, may have had a cultic function. Not only would royal wet nurses have been important because of their closeness to the divine royal household, but also may have been portrayed in imitation of goddesses.
While the virtues of breast milk for the health of the child are recognized by us today, other means of ensuring healthy children appear more fantastical. Papyrus Berlin 3027, the New Kingdom collection of Spells for Mother and Child cited above, recommends knots, garlic and honey, as well as spells.97 The elite may even have employed a ‘Magician of the nursery’ (ḥkзy n kзp) mentioned in this same papyrus.98
Ideally, at least, mothers were held in high regard. The reason for the prominence of the mother, as discussed in Chapter 2, is probably due to ideas of rebirth. While a sexual partner is necessary for birth, the mother is the first, most obvious and direct link with the formation of a child. Additionally, the importance of the mother is given mythic value by the elevation of deities such as Isis and Nut (although both were also sexual partners). The importance of the mother in myths concerning royalty is discussed in a later chapter.
Children were expected to repay their mothers for bringing them up, though as we shall see below, this ideal did not always work out. The New Kingdom Instructions of Ani read:
Double the food your mother gave you,
Support her as she supported you;
She had a heavy load in you,
But she did not abandon you.
When you were born after your months,
She was yet yoked (to you),
Her breast in your mouth for three years.
As you grew and your excrement disgusted,
She was not disgusted, saying “What shall I do!”
When she sent you to school,
And you were taught to write,
She kept watching over you daily,
With bread and beer in her house.
When as a youth you take a wife,
And you are settled in your house,
Pay attention to your offspring,
Bring him up as did your mother.
Do not give her cause to blame you,
Lest she raise her hands to god
And he hears her cries.99
We have very little information on older women in ancient Egypt. They are rarely shown in art, and there is little documentary information concerning them. While the aspirational lifespan was 110 years, few would have lived to old age. The wife of Sennedjem was one of these exceptional people, dying aged 75 years.100 There are several estimations of average lifespan, varying from period to period and place to place.101 However, generally it seems that more women than men would have died before the age of thirty. Women would have been considered old in their thirties, though, as is the case in most societies today, rich women would have lived longer than poor women. However, after age thirty, more women than men lived into old age.102
What contributed to the short lifespan? Ancient Egyptian sources for women’s ailments are largely contained in the Ebers Papyrus and the Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus. Unlike the Greeks, the Egyptians do not seem to have prescribed to the rather strange later Greek view that women’s ailments were largely due to the wandering of the womb, that is, hysteria.103 Instead, other ailments of women are listed, such as diseased breasts or lack of menstruation.
Examination of human remains, however, tells us more about ailments, and the percentages who suffered. Many ailments were common to both women and men, such as tuberculosis and anaemia. The average height of adults is at least partly due to nutrition, and thus the height of ancient Egyptians shows that both men and women were malnourished. In the Middle Kingdom, average height for men was 160 cm and for women, 150 cm. At Amarna, the average height estimate for females was 152 cm and 157 cm for males.104 In Europe, height reached its nadir at the beginning of the nineteenth century; the average height in Napoleon’s army, for example, was about 152 cm. Average height in modern Egypt is 175 cm. Needless to say, mortality rates suggest that the most common cause of death of women was childbirth.
Youth and beauty were desirable, particularly in women, and thus several preparations were available to reverse the process of aging. The Ebers Papyrus (c.1550 BC), for example, gives recipes to stop greying of hair, and to prevent sagging breasts. There are very few depictions of aging women in tombs, but this can surely not be put down to the efficacy of Egyptian beauty products. Rather, since representations in tombs were designed to ensure an afterlife existence, few women, or their families, would want portrayals of older women. If you are going to live through representations of yourself on tomb walls, most people would want to be shown as youthful and beautiful. Additionally, tomb depictions of women served at least partly to sexually arouse the male, and one would assume a male preference for young, healthy females.
Deborah Sweeney105 has sought out those few depictions of older women. Where aging women are shown, they are generally of low status, with examples including the Middle Kingdom depictions of emaciated women with drooping breasts called Neferet and Samut.106 These women are shown working at a grindstone. Female foreign captives are also portrayed as elderly, in keeping with the general Egyptian practice of showing foreigners in an unflattering light. Occasionally, individuals with white hair or wigs are depicted in tombs (such as the tombs of Pashedu TT3; Ipuy TT217 and Irinefer TT290), and it has been suggested that these show aging individuals, despite the fact that, apart from the hair, they are shown as youthful.107
Certain signs of aging are considered appropriate for men but not for women.108 Men may have vertical lines of concentration between the eyes, lines across the forehead and multiple folds of fat on the lower torso. Women may, however, be shown with white hair or sagging breasts. They may be portrayed as gaunt or display a wrinkle from nose to mouth. Women can also be shown with bags beneath the eyes. Which signs of aging were used varies from period to period; gauntness, for example, more often occurs in the Old Kingdom, while white hair dates from the New Kingdom.
Remarkably, during the reign of Akhenaten, it seems to have become accepted, or perhaps even desirable, to show royal women aging, and not simply through hair colour. Some statues of Tiy and Nefertiti show the royal women with downturned mouths, lines at the corner of their mouths, heavy eyelids, lines from nose to mouth and drooping cheeks, bottoms and breasts. It has even been suggested109 that the famous bust of Nefertiti, said in popular literature to be the most beautiful woman in the world, when shown in a certain light displays the beginning of a nose to mouth wrinkle and bags under the eyes. Another scholar110 suggests that such signs of physical aging are the equivalent of males depicted in wise old age. During the Amarna Period, other non-royal women adopted the fashion of depicting their signs of aging. It is also noticeable that, during this period, royal women seem to have become particularly powerful. Dare we imagine that such powerful women sought to use physical signs of aging to show wisdom, rather than, as was usual in Egyptian art, to portray the female body as only desirable if youthful and fruitful? Unfortunately, this fashion did not last.
Some Egyptologists believe that the ancient Egyptians respected the elderly.111 Rosalind Janssen, who has made extensive studies of aging at Deir el-Medina,112 does not believe that this was entirely the case, but rather that the status of the elderly depended very much on their gender, wealth and earlier status. Status may also have varied from period to period.
So what type of life did the elderly woman in ancient Egypt enjoy? While literature hints at the desirability of a restful old age, there was no retirement age, and there are depictions of elderly women carrying out physically demanding tasks such as grinding grain or winnowing. An overseer of weavers at Gurob was clearly elderly as she had worked not only for the living king, but also for his grandfather (Papyrus Gurob III.1113). It may be that a leisured old age was something only obtainable by the rich, or those with supportive children. Certainly, children were expected to support their elderly parents. The Stato Civile Papyrus fragments in Turin show that in one instance an elderly woman lived in her husband’s house and in another she had moved in with her son and daughter-in-law.114
However, texts from Deir el-Medina make it clear that children did not always support their aging parents. There are instances of older women disinheriting such ungrateful offspring115 and we have already seen how the widow Naunakhte famously disinherited four of eight children. It is also clear that at times old people were mocked. An ostracon in the Petrie Museum in London reads: ‘Do not mimic an old man and an old woman when they are decrepit; beware lest they place a curse on your old age’.116
The life of the widow (hзrt) was not always easy.117 The ancient Egyptians themselves considered widows disadvantaged. The First Intermediate Period Instruction to Merikare, for example, urges ‘do not oppress the widow’. The Instruction of Amenemope reads:
Do not be greedy for a cubit of land,
Nor encroach on the boundaries of a widow.
. . .
Do not pounce on a widow when you find her in the fields118
And then fail to be patient with her reply119
The fact that officials boasted that they were kind to widows and orphans120 shows that widows were considered a generally disadvantaged group, like orphans. There is no equivalent in literature of disadvantaged widowers. The disadvantaged nature of women without husbands is borne out archaeologically at Deir el-Medina, where it has been shown121 that Eastern Necropolis, the area where poorer people tended to be buried, contained several burials of lone women.
There is a documented court case at Deir el-Medina where the widow ḥriз (Heria) was accused of stealing a mirror and a chisel which were found in her house.122 This shows that she at least had a house of her own. When her case came before the vizier, he was told of another instance where a woman committed a crime of theft. The vizier was asked to make an example of ḥriз so that ‘there shall be no other women like her, again to do likewise.’ It is suggested that this shows that thieving women were separately categorized from thieving men, something which is borne out by other texts. This text also asks the question of whether the woman was stealing because of the dire economic straits in which she found herself. We will, of course, never know.
On a more positive note, the elderly did not lose their rights to the law; an older woman could be an executrix of her husband’s will and could own property. At Deir el-Medina, at least, older women received a state pension in the form of a grain ration of one and a half sacks of grain, compared to the four given to the workmen.123 Widows’ pensions could also be transferred from one woman to another. A man writes: ‘Now as for the message you had sent about your mother, stating she had died. You said: “let the wages that used to be issued to her be given to my sister, who has been a widow here for many years until today”. So you said. Do so, give it to her until I return’.124 We do not know if this was the norm.
The ancient Egyptian word for ‘widow’ is written with the hieroglyph of a lock of hair. According to Plutarch’s version of the Osiris and Isis myth, the first act of Isis, on hearing of the death of Osiris, was to cut a lock of her hair.125 This perhaps relates to the sexuality surrounding hair. Women’s hair was necessary to stimulate their husbands, though when they became widows, this need ceased.