Women’s work was often in the home, collecting and preparing food, building and maintaining the home, taking care of children and so on. Such work included creative aspects such as production of clothing, basket-making and decorating the home. Part of the problem in looking for women’s labour is that it is very difficult to equate women with specific tasks from archaeology alone, though one might argue that objects found in graves with specific genders are particularly useful. Iconography may help, but although women do not appear on tomb walls engaged in activities such as metalworking etc., this need not necessarily mean that they did not do such jobs. It may simply mean that, among the elite, it was not considered desirable that women carry out such tasks. In addition, the activities shown on tomb walls do not reflect all the activities carried out in everyday life, but are mainly high-status and/or ritual activities.
Women worked in the home, running the household and caring for children. Some did have professions, but these seem to be restricted to midwifery, textile production, mourning, priestesses of Hathor or priestess musicians. However, it also true that there were few male midwives and mourners, so it may not be the case that men had more opportunities than women, but simply that their opportunities were different.
The roles women held were not only influenced by gender, but also by their social class. While elite women could become Chantresses of Amun, and would spend much of their time running large households, non-elite women might be household servants, hairdressers and wet nurses, as well as homemakers.
Roles also varied from period to period. During the Old Kingdom, women were priestesses, buyers and sellers, gleaners and possibly even doctors. In later periods, it appears that women’s roles became more restricted, with only elite women holding prestigious posts in the priesthood. From a feminist viewpoint, one could see this as a gradual usurpation of women’s roles by men, though one would have to question how this came about. It is possible that the increase in specialization, and demands of literacy made by a bureaucratic state, meant that women, excluded from the realm of scribal functions whether by social or religious factors, were also increasingly excluded from other realms.
Women’s trades were certainly not insignificant. For much of ancient Egyptian history, they were the chief producers in Egypt’s second most important industry – textile manufacture. Throughout Egyptian history, they were vital to the running of the home and in the care of children critical to social reproduction.
While the home workplaces of women varied according to status and period, invariably the structure of the house was made of mud-brick, even if it were a palace. Sizes and arrangement of buildings varied considerably, but generally the front room/s seem to have been the public area. Behind the front rooms was an open courtyard or columned hall used communally by the family, with stairs leading to a roof area. Living quarters and store areas were at the back. One might expect that much work was carried out on the roof tops of houses, which would have the advantage of daylight. Indeed, at Amarna, spindles were found by excavators on top of roof debris, suggesting that spinning was carried out there.1
At the New Kingdom settlement of Deir el-Medina, the average house covered 80 m2, the smallest flats about 50 m2, and the largest, probably those belonging to the foremen and village administrators, 160 m2 (the average semi-detached house in the UK is about 60 m2).
It has been suggested that houses contained rooms intended specifically for women and others for men.2 At Deir el-Medina, the front rooms, replete with pictures of Bes, a deity associated with women and other female orientated scenes such as nursing or grooming women, were used by women. A similar arrangement was found at Amarna. The second room with divan was probably a male-centred room. However, it seems unlikely that small houses could have had these divisions. Scenes of nursing women in front rooms could be celebrations of childbirth and would have been enjoyed by both men and women. Besides which, given the general ideological association of women and home, we need not be surprised that the home was decorated with scenes relating to women. Unfortunately, excavations of Egyptian domestic sites have not been able to differentiate between areas of women’s work and men’s work by activity. Perhaps one might use the fact that most of the decoration relating to women as evidence that women had the upper hand in domestic cult activity and hence really were ‘Mistresses of the House’.
What type of work did women carry out in these buildings? Unfortunately, scenes of women doing household activities were not normally put on tomb walls. Duties within the household would have varied according status. Within the smaller household, not only would the woman be responsible for the young child, but also for cleaning, weaving, cooking and grinding of grain.
From the First Intermediate Period on, it is usually women and female goddesses who provide nourishment for the deceased,3 perhaps mirroring the gendered activities of everyday life. Women both baked and brewed in their own homes, though there was a certain amount of baking and brewing done on a larger scale in elite homes, and servants, including men, would be brought in to do this task. While in the Old Kingdom, men may be shown as bakers,4 women have the back-breaking task of grinding corn. It is estimated5 that it took between fifty-five minutes to one hour and twenty minutes to grind enough flour for one adult per day. At Deir el-Medina, housewives appear to have had other women carry out this task for them. Other food preparation is shown in tombs as being carried out by men, though the Eleventh Dynasty Theban tomb of Djari shows women servants engaged in food preparation.
Tomb models suggest that in large households it was men who did the brewing, but in the Middle Kingdom Tale of the Eloquent Peasant the merchant tells his wife, ‘Look, you have twenty gallons of barley as food for you and your children. Now make for me these six gallons of barley into bread and beer for every day in which [I shall travel]’.6 Scenes also show that in large households, men did the cooking. It seems unlikely that this was so for smaller households, where men would have been out during the day.
At Deir el-Medina, households seem not to have been large, usually consisting of fewer than five individuals.7 Perhaps older children moved away in their teens. Additionally, there is evidence that workmen had property outside the village and may have farmed elsewhere. Family members could have worked and lived on these estates outside the village. Houses such as those of officials at Amarna and Kahun could well have contained more people. Middle Kingdom Heqanakht had a household of more than 16 people.8 In addition to Heqanakht, the household contained the following members: five other men, his mother Ipi, her maidservant, Iutenheb, Heqanakht’s wife, a maid called Senen, two women named Nefret and Satweret, the daughter of a person called May, and Nakht, the son of a person named Heti.
Within larger households, elite women would have supervised servants in cleaning, weaving, food production, grinding of grain and apportionment of domestic produce and rations. Here one would expect the woman to take on important administrative duties. In the Middle Kingdom, women could be seal bearers,9 which seems on the surface to indicate an administrative function which was perhaps part of the state bureaucracy. However, the actual distribution of women’s seal impressions at Lahun, at least, appears confined to their own homes.10 There is a possible known exception to a household sealer in the form of lady Ib-Neith, a ‘Trustworthy Sealer’ of the Hathor temple in Sinai.11
Some activities were conducted outside the home, though they may have largely involved women whose primary role was that of housewife. These include trading, cultic singing and dancing, wet nursing, gleaning, flax-pulling, looking after animals, and so forth.
Servants did not constitute one class. The title wbзyt (webayet, meaning ‘housemaid’ or ‘housekeeper’) was a common title in the Middle Kingdom.12 Her authority would have depended on the size of the household, but could at times have been prestigious. Such women often lived in the family’s household. At the lower end of the social scale, women appointed to grind corn for households at Deir el-Medina were probably paid very little and would have lived elsewhere, conceivably running their own households.
It seems that generally women served women and men served men, though this rule was not hard and fast. In the Old Kingdom, there were exceptions where women employed male scribes and stewards.13 In the early New Kingdom, male and female servants wait on guests of both sexes.14
The general rule may be a facet of the tendency to separate men and women in ancient Egypt, at least for the purpose of tomb paintings. Dancers are usually shown performing in segregated groups, and men and women are shown mourning separately. In New Kingdom drinking parties, men and women sit separately, although husband and wife are shown together.
Women, as well as men, could be conscripted into work for the king.15 Old Kingdom papyri unusually list a group of men and women involved in temple construction work.16 In the Twelfth Dynasty, women were brought to Thinis to work as servants. When Teti, daughter of Sa-inheret, fled from doing agricultural work, her family was conscripted in her stead. She was eventually found and her family released.
Elite women are sometimes shown in tomb scenes working in fields. But the fact that these are upper-class women in their ‘Sunday Best’ suggests that this is not everyday harvesting, and was probably part of a ritual activity or intended to show an afterlife idyll. However, women were certainly involved in working the land. Elite women could be holders of agricultural land, though it is possible that men administered them,17 while non-elite women carried out manual agrarian tasks.
In the Old Kingdom, sowing, gleaning, winnowing, sieving of grain and pulling of flax are carried out by non-elite women, but in later periods women are rarely shown doing such tasks. It is possible that women did perform such jobs later, but were simply not shown doing so. Most of the evidence relates to men. However, in the New Kingdom tomb of Nakht, women are shown carrying out agricultural tasks.
As noted in Chapter 3, women are never shown cutting, using sickles or knives. Perhaps a taboo on showing women using sharp implements existed. This would explain the lack of depictions of women in the kitchen preparing food, despite the fact that women must have cooked food for their families and women were called ‘cooks’, at least in the Old Kingdom.
Cloth production was the most common employment of ancient Egyptian women, both within the home and outside it. Oddly, perhaps, throughout Egyptian history, it was men who were professional launderers. Some have suggested men did the laundry because it was a dangerous occupation due to the threat of crocodiles along the Nile. We tend to forget that doing the laundry was an outdoor occupation, and therefore ideologically better suited to men.
Cloth was a valuable commodity, so valuable that ancient tomb robbers would often take it in preference to items of stone or metal. Cloth was needed for temple use, for furnishings, for provisioning the dead, as well as for clothing. It was at times used as a medium of exchange.18 As a valuable source of income, it seems that in some instances, it was accumulated and traded by elite women.
In the Old Kingdom and later, women were involved in harvesting flax, pulling up the plants which provided the raw material for linen.19 Men do not seem to have carried out this role. Likewise, throughout Egyptian history it seems that it was women who did the spinning. Spindle whorls have been found in domestic debris at Middle Kingdom Lahun and at New Kingdom Amarna. Spindle whorls and spinning bowls at New Kingdom Deir el-Medina also suggest that women spun their own thread at home. However, it was also possible to buy ready-spun flax.20
As discussed in Chapter 2, in the Old Kingdom, in contrast to later periods, women’s textile production was recognized as particularly important. In the Old Kingdom women not only manufactured cloth, but oversaw its production. Several women are even overseers in ‘the house of weavers’ (presumably a workshop), though men also hold the same title. Women seem to have also been primarily responsible for weaving until at least the late Middle Kingdom, though with less prestige.
By the New Kingdom, the vertical loom had been introduced and from this date on, tomb paintings usually show men weaving.21 The New Kingdom tomb of Djehutynefer shows men and women preparing thread, spinning and weaving. However, texts from Deir el-Medina suggest that contrary to what is depicted in tomb paintings, it was largely women who wove;22 one of the charges against Paneb, a foreman at Deir el-Medina, was that he ordered the wives of workmen to weave for him. In the New Kingdom story of the Tale of Two Brothers, the wife of Bata offers to make clothes for Anubis if he will sleep with her. There is other evidence for the continued employment of women in weaving long after the New Kingdom.23 It is possible that women wove at home, while men tended to carry out workshop tasks, though workshop production by women took place at Mi-wer. We may assume, however, that women’s production was largely domestic. At Amarna, loom materials have been found in one of the large houses.24
One might ask why men are shown weaving from the New Kingdom onward. While women certainly continued to make cloth, it seems unlikely that tomb paintings do not reflect some change. It may be that the introduction of the upright loom was somehow the impetus. Introduction of new technologies does, at times, seem to be equated with a change in roles. For the most of the twentieth century, women were employed as typists, using keyboards, but with the advent of the word processor, male office workers also assumed the role of keyboard operator. One might ask if the upright loom, as a more complex tool, perhaps attracted men who would not have wanted to carry out such simple, though admittedly skilled, tasks such as weaving. Alternatively, it may simply have been the appearance of the new machine, so different from that which had gone before, which was not quite so closely associated with women.
Excavations at Graeco-Roman Period Ismant el-Kharab, ancient Kellis, show strong evidence for workshop textile production in the hands of both men and women.25 Spindles, spindle whorls, loom weights and unspun yarn indicate that textile production was of major importance at this site. Loom weights show that warp weighted vertical looms were used, in contrast to the non-warp weighted types used in Pharaonic Egypt. Texts show that a weaving business was carried out from House 3, under the direction of a woman, Tahet, and her husband Hatres. Some of these garments were sent to the Nile Valley. Based on archaeological remains, it seems possible that other houses carried out a similar trade.
While, at times, men were involved in textile production, the feminine nature of weaving is underscored by goddesses such as Neith – albeit a goddess also associated with the less stereotypically female pursuits of hunting and warfare – who are associated with weaving (see Chapter 8). The goddess Tayet was also associated with weaving. Because women’s work frequently revolved around weaving, it is apt that woven cloth was an important votive offering to Hathor, a favourite goddess of women. The textiles of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties were offered to this goddess by both men and women26 although women are the primary donors.
It is sometimes assumed that women’s work was largely domestic production, implying that women made a little ‘pin money’ from a part-time job. Yet, even if such domestic production was the norm, this need not mean that it was carried out merely to augment the household income. Rather, it could have been a major, or even the major, contributor to family income. There are many societies in which items produced in the home contribute to the main income. Unfortunately, it is archaeologically difficult to differentiate between low-level production for the household and specialization in such tasks as textile production.
As we have seen, Herodotus claimed that in Egypt, ‘women attend market and are employed in trade, while men stay at home and do the weaving.’ As is usual with Herodotus, it is likely that he exaggerated to show how strange the Egyptians were. Even in the Roman Period, women were involved in weaving. Yet, it does seem that for much of Egyptian history women were indeed engaged in trade, unlike other contemporary regions of the ancient world.
In the Old Kingdom, women are shown selling cloth and freely engaging with men in trade, but once again, it seems men were more active in this area. There is less evidence for women’s trade in later periods. The Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Kenamun, Mayor of Thebes in the reign of Amenhotep III, shows a harbour scene.27 Here two men and one woman seem to be selling cloth and sandals. In the Deir el-Medina tomb of Ipuy, men are shown emptying grain into women’s baskets.28 Women appear to be holding out food and one woman is perhaps selling beer. Finally, there is textual evidence that women also sold produce, such as honey,29 from their gardens.30
Again, this production, being centred round home and garden, may be seen as an extension of domestic production31 and thus, as in many other societies, not given as much value as men’s production. However, it was not only women who were involved in domestic production. Workmen were likely to have taken private commissions, indeed it is estimated32 that they could have made as much from private commissions as from state work. One might wonder how much a woman earned compared to a man.
The problem is that while we know the costs of finished goods, it is difficult to guess how much each item cost to make, and thus how much profit was made. A mss-garment might cost five deben,33 while other garments might cost as much as 25 deben. (For comparison, a coffin was worth 25 deben34 and an ivory comb two deben. Workmen made 11 deben a month35). However, we know that the produce of women could be considerable. A Middle Kingdom male head of a household, Heqanakht, was able to rent fields with income from cloth woven in his household and presumably also supply the household with cloth.36 In the New Kingdom, one woman accumulated enough surplus to buy goods such as slaves37 and when the wife of a Twentieth Dynasty tomb robber is asked where she got the money to buy slaves, she answers, ‘I bought them in exchange for produce from my garden’.38 Another woman states that she received silver ‘in exchange for barley in the year of the hyenas when there was a famine’.
The tз rḫt (ta rekhet, ‘the woman who knows’) is mentioned in several ostraca from the village of Deir el-Medina, and seems to have been able to identify the gods which brought misfortune, look into the future, and diagnose illness.39 Such women were consulted by both men and women, with there being only one ta rekhet at any one time. Such women had a deep knowledge of the realms between the living, the gods and the deceased40 and in one text the wise woman is consulted concerning the cause of death of a child.
These mysterious women are only known from New Kingdom Deir el-Medina and have no known male equivalents. It is possible, however, that they are referred to elsewhere. On the Thirtieth Dynasty Metternich-Stela, Isis is described as saying, ‘I am a daughter, a knowing one (rḫt) in her town, who dispels a poisonous snake with her oral powers. My father has taught me knowledge’.41
There is very little information concerning prostitution in ancient Egypt. In the Pharaonic literary sources, the only two people who offer to pay for sex are women, not men. In the Westcar Papyrus, the wife of the high priest sends a box of clothing to a man in the town to engage his attention and in the Tale of Two Brothers, the wife of Anubis offers to make her brother-in-law fine clothing if he will sleep with her. This was in a period when textiles would have acted as currency.
While there is evidence of undesirable, and possibly sexually promiscuous, women, clear evidence for female prostitution before the Graeco-Roman Period is absent. In the Nineteenth Dynasty Papyrus Anastasi IV, a father berates a scribe, ‘Now you are still seated in the house and the harlots surround you; now you are standing and bouncing . . . Now you are seated in front of the wench, soaked in anointing-oil . . .’.42 However, the word for harlot here is msyt,43 which although usually translated as ‘prostitute’ or ‘harlot’, is never used in circumstances clearly relating to the exchange of goods for sex.44 Papyrus Turin, discussed in Chapter 6, is often cited as evidence of a brothel. However, depictions of people having sexual intercourse cannot alone be taken as evidence of such institutions. There is also the view45 that at least some of the love poems may refer to brothels, though again the evidence is debatable.
Evidence for payment for sex is much stronger from the Ptolemaic Period. The Instructions of Ankhsheshonq state, ‘Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey; his purse is what restrains him’.46 The same papyrus suggests that prostitutes were women who wandered the streets.47
To the fictional Setne Khaemwes, son of Pharaoh Usermare, one hour with Tabubu, the daughter of the prophet of Bastet, was worth 10 pieces of gold:
Setne said to the servant: “Go, say to the maid, ‘It is Setne Khamwas, the son of Pharaoh Usermare, who has sent me to say, “I will give you ten pieces of gold – spend an hour with me . . .48
In the story, Tabubu was less offended by the proposition itself than the fact that she was being treated like ‘a low woman of the street’, though it may be doubted that a streetwalker would have been remunerated in such a handsome way.
It is sometimes said that in ancient Egypt prostitution was connected with female musicians and dancers. But does this supposed connection say more about Egyptologists than ancient Egyptians? There certainly was an association between music and sexuality and music for Hathor had a strong erotic element.49 In Egyptian art, female lute players are often displayed in a sexualized way, wearing heavy wigs and accompanied by monkeys. In Mereruka’s mastaba, Mereruka’s wife plays a harp on their bed.50 This has sometimes been seen as a sexualized scene. Mereruka himself holds a fly whisk of three fox skins – the hieroglyphic symbol for birth.
In the Old Kingdom, the frequency with which women are shown playing the harp suggests that this was an important role of elite women.51 That this is not purely sexual may be suggested by the fact that it is not only the wife, but also the daughters of the deceased, who are so depicted, as can be seen in examples such as the tomb of Pepiankh at Meir.52
It is sometimes said that the Bes tattoo on women dancers’ thighs is a symbol of prostitution, with Bes being a symbol of sexuality. However, there is no evidence that dancers were prostitutes, and Bes was associated with fertility and protection of women in childbirth. As such, he would have been important to all women. It is possible that all classes of Egyptian women were decorated with Bes tattoos (if indeed these are tattoos rather than painted symbols), but they can only be seen on the thighs of dancers due to their unclothed nature.
In Papyrus Anastasi, a contrast is drawn between the desirable life of a scribe taught to sing and chant and the undesirable life of being surrounded by prostitutes.53 Singing was not, it seems, associated with loose living.
The stela of Lady Peseshet of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties is known from the Giza tomb of Akhet-hotep, who was probably her son. Astonishingly, the stela names her as either a ‘female overseer of female physicians’ or a ‘chief woman physician’,54 depending on the translation. If she is the former, this need not suggest that she was a physician, but does suggest that there were other female doctors at this time. No other female physicians are known until the Ptolemaic Period.
By contrast, midwifery appears to have been a solely female profession in ancient Egypt. That this was so is suggested by medical texts, which include gynaecological information, but do not discuss obstetrics. Additionally, men are never shown in birthing scenes, and in Papyrus Westcar, the mother is assisted in birth by four goddesses. It has been suggested that the Old Kingdom title in‘t implies a midwife and is related to the word mnat, meaning ‘nurse’.55 This title is not known after the Old Kingdom. In fact, there is no word for midwife after this date,56 but this does not mean that midwives ceased to exist. The midwife may have been a friend, neighbour, or maidservant. Such women were possibly not professionally trained – there is certainly no evidence for a school of midwives – but women may have handed on their knowledge more informally.
The word mn‘t (menat, meaning ‘nurse’) is used from the Middle Kingdom onward, and as it is written with the breast determinative hieroglyph, it is sometimes assumed to mean ‘wet nurse’. There are occasional depictions of the female title holders suckling children, such as the fragmentary statue of Hatshepsut with her nurse Sitre,57 so at least at times a wet nurse was intended by the term mn‘t. However, this is a title also given to men, and so probably encompassed the professions of both tutors and nannies.58 A second term, зtyt (atyt), can also mean nurse. One interpretation of the verb зtyt means to suckle, but as зtyt is usually written with the ‘child on the lap’ determinative rather than the breast, this probably means a dry nurse.59 Besides which, male counterparts are again known. Finally, in the New Kingdom, the word ḫnmt (khenmet) refers to a nurse, who is usually divine.
In the New Kingdom, at least, the royal nurse was an important person, being so close to the king. Despite the fact that women’s occupations are rarely shown in the tombs of their male relatives, tomb owners often show their female relatives in the role of nurses to the king.60 Hatshepsut’s nurse, Sitre, was important enough to be buried near her queen. Nurses also seem to have been held in high regard by the non-royal elite, as they are shown in private tomb chapels and on stelae with the family.61 In the early Eighteenth Dynasty, where a man’s mother held this title, she might often be given a prominent place in his tomb.62
Children are only shown being nursed in tombs where the wives or mothers of tomb owners are royal nurses.63 This might suggest that either there was some ritual importance to showing nursing of royalty, or simply that being related to a royal nurse was prestigious.
With the probable likelihood of high mortality of mothers, wet nurses would have been particularly important, although of course such women would also have been invaluable for those who were unable or unwilling to feed their own children. A wet nurse at Deir el-Medina is paid in one instance as much as a doctor, though it is possible her work was provided over a much longer period of time.64
Legal agreements between wet nurses and parents are known from the later periods of Egyptian history. These stipulate that a wet nurse was to have a trial run before being hired; she was obliged to provide milk of a suitable quality, not to nurse any other children and not to fall pregnant or enter into sexual activity. Her employer was to pay the nurse and provide oil for massaging the child.65
While today we usually associate those involved in beautifying the human body with women, in ancient Egypt, several male manicurists are known. However, those associated with hair and perfume were often female. A female ‘Overseer of the Wig Workshop’ is known from the Old Kingdom. This lady was a high-status woman who also held the titles ‘Royal Acquaintance’ and ‘Royal Ornament’.66
Female treasurers are occasionally found in the Old Kingdom and in the First Intermediate Period attached to private households; sometimes, there was more than one in a household. One such woman was Treasurer Tchat.67
Viziers were second in importance to the pharaoh. In the Sixth Dynasty, the Lady Nebet, wife of Huy, was remarkably appointed by Pepi I as both judge and vizier.68 In light of such unusual activities for a woman, it has been suggested that her husband undertook the responsibilities on her behalf.69 Female viziers are not known again until the Ptolemaic Period when Berenice II and Cleopatra I held the titles.70
There is a rare instance71 of two women possibly acting as judges at Deir elMedina, although it is possible that they were actually witnesses rather than judges. The other persons listed are workmen and thus not of particularly high social standing.
If husbands were unable to carry out their allotted tasks, it seems to have been acceptable – in at least some instances – for their wives to deputize. When the scribe of the Necropolis at Deir el-Medina, Nesy-su-Amen-em-ope, was absent from Thebes, it seems his wife stood in for him and supervised and checked the receipt of grain he had sent.72
‘No woman holds priestly office, either in the service of gods or god; only men are priests in both cases’.
(Herodotus)
This may have been the case for Egyptian women in the time of Herodotus, but Herodotus contradicts himself elsewhere in texts by referring to women priests.73 Certainly, it is true that, with a few exceptions, men held the administrative posts in the temples. This could in part be due to the fact that these roles were full-time, but is also probably predicated upon the fact that men were generally the literate ones and literacy was the key to office. However, for most of Egyptian history, women held a variety of priestly posts. In the Old Kingdom, they seem to have taken similar roles to men as ‘Servants of the Gods’ and were involved in providing for the cult statue. While it is true that women gradually lost such roles, for most of Egyptian history they held the important function of providing music and dance with which to revive the gods and the deceased. This task was largely, though not exclusively, carried out by women. Additionally, from the New Kingdom on, two important female sacerdotal roles emerge from the royal family, having the titles, ‘God’s Wife of Amun’ and ‘Divine Adoratrice’. Women with these titles become particularly powerful in the Third Intermediate Period, so that postholders are almost rulers of Upper Egypt in their own right.
In understanding the function of women priests, we need to realize that the role of ancient Egyptian priests was not the same as that of modern priests. In ancient Egypt, priests did not preach or care for groups of people, nor were they ‘messengers of God’. The term ‘priest’, when applied to ancient Egypt, is a modern term covering a variety of religious offices connected with the temple or with funerary practice. There is a further problem in understanding the role of women in religion, in that while a number of women were connected with the temple, we cannot always be sure that their roles were similar to those of men, even when they appear to have held similar titles.
A female ḥmt nṯr (‘Servant of the God’), would be responsible for looking after the cult statues in the temple; she would give offerings, perform liturgies, dress, anoint and feed the god. As far as we can tell, this title appears to be a female equivalent of a male role, which in the Old and Middle Kingdoms was not necessarily a full-time occupation. It is possible that some of the women seem to have kept the night vigil in the same way as men. At the Temple of Min at Akhmim, both men and women kept the night vigil.74 The male equivalent, ḥm nṯr, is somewhat rarer than the female title and women seem to have been under the authority of men.
In the Old Kingdom until the Middle Kingdom, a large number of elite women were servants of the gods.75 Usually, ladies were servants of female gods, rather than male gods, and particularly of Hathor. Less often, they were priestesses of the archer goddess, Neith. At Beni Hasan, a priestess of the lioness goddess, Pakhet, is known.76 Even less frequently, there are occasional priestesses of male gods. Queen Meresankh was known to be a priestess of Thoth, the god of wisdom.77 At Sixth Dynasty Akhmim, there was a lady who was a priestess of Min,78 a god of fertility, and another who was a priestess of Ptah, a god of craftsmen.79 There were also female priests of the mortuary cult of King Khufu.
Other types of priesthood were also open to women. Generally ḫnwt (khenu) are female, though male equivalents called ḫnwt (khenu) are known in the Old Kingdom.80 In the Middle Kingdom, henut were attached to the temple of Osiris at Abydos.81 Both male gods and female gods had henut and henu. On Hatshepsut’s Red Chapel in the Karnak, there are female priestesses called henut. The chief female henut was often the wife of the High Priest. So, for example, the wife of Pepiankh, nomarch of Qusae and High Priest of Hathor, was khenut of Hathor.82
As we have seen, for most periods of Egyptian history, the status of women was not equal to that of men, and it was rare for women to rule as kings. However, in the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Dynasties, we have evidence of individual women of such power that they practically ruled Upper Egypt in their own right, with the blessing of both Egyptian society as a whole and the traditional institution of male kingship. These are clear and rare exceptions to the lack of women in administrative roles. These women were the ‘God’s Wives of Amun’. They also took the title ‘Divine Adoratrice’, and were powerful individuals whose status included the cultic and the administrative.83
The importance of the Divine Adoratrice can be traced back to the early Eighteenth Dynasty at Karnak. Records show that it was a position held by high-status women, such as the daughter of the High Priest of Amun in the reign of Hatshepsut, or sometimes, royal women. In the reign of Thuthmose III, the title was held by the King’s Principal Wife. Although we do not know what the role entailed at this date, it has been suggested that use of this title was an attempt to enhance the general power of the monarchy.
The domain of the Divine Adoratrice was an important administrative centre, with its own personnel and property. The institution of pr dwзt, ‘house of the adoratrice’, as shown in a Papyrus of Amenhotep II, had land and palaces in various parts of the country, including Middle Egypt. Texts show that the domain had its own treasury and produced food.84 Administrative duties of the God’s Wives were largely carried out by stewards.85
In the Third Intermediate Period, the title ‘Divine Adoratrice’ became associated with the title ‘God’s Wife of Amun’ (ḥmt-nṯr n ‘Imn), which appears to be an even higher rank. The earliest divine consort appears to have been the ‘God’s Wife of Min’, first attested in the First Intermediate Period as a title given to non-royal priestesses.86 The title ‘God’s Wife of Amun’, however, does not appear until the Eighteenth Dynasty, and is confined to Thebes. It is said to refer to the impregnation of Amun’s mother by the god himself.
The first royal God’s Wife of Amun appears on the Donation Stela at Karnak. The same stela also records the institution of Divine Adoratrice. The title, God’s Wife, appears to have been elevated by Ahmose I, along with the elevation of the city of Thebes, Amun being the most important of the Theban deities. The Donation Stela records the bestowing of the title ‘God’s Wife of Amun’ on Ahmes Nefertari, wife of King Ahmose and mother of Amenhotep I, and also transfers the title of ‘Second Priest of Amun’ to her and her heirs without challenge. The title seems to have been used by this powerful woman in preference to other important titles such as ‘King’s Principal Wife’, or ‘King’s Mother’. From then on, it was a royal prerogative. Ahmes Nefertari passed the title to her daughter Meritamun. It was then passed on to Hatshepsut. When Hatshepsut took on kingly titles, she gave the title ‘God’s Wife of Amun’ to her daughter, Neferure.
The title ‘God’s Wife’ goes out of use with the reign of Thuthmose II. Reasons for its decline are unclear, but it may be that Thutmose II deliberately reduced the importance of the title to prevent other women using it to gain power. It is reinstated in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, and held, for example, by the daughter of Rameses VI, Aset (Isis), though when at first reintroduced, it seemed to have little importance.
By the reign of Rameses VI, it is often stated that the God’s Wives had become celibate, or at least unmarried, daughters of kings or high priests of Amun. Rameses VI’s daughter, Aset (Isis), is credited as being the first celibate postholder, and also with holding the title, ‘Divine Adoratrice’. The practice of postholders adopting their successors is used to support the argument for celibacy; the suggestion being that as the title was hereditary, celibate postholders could only adopt successors.
However, some question the celibacy of the God’s Wives. The case of Princess Maatkare-Mutemhet of the Twenty-first Dynasty has sometimes been used to support the idea that the God’s Wives were not celibate. It has been claimed that she had a child which died at birth.87 A mummified bundle found in her coffin was believed to be a child, and speculation abounded as to who the father could have been. However, the ‘child’ was later discovered to be a mummified baboon! The swollen abdomen of her mummy is sometimes attributed to her pregnant state; however, others claim that this is merely an effect of the embalming materials.
Moreover, adoption need not mean childlessness, but can simply be a way to pass on property or rights. Additionally, that a woman does not mention a husband or offspring on her coffin does not mean she is childless; the lack of a husband in a high-ranking woman’s tomb should not be taken as unmarried status. Furthermore, there is evidence that the God’s Wife, Amenirdis II, was married to a vizier called Montuemhet, and that they had a son, Nasalsa.88 There is also a reference to Shebenwepet II, another God’s Wife, also being a King’s Wife. Teeter89 concludes that if celibacy existed among any of the God’s Wives, it was more concerned with politics than cultic purity, that is, it functioned to stop ambitious nobles gaining influence through marriage.
At the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, Thebes and the south were ruled by the chief priest of Amun and kings ruled the north. The title ‘God’s Wife’ was therefore used by the female relatives of kings to retain some royal power in the south. From the Twentieth Dynasty, the titulary (formal titles and names) of the God’s Wife imitated the king’s double cartouche (the prenomen usually contained the name of Mut, the consort of Amun). Such women, paralleling the king, are also called ‘Mistresses of Upper and Lower Egypt’. From the Twenty-first Dynasty on, it was the king’s unmarried daughter or sister who was given the title. Karomama, of the Twenty-second Dynasty, was the first God’s Wife to enclose her name in a cartouche90 like that of a king. Under Libyan rule, the God’s Wife, Shepenwepet I, officiated at the Temple of Osiris, and is shown in the temple of Osiris Heqa-Djet at Karnak being suckled by a goddess, paralleling the way kings could be depicted.
Rulers from Kush, the black pharaohs, then took over. When Piankh invaded Thebes and instituted the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, he persuaded Shepenwepet I to choose his sister, Amenirdis, as successor. Amenirdis was the first Nubian God’s Wife and the first to combine all three titles of God’s Wife, Divine Adoratrice and God’s Hand.91 She was probably a child when she took the title, which she held for thirty or forty years. Amenirdis I then adopted Shepenwepet II as the next God’s Wife. These two were the first to also adopt queenly titles such as ‘Mistress of the Two Lands’.92 It is in the Nubian Period that the role of the God’s Wife was at its zenith. The God’s Wives of the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Dynasties left Osirian Chapels at Karnak and unusual funerary monuments at Medinet Habu.93 Certain elements such as the pylon façade are paralleled in temples, not tombs.
The idea that the title ‘God’s Wife’ allowed the king some control over the south is supported by the adoption stela of Nitocris (Cairo JE 36327). Psamtek I had his daughter, Nitocris, adopted by Amenirdis II.94 The stela states: ‘I have given to him my daughter to be a God’s Wife and have endowed her better than those who were before her. Surely, he will be gratified with her worship and protect the land who gave her to him.’ The stela describes the vast endowment given to the postholder. It also shows that the God’s Wives at this date were not always free to name their successors. The Kushite Kings may well have been required to spend time in the Sudan, and appointed God’s Wives to act as government in their absence.
Persian rule finally put an end to this title in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. The last God’s Wife was Ankhnesneferibre, who was also the first woman to take the title ‘High Priest of Amun’. The post then disappears, perhaps because the high status now obtained by the God’s Wife threatened that of the king.
The cultic roles of the God’s Wives often closely related to, or mirrored, those of kings, though presumably varied in detail over time.95 It has been argued that the God’s Wife acted, in her religious role, to sexually stimulate the male god, Amun-Re, so that he could recreate life.96 The title, ‘God’s Hand’, is also sometimes used as an alternative to ‘God’s Wife’ and refers to the act of masturbation whereby Atum produced Shu and Tefnut. The word ‘hand’ in Egyptian was feminine. Sexual stimulation of the god was perhaps carried out through music and dance. However, this function is perhaps overplayed, as earlier ‘God’s Wives’ also played music for goddesses.
Scenes on the Hatshepsut Red Chapel show the God’s Wife of Amun, possibly Hatshepsut’s daughter Neferure, performing various rituals. She is shown with a male priest burning the image of the king’s enemies (on fans). She is also shown washing in the sacred lake at Karnak, worshipping gods and following the king into the temple sanctuary, the holy of holies.
From the Twenty-second Dynasty on, God’s Wives are also shown presenting maat to the gods,97 an activity usually only carried out by the king. This honour was bestowed on only one other woman, Nefertiti. In the funerary chapels at Medinet Habu, the God’s Wives oversee other rituals associated with kingship, such as foundation ceremonies. The funerary chapel of Amenirdis I shows the God’s Wife driving the four calves, again a ritual usually associated with the king. The God’s Wife in the Twenty-fifth Dynasty Edifice of Taharqa at Karnak is shown firing arrows at four balls, possibly showing Amun’s sovereignty over the four cardinal points.98 In the same room, she is shown elevating four gods.
The costume worn by the God’s Wife distinguishes her from other women. On the Eighteenth Dynasty Red Chapel at Karnak and the Twenty-fifth Dynasty Edifice of Taharqa, she wears a distinctive outfit of a sheath dress sometimes tied at the waist, a hairband knotted at the back and a short wig. The hairstyle possibly links her with Isis and Nephthys.99 This special outfit is reminiscent of those worn by priestesses in the Middle Kingdom. After the Eighteenth Dynasty, queenly dress was also sometimes used. Later still, the God’s Wife wore the vulture headdress and uraeus, with shwty plumes or falcon-tail feathers worn by Amun and Min, or alternatively the sun disk and Hathor crown on modius. Sistra, menit-necklaces, or flagella were carried.
The goddess Meret has been called ‘the personification of the priestess as singer’ and the goddess is usually depicted as if she were clapping. It seems that several classes of music-making priestesses, including chantresses, were identified with her.100 Meret figures adorn the barques of kings and welcome them. They are also associated with the sed-festival and the role of priestesses therein. It seems likely that the term, meret, covered a wide variety of musician priestesses.
Women seem to have been employed to imitate Meret; from the Fourth Dynasty on, women called ‘meret singers’ are known under the male overseers.101 Their role was to hail the king with handclapping and cry, ‘he comes who brings, he comes who brings’. These women of the Old Kingdom are associated with Hathorian cults.102 In the Ptolemaic Period, they play sistra before the gods.103 It is possible that women with the title ‘Meret’ also had responsibilities towards estates, and that they looked after property and fields of the cult place.104
By the New Kingdom, the title ‘Mistress of the House’ is the most common for elite women; the second most common title is šm‘yt (shemayet, meaning ‘Chantress’). Such elite, though non-royal, women are shown carrying the menit-necklace and sistrum associated with Hathoric rituals, and appear to have been lay priestesses attached to temples. The term, ‘Chantress’, is usually used in a religious context. In the New Kingdom tomb of Kheruef (TT192), the Chantresses appear shaven,105 like male priests, though later postholders wear the fashionable cloths and hairstyles of the day. Similarly, in the New Kingdom tomb of Khonsu, two Chantresses are shown bald, while others are not.106 While there are both male and female chanters, women increasingly take the role.
A further change concerns the status and geographical origins of ‘Chanters and Chantresses’. In the Middle Kingdom, the title is held by the middle classes, though by the New Kingdom, it is largely the preserve of the Theban elite. By the Rameside Period, the postholders are more socially diverse, though still largely Theban. One Chantress of Wepwawet, at Asyut, had a husband who was a lowly boatman.107 When the Asyut women are shown in the presence of men, they are occasionally depicted of greater size (size equating with status), despite the fact that the husband may be of high status.108 While the position was not hereditary, family connections, as well as personal piety, seem to have played some part.109 After the Twenty-second Dynasty, the title of Chantress appears to have been in decline.
This title was not merely honorific, but demanded a service to the gods, who could be either male or female. By the New Kingdom, Chantresses were organized, like male priests, into a phyle system working in rotation in groups, one month in four. Each group would have an overseer. Chantresses in the Third Intermediate Period acted under the direction of the God’s Wife of Amun.110
The role of the ‘Chantress’ appears to have been to provide music to the gods. As such, these women would accompany the king in offering to the gods in the daily liturgy; they functioned to announce the king in the sed-festival – perhaps taking the role of Meret – and provided music for the Beautiful Festival of the Valley. They also provided singing at private funerals.111 That the ‘Chantress’ was allowed close to the king and the gods suggests that they were considered ritually pure.112 The term ‘Chantress’ appears to be based on the word šm‘ (shema) which means ‘to sing’ or ‘clap hands’,113 and indeed such women are primarily depicted as vocalists associated with percussion instruments or, less commonly, stringed instruments.
Around one hundred women have the title ḥst ẖnw n `Imn (Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun), a title known from the Twenty-second Dynasty until the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. It is assumed that these women were under the patronage of the God’s Wives of Amun,114 and at least some attained their titles in their youth. Like the God’s Wives, such women are sometimes said to be celibate, although some see no evidence for this,115 and some women, at least, had children. The interior of the temple was not open to all, so unsurprisingly many ‘Singers in the Interior of the Temple’ were known to come from the finest families of Thebes. Some of them served as valets or stewards to members of the ruling family. Women who held this title were the elite among a complex bureaucracy of many other women who held the title ‘Singer in the Temple of Amun’.
It has been said that the word ḫnr (khener) is related to the word meaning ‘to confine’, or ‘constrain’, and is thus associated with harems. This is, however, a mistranslation.116 Rather, the term refers to groups, usually of women, who were singers and dancers who performed temple and funerary cultic roles, and possibly, purely entertainment roles. The translation as ‘harem’ is shown to be particularly inappropriate by the fact that goddesses, such as Hathor, and the female nome personification, Bat, could also have khener, and wives of elite men were known to have had roles as overseers of khener.117 Although groups of musicians and dancers are shown in earlier times, they are not labelled as ‘khener’ until the Fifth Dynasty.118 Increasingly, women performed this role.
Wealthy families and palaces, as well as temples, would have had their own entertainers.119 In the Old Kingdom tomb of Djau at Deir el-Gabrawi, the funeral cortege includes khener dancing.120 Khener troups were sometimes attached to funerary estates121 and involved in Hathoric rites for the deceased. ‘The Golden One’, that is, Hathor, is described as ‘coming out’. An inscription above the dancers in the tomb of Nebkaure proclaims ‘beautiful dancing for your ka every day’.122 Khener troups seem to have been used to entertain the living king until the First Intermediate Period, but as well as providing ‘pure entertainment’, their role probably had religious overtones.123 The king was, after all, also a god. In the Middle Kingdom tomb of Antifiqer’s mother at Thebes, dancing is associated with the harvest. Women seemed to have played a part in khener groups belonging to temples, as is shown on the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut in the depiction of the Beautiful Festival of the Valley. Here women sing and shake sistra and hold menit-necklaces, accompanied by a male harpist and three men designated as a ‘choir’. Other women are shown performing acrobatic dancing.
Khener troups probably provided music for women in childbirth.124 This theory is based upon the similarity of a tool, perhaps used in cutting the umbilical cord, and the determinative for the word ‘khener’ (a determinative is a classifying sign written after the main body of the word to clarify its meaning). In the Sixth Dynasty tomb chapel of Princess Watetkhethor at Saqqara, female dancers are portrayed accompanied by a song which refers to childbirth; the top register is translated as, ‘But see, the secret of birth! Oh pull!’ Additionally, Papyrus Westcar, from the Second Intermediate Period, describes the birth of Fifth Dynasty kings accompanied by four goddesses who have disguised themselves as dancers.125 Until recent times, in several parts of Africa, friends and relatives of a birthing mother would dance to aid delivery. One would expect that dance would also be carried out for celebration.
In early scenes, such as those in the Fourth Dynasty tomb of Debeheni at Giza, and the later Fifth Dynasty tomb of Nefer at Giza, dancers are dressed as ordinary women with cropped hair. From the Sixth Dynasty on, they wear shorter skirts and crossed bands across their chests. A Libyan origin for these outfits has been suggested126 and so these bands are often referred to as ‘Libyan bands’. Indeed, a group of dancing women wearing bands across their chests is captioned in the New Kingdom tomb of Kheruef as ‘women who have been brought from the oases’.127 In some scenes, such as in the tomb of Ibi at Deir el-Gebrawi, women are shown with a round object attached to a pigtail which they appear to be whirling around as part of the dance. A statue of such a dancer has been found at Naga-ed-Deir, from which it is clear that the circular object is a disk. However, another Middle Kingdom statue in the Berlin Museum shows a dancer wearing a ball.128 Seated female harp players, daughters of the tomb owner, are also shown wearing such ponytails and disks/balls at the tomb of Pepiankh at Meir.129
As well as providing music for funerary rituals, for example as khener members, women also acted as mourners and ‘Servants of the ka’ at funerals. Often, it is not clear if such actions were paid, or whether they were carried out by the friends and relatives of the deceased gratis.
Women, as well as men, seemed to have performed cultic roles in funerals in the role of ḥmt-kз (‘Servant of the ka’), at least during the Old Kingdom. They are also occasionally overseers of such. Servants of the ka, maintained offerings at tombs and, according to some, were paid for their work.130 However, such titles held by women131 may well have been honorary. By the New Kingdom, both men and women were engaged in performing the mortuary cult, by giving offerings and libations.132 Women are shown in tombs offering sistra and menit-necklaces to the deceased. This work, however, may not have been paid. There is also one possible instance of a female sem-priest. (Her Twentieth Dynasty coffin is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City133). Sem-priests were responsible for the ‘Opening of the Mouth Ceremony’, whereby the mummified body of the deceased was brought to life. However, women were never lector priests responsible for ensuring the transfiguration of the deceased, perhaps because this would have involved maintaining maat (cosmic order), which was a masculine role, or because the lector priest read written spells, and women were not formally taught to read or write.
Importantly, women are often shown as mourners. Cross culturally, the display of grief seems to be the preserve of the female and there is some evidence that this was so in ancient Egypt. Show of emotion seems to have been frowned upon by the scribal elite with cool-headedness and reservation preferred.134 Grieving individuals are shown throwing dust upon their heads, weeping, scratching their faces and adopting poses which we would recognize as those of grief. Such gestures are usually displayed by female relatives, though there are some instances of males doing the same.135 For example a mourning man is shown in the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Kenamun (TT162).136 It should be added that shows of emotion by men may be artificially rare as Egyptian tombs are usually those of men; therefore, their wives are shown mourning them.137
Men, as well as women, are however, depicted singing laments,138 particularly in funeral processions. Textual evidence for laments shows women as more emotional;139 they are also credited with some of the more beautiful laments. A touching lament from Merytre, mourning her husband Neferhotep at the end of the Fourteenth Dynasty says:
. . . You have gone far away;
how can you do it?
Alone I shall walk,
Yet I will always be behind you.
The one who loved to converse with me,
You have fallen silent;
You do not speak.
There is the possibility140 that, in the Eighteenth Dynasty, a number of these women were singers in the divine cults, and thus may have written their own laments.
Mourning was not simply an outpouring of emotion, but seems to have been an important part of funerary ritual. Women impersonated Isis and Nephthys in funerary rituals, at least as early as the Old Kingdom,141 acting as professional ḏrt (djert, meaning mourners or kite – the goddesses and Isis and Nephthys became kites plaintively mourning the death of Osiris) so that the deceased would be identified with Osiris. These women had to be pure and their body hair removed.142 Other female mourners are called mзtrt, but it is not known how these differ from ḏrt.
By the Thirteenth Dynasty, women acting out the cult drama of Isis and Nephthys not only mourned, but also collected the bones of Osiris, allowing him to become whole. Such women, dmḏ(y)t, are usually called ‘mourners’, but it has been suggested that ‘bone collector’ might better describe their role.143 Women also danced in their capacity as mourners.144 Indeed, dancing was an important part of funerary ritual and was carried out by khener troups. The role of such mourners could be hereditary.145
As we have seen, the role of women in religion was often to provide music and dance for religious ceremonies. Not only priestesses, but also women in general were associated with music. Wives, daughters and mothers are frequently shown shaking sistra for the deceased in the Eighteenth Dynasty.146
The heavy smell of incense, the rhythm of the menit-necklace and the sistra, the chanting of the female priestess musicians in the semi-gloom of the Egyptian temple are sensual experiences which we can only imagine today. While the ingredients of the incense and even the words of songs survive, the musical rhythms and their pitch and melody are all lost to us. It has been suggested that the music of the Coptic Church best approximates that heard in the Egyptian temple, though this assumes an unchanging tradition. What can be said is that the sensuality provided by the priestess musician was considered essential in soothing and reviving the gods and also in serving the deceased. There are also hints that music and dance were at times part of the ecstatic religion of ancient Egypt, and that the goddess Hathor was particularly associated with such direct communication with the gods.
The role of music and dance in the temple was essential.147 Music was necessary in maintaining order and restoring balance. The sistrum was shaken to drive away hostile forces and revive the gods. By the Hellenistic Period, it is recounted that the Egyptians sang to the gods three or four times a day. Private stelae show individuals shaking sistra in front of the gods. Music also accompanied gods in processions and was very much associated with festivals of revival.
Music and dance were also important at the sed-festival, a time of renewal of the king’s vitality. In the tomb of Kheruef, acrobatic female dancers are overseen by priests as they dance for King Amenhotep III, at his sed-festival. The king is accompanied by Queen Tiy and ‘Hathor, Mistress of Dendera’. Processions such as the Opet festival, a festival of the renewal of the king’s ka, at Luxor, show women and men accompanying the barque of the god and providing music. Music and merrymaking was an important part of the Beautiful Festival of the Valley, an apparently colourful festival which allowed the relatives of the deceased to eat and drink at the tombs in order to honour the dead.
Earlier, we saw how singers impersonated the goddess Meret. The production of music and dance in ancient Egypt was also heavily connected with the goddess Hathor, and hence performers would at times impersonate her.
In Fifth and Sixth Dynasty tombs, dancers singing and clapping invoke Hathor by name, or her epithet, ‘The Golden One’. Texts invoking Hathor are placed above several scenes depicting khener troups as part of funerary rites.148 Individuals are shown with lion-masked figures, possibly imitating her,149 and the early Sixth Dynasty tomb of Mereruka, Saqqara, shows girls playing ‘games’, holding mirrors and hand shaped rattles and playing ‘Hathor’s dancing game’.
Both the menit-necklace and the sistrum, commonly carried by female priestesses, are instruments of Hathor. The menit-necklace is a heavy bead necklace, with a counterpoise at the back, which could be rattled as part of religious ceremonies. Menit-necklaces are given as votive offerings to the goddess150 and in certain cases are decorated with the head of the goddess. Hathor, in her form as a cow, is usually shown wearing the menit-necklace counterpoise. The sistrum was also a type of rattle. Sistra are very often decorated with the head of Hathor, and the sound of the sistra was said to imitate the sound of the Hathor cow walking through the reeds of the marshes. The Egyptian word for sistra was sesheshet, an onomatopoeic word mimicking the rustling of reeds. In the late Old Kingdom, we have the first attestation of women offering the menit-necklace and sistrum to revive the deceased.151 In the Middle Kingdom Tale of Sinuhe, the princesses do the same in order to welcome the prodigal back to his life in Egypt.
At Heliopolis, priestesses were referred to as Hathors.152 In Rameside text, Hathors of the temple of Atum rejoice and play drums on account of seeing the king. In the Ptolemaic Period, female musicians playing frame drums wear horned headdresses like Hathor. ‘It is quite possible to suppose that priestesses of all periods, even when they are not called Merets or Hathors, were engaged in representing the activities of the goddesses’.153
In the earlier periods of Egyptian history, it seems that women played similar roles to those of men in the state religion. This state of affairs seems to have altered with time so that women no longer served in the same way as men. However, throughout Egyptian history, women were particularly associated with religious music and dance, which should not be trivialized as mere entertainment, but rather seen as essential to state religion and to domestic piety. One might more controversially venture that music and dance were at times used in the service of gods, particularly of Hathor, in order to commune with the goddess. This aspect is discussed more fully in the chapter on goddesses.