Contents
Illustrations
Preface
Chronology
Introduction
1 Rich women, poor women
2 Changing worlds
The Golden Age
The Great Mother Goddess
The status and role of Predynastic women
Inequality and the rise of the state
Women’s status and the growth of agriculture
Women’s status from the Old Kingdom to the Middle Kingdom
Queens of the Old Kingdom
Administrative titles
Priestesses of Hathor
Women textile workers
Women in trade
Did women’s status decline from the Old to the Middle Kingdoms?
Later periods
3 Reversing the ordinary practices of mankind
The dangerous temptress and the passive wife
Women, weapons and warfare
Domestic violence
Women, the law and property
Adultery and divorce
Crime and punishment
Housewife
Was ancient Egypt a matrilineal society?
Were women considered to be sex objects?
4 Birth, life and death
Education, literacy and scribes
Age and sexuality
Menarche and menstruation
Coming of age and marriage
Polygamy
Contraceptives and abortion
Phallic votives and fertility figurines
Pregnancy and childbirth
Motherhood
Widows and old age
5 Women’s work
Women serving women
Conscripted labour
Agriculture
Textile production
Women and trade
The ‘wise women’
Prostitution
Doctors and midwives
Nurses and tutors
Hairdressers and perfumers
Treasurers
Vizier
Women and the court
Women deputizing for their husbands
Women and the temple
Servants of the God
Henut
God’s Wife of Amun and Divine Adoratrice
Priestess singers and Meret
The Chantress
Singers in the ‘interior’
Khener and dancing
Women and funerals
The role of music and dance
Impersonating Hathor
6 Sexuality, art and religion
Sexuality and the erotic
Sexual identity
The creative power of the male
Homosexuality
Androgyny
Were the Egyptians prudes?
Ostraca and the Turin Papyrus
High art and coded messages
Tattoos, sex and dancing girls
Day beds and public celebration of sexuality
The erotic body
Love poetry
Women and rebirth
The power of the erotic
7 Queens and harems
Queenship
Symbols of queenship
The queen as Hathor
Divine birth
Incest and the heiress theory
Royal polygamy
The ‘harem’ of Mentuhotep II
Institutions of women in the New Kingdom: ipet-nesw and per-khener
Medinet-Gurob (Mi-wer)
Royal children
Diplomatic marriages
‘Harem plots’
The harem plot of Rameses III
Female kings
Ahmes Nefertari (Ahmes/Ahmose Nefertari) (c.1570–1506 BC)
Hatshepsut (c.1470–1458 BC)
Nefertiti (c.1390–1340 BC)
Cleopatra VII (c.69–31 BC)
Egyptian attitudes to women in power 159
8 Goddesses
Nut
Neith
Isis and Nephthys
Hathor
Drunkenness
The Return of the Distant One
Conclusion
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Plate Section
Index