Roles of Women in Ancient Egyptian Society
Mike Gilroy
HIS3118: Women in Africa
Final Project
The history of women in Ancient Egypt is an incomplete history at best. Egyptian women played a large and integral role in the history of their civilization. Great leaders such as Hatshepsut and Cleopatra are ingrained in the minds of millions as the first female leaders of great societies. Unfortunately, although their role is hugely important, Cleopatra and Hatshepsut were the exception to the rule. To fully understand the role of common women in Ancient Egyptian society is difficult for a number of reasons. For the most part, women were illiterate meaning that nearly all surviving Egyptian texts were written by men. There’s an inherent bias in that the only view that exists of Egyptian of women is from the perspective of man. It’s known that common women were traditionally limited to roles inside the home. Unfortunately, there is little knowledge concerning Ancient Egyptian housing. Another difficulty is the sheer span of time that the Empire existed. The Ancient Egyptians existed for 3,000 years; it’s difficult to produce a coherent image of a woman’s role in a society that experienced three millennia of change and innovation . However, it is possible to piece together texts and archaeological evidence to provide a view of a woman’s ideal place in the society, and glimpse into what life must have been like for fifty percent of the population.
The study of women in ancient Egypt is a difficult topic. The artifacts left behind by the Egyptians tell very little about the roles women played in society and in everyday life. In art, women are all depicted as tall and slender, and in supportive roles to the men . This only reveals that women had a role as homemakers, wives, and mothers but it says relatively little on how society viewed these roles. It’s possible that women were completely subservient in status, but it’s also possible that they were greatly respected for their contributions. Evidence would suggest that Egyptian men were fond of the women in their society by the number of freedoms women had when compared to other cultures in the ancient world. Women enjoyed the right to own land, buy and sell property (including slaves), and inheritance . Wives were capable of generating their own income, and received one-third of their husband’s possessions in the event of death while his sons and daughters received the remaining two-thirds . Many of these rights would be eroded when the Greek Ptolemaic line came to power after the conquest of Alexander .
Despite their comparative freedoms, women in Ancient Egypt were traditionally homemakers. Egyptian religion placed a heavy emphasis on the cycle of life, death, and rebirth . This placed a large importance on the woman’s role as life-giver, and made marriage the most important aspiration a young woman could have. Fertility played an essential role in life and religion. According to Tyldesley’s Daughters of Isis, “A fertile woman was a successful woman .” Fertility was the most important asset a woman could have. By bearing many children, she would gain social status, marital security, and would be regarded as physically attractive to the males in the community. Childbirth was completely up to the women in society, men (including male doctors) were rarely involved in the delivery process . High child mortality rates in society meant that women had to have multiple children in order to ensure descendants. Children were vital to the Egyptians. In addition to providing a free source of labor, children were tasked with supporting their parents through old age (which for women was around 40 if they survived disease and childbirth .) Women often married in their teenage years to produce children before they hit ‘old age’. While unmarried women were not discriminated under the law, they were at a massive disadvantage. The entire Egyptian society was based around the family’s role in continuing the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Women without husbands were likely to be exploited, and perhaps even shunned. They were viewed as people who needed the protection of male figures but were not required under Egyptian law to have male guardians2 (laws most other ancient civilizations held dear4). It was common for these widows and divorced women to live in their parents or siblings’ homes and carry out a traditional female role in the household, there is little to nothing written about women who never married .
Ancient Egyptian gender roles were well defined within society. It was generally accepted that indoor work or housework was women’s work while men had jobs outside of the home . Women were the “mistresses of the house, ” although within the house there was typically one wife or mother who ‘outranked’ the other household women. The woman’s role as mistress of the house was undisputed in Egyptian culture.
“Do not control your wife in her house, when you know she is efficient; Don’t say to her: ‘Where is it? Get it!’ when she has put it in the right place.” – Instructions of Anii, 18th Dynasty
Due to the lack of indoor plumbing and modern conveniences, maintaining the household was a fulltime job for the women of Egypt. Women were expected to cook, fetch water, and care for the children. Women could help their husbands in the field and manage their affairs when they are away6 . Egyptian homes were composed of extended families of around six adults . Women seemingly accepted their roles as homemakers. Women of different social statuses had varying responsibilities. Elite women merely oversaw the work of slaves and servants, while more moderate and lower class women oversaw the work of fewer servants and performed many duties themselves . It was understood that men and women simply had different tasks they needed to perform. Ancestry played a large role in this, as Egyptians were very keen to respect the lives of their forbearers and continue the eternal cycle by assuming their roles. Women maintained the home, as was done for countless years prior and would be done for generations to come. Their seemingly lower social standing may have been easier to accept in Egypt than in other civilizations because of the rights afforded to women, and the tradition of strict gender roles.
Although women had a social expectation to work inside the home, some women needed to work outside the home for economic reasons. These women had limited options, but were able to find work in a few different fields. Educated women could find work in domestic supervision. They would oversee the work of other female attendants to high-class women, or woman run workshops such as wigmakers, or grinders. Skilled women could work as weavers, dancers, or musicians. Women without skills or education could find jobs as attendants to the wealthy or servant work . Lower and moderate class women did not receive a formal education. Boys typically went to school while the girls stayed home with their mothers. The reason for this was economical. Daughters could aid their mothers at home, and prepare for their traditional roles as future wives. Since it was assumed girls would grow up to be homemakers, it wasn’t considered a wise investment to educate them. Royal women and some highly elite women were taught to read and write, but even then, literacy among females wasn’t widespread. For a woman to be literate and attain a job using those was truly a rarity .
Upper-class women often found work outside the home as priestesses. It was customary for Egyptian Goddesses to be attended by females, just as Gods were attended by men, and men and women had slaves and servants of the same gender attend to them. Priestesses were highly regarded in Egyptian society; their ranks were filled with only the upper echelon of society. The Cult of Hathor was known to have queens serve as priestesses . Other sources report that outside the cult of Hathor, women were not widely used as priestesses but rather as musicians and dancers who performed to please the temple deity . The highest role ever recorded for a woman was Lady Nebet of the Old Kingdom who was granted the title “ ‘Sole Royal Ornament’ and ‘Hereditary Princess, Daughter of Geb, Countess, Daughter of Merhu, She of the Curtain, Judge and Vizier, Daughter of Thoth, Companion of the King of Lower Egypt, Daughter of Horus’.” Lady Nebet’s position as Vizier is completely unheard of in Egyptian society, which had a strong tradition of male rulers and male ministers. Although her husband may have performed many of her duties, her mere appointment is remarkable compared to the treatment of women in other societies.
For the most part, women did not work outside of the home. They gained their social status from their husbands, and were entitled to joint property within the marriage. In rare instances, wives could fill-in for their husbands at work, illustrating that women were not necessarily viewed as inferior to men, but typically had different jobs to perform . Compared to both modern and ancient governments, the Ancient Egyptian government had minimal involvement in the affairs of marriage. There is very little written about Egyptian wedding ceremonies, there is even debate as to whether or not they even existed. It’s possible that a man and a woman simply agreed to live together for the economic betterment of their families and held no formal ceremony . Evidence suggests that inside the marriage women were well respected by their sons and husbands. Writings have been found on tomb walls citing that the deceased was “well loved by his mother11.” Undoubtedly, a certain prestige came with bearing sons for one’s husband. Husbands were known to spend the end of the day relaxing with their wives, often playing board games such as “senet” and “twenty squares” together .
However, marriage was never a perfect institution in any society. Divorce existed in Egyptian society, and occurred for any number of reasons including infertility, infidelity, dislike, or the wish to marry another. By 500 B.C., women were able to initiate the divorce . Women were treated well by ancient standards of divorce and were entitled to one-third of her husband’s assets . The wife typically left the house, as the husband usually owned it. However, there were rare cases where the wife owned the family home and the husband had to leave. In addition, the mother typically cared for the children following the divorce . Infidelity was a serious crime if it was committed by the wife. Husbands were seemingly allowed to physically punish their wives, or perhaps even kill them if they were unfaithful, however the most common course of action was divorce and public shame on the part of the wife . In the late period, female infidelity inside the marriage deprived the wife of her financial claim to her husband’s property . Men who had affairs with married women were also subject to harsh punishments and disgrace . It’s interesting to note that it was perfectly legitimate for men to have multiple wives. However, this was considered uncommon, especially among the lower classes where men could not feasibly have supported multiple wives. Even among the rich, polygamy was not widely practiced. This could be because of the sexual access husbands had to servants, slaves and those of lower social status . Evidence has been found in tombs of illegitimate born of women other than the deceased’s wife. These children suffered no social stigmata for their status, and were presumably raised equally alongside the couple’s legitimate offspring.
Typical Ancient Egyptian women were confined to traditional roles as wives and mothers. However, this was not necessarily subordinate so much as it was their accepted role in society. While there is no question that men dominated Ancient Egypt, it’d be incorrect to say that they looked down upon women. Evidence shows that the woman’s role as mistress of the house and life-giver were integral parts of society that were highly adored and respected by the male half of the population. “The Egyptians were a very uxorious race. ”
The queens of Ancient Egypt had an influence over the empire. Although they did not typically wield any known powers or authority, they did have a direct connection with the pharaoh, which was invaluable in terms of political power. The term ‘queen’ can refer to any number of females inhabiting the royal palace. Queen can refer to any of the king’s wives, his mother, his daughters, and his sisters, half-sisters and cousins. It is likely that Egypt had a matrilineal history, which gave way to a broader definition of family relations especially regarding females. Popular stories of Pharaohs marrying and reproducing with their sister are often misinterpreted as a result. In African and Egyptian culture, ‘sister’ can refer any member of the female line including cousins and half-sisters. However, theories regarding the line of Pharaohs being matrilineal have been widely accepted as false by a number of sources . These sources claim that no such line can be traced, since not all pharaohs married royal women . The 18th Dynasty was rife with incest among the royal family. The leading theory is currently that the Pharaohs were attempting to assert their deity status by acting like the gods and reproducing within the family. In addition to deifying themselves, interbreeding kept foreign claims off the Egyptian throne, and gave royal princess a suitable mate .
The king of Egypt was polygamous, and took multiple wives. However, one of his wives was considered superior to the rest and was given special treatment. The alpha-queens were given their own estate, complete with an individual income, officers, and servants to suit their needs . The sons of the Queen-consort were the only ones eligible to succeed the throne . The lesser wives lived separately with the rest of the Pharaoh’s children; they still lived lives of luxury but were not afforded the same treatment as the primary wife.
The dominant queen-wife and the queen-mother played important roles in rituals. The Pharaoh was the divine incarnation of the sun god Amun-Re, his wife and mother played the roles of the sky-goddess during rituals. The sky-goddess gives birth to the sun-god after the sun-god impregnates her. For this reason, the wife and mother could not play both roles individually. The queen-mother also takes on a ritual role in the myth of the pharaoh’s godly birth. The queen-mother was said to have been impregnated by Amun-Re, which gives the Pharaoh a direct link to the Egyptian pantheon . In many ways, the entire Egyptian religion was the worship of the Pharaoh’s godly (and earthly) lineage .
Throughout the 3,000 Years of the Egyptian Empire, King after King ruled over the populace. However, there were a number of women who rose to power throughout the span of the empire. Although these women are the exception to a long-standing rule, the truth is that these women ruled a male dominated society in an age where most women were denied many liberties, and education. When looking at the accomplishments of women in Ancient Egypt, it’s impossible to overlook the reigns of Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, and Cleopatra VII.
Hatshepsut was the daughter of Thutmose I, and wife-consort of her half-brother Thutmose II. When Thutmose II died, Hatshepsut became guardian of the child pharaoh Thutmose III, effectively giving the teenage queen control of the kingdom by getting herself officially declared the co-ruler of Egypt. Hatshepsut claimed that her father, Thutmose I, named her his rightful successor and she exerted her claim to the throne through her royal bloodline . Eventually she came to regard herself as a Pharaoh in her own right, and performed many of the rituals traditionally carried out by kings, changing many of the texts and rituals to reflect “a feminine version of the theology of kingship. ” Hatshepsut went as far as to dress herself in traditional king’s clothing, including a false beard . Hatshepsut expanded the international trade of Egypt and commissioned many temples, and monuments (many to herself). In addition, Hatshepsut set out to rebuild and build-up parts of Egypt that had previously been affected by war. Most notably, she spent a great deal of time and effort renovating Karnak temple. She used Egypt and Nubia’s vast natural resources to fund her building projects. Her most famous project is the temple at Deir el-Bahri, a monument to her reign as pharaoh . As her nephew matured, she settled into a role as co-regent, controlling the domestic and economic aspects of the empire. Although Hatshepsut never technically ruled alone, she was obviously the dominant of the two rulers, often performing the King’s roles in the rituals . In his later years, Thutmose III tried to erase Hatshepsut’s monuments, achievements, and reign from history in favor of his own . Thutmose III and future pharaohs felt that Hatshepsut’s reign went against the ma’at (natural order).
One of the most enigmatic women in Egyptian history is Queen Nefertiti, primary wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV of the 18th dynasty. Her familial origins remain unknown, although some historians believe that her name (meaning, “a beautiful woman has come”) is a clue that she was a foreigner who arrived in Egypt to marry the pharaoh . Amenhotep IV, commonly known as Akhenaton, was famous for converting the Egyptian polytheistic religion into a monotheistic worship of the sun-god Aten, and to a lesser degree the worship of himself and Nefertiti. Nefertiti became associated with the goddess Tefnut, and took an active role in rituals traditionally meant only for the king. Nefertiti was always seen at her husband’s side, and functioned as his co-ruler. The rule of Akhenaton and Nefertiti was radical for the change in religion, rituals, and garments worn by the royal court . The art of the era was a complete departure from traditional Egyptian works, as it attempted to show a sense of realism instead of the ideal. Interestingly enough, Akhenaton is portrayed as androgynous or feminine in many depictions. The most famous piece of art from the reign of Akhenaten is the sculpted head of Queen Nefertiti . For years, Nefertiti’s fate remained a mystery. She seemingly disappeared after the death of one of her daughters, while a young prince named Smenkhkara emerged onto the scene to co-rule with Akhenaton . However, recent archeological studies have seemingly confirmed the fate of the queen. After the death of her husband, Nefertiti assumed the role of Pharaoh as Smenkhkara, with her eldest daughter functioning as her primary wife . Although her solo reign lasted under a year , Queen Nefertiti’s time in power is one of the most baffling eras in Egyptian history. From all accounts, Nefertiti was manipulative and kept Akhenaten under her control. For a woman to achieve such power over the pharaoh is nothing short of remarkable, and serves as proof to the influence a crafty queen can carry. Many future pharaohs would try to undo much of Akhenaton’s work and try to erase Nefertiti from history, as they were considered heretical in their monotheistic beliefs .
Cleopatra VII is perhaps the most well known Egyptian of all time. The lover of Mark Antony and Julius Caesar has appeared in plays, books, and movies since she famously committed suicide following her defeat at the Battle of Actium. Cleopatra ruled Egypt at the very end of its independence, following her death Egypt became a province of the new Roman Empire. At the time of her reign, women had lost much of their traditional Egyptian rights after centuries of Greek hegemony under the Ptolemy dynasty. However, despite her Greek origins, Cleopatra and the Ptolemies did adopt the Egyptian tradition of sibling marriage. Cleopatra ruled alongside two of her brother/husbands (Ptolemy XIII and XIV). However, although she officially ascended to the throne she was forced into exile until the arrival of Julius Caesar . Cleopatra allied herself with Caesar, gained full control of her kingdom, and fathered Caesar’s only son – Caesarion . Following Caesar’s murder, she allied herself with Mark Antony in the ensuing Roman civil war in the hopes of keeping Egypt’s independence. The defeat at Actium occurred in 31 BCE; Cleopatra committed suicide in 30 BCE after failing to secure peace with Augustus . This ended the reign of the Pharaoh’s and the Egyptian empire. Aside from her historical actions, little is known about Cleopatra herself. Caesar was supposedly attracted to her drive, ambition, and pride as well as her cunning political skills . The majority of sources regarding her are Greek and Roman, two cultures that greatly disliked her .
The role of women in Egyptian society was that of loving homemakers who did their part to make their society legendary. Female rulers like Cleopatra, Hatshepsut, and Nefertiti serve as examples of strong independent women who knew what they wanted, and overcame great societal boundaries to achieve their goals. While some may classify these women as manipulative, it’s important to keep the perspective that men with strict gender definitions wrote the surviving historical texts on these women who had to assert themselves to survive in their position. Typical women of Egyptian society (before the Ptolemaic Dynasty) were granted more rights than the average woman of the ancient world. While these wives and mothers still faced a rigid male-dominated social system, they were masters of all things domestic and evidence supports that they were loved and respected for their contributions. One of the most telling signs of Egyptians’ views towards women was their universal respect for Isis who was a sister, wife, and mother to some of the most powerful deities in the Egyptian pantheon. The idea of woman as integral to the universal cycle of life, death, and rebirth gave mothers a great deal of status within society. Although there is a lack of details, and a male-perspective bias, women in Egyptian society seemed to be revered for their hard work that many other ancient cultures took for granted.
Oxford, Vol. III, 510 – Women
Tyldesley, 20 – Women as depicted in Art
Tyldesley, 37 – Supposed equality before the law, women’s rights
Oxford Vol. III, 511 – Women; legal rights
Chaveau, 97 – Women’s rights in Greece VS Egypt
Littleton, 22 – Egyptian Cyclical Beliefs
Tyldesley 66
Tyldesley 72 – Details on childbirth
Oxford Vol. III, 512 – Women; importance of child bearing
Tyldesly, 40 – Life expectancy
Robins, 73 – Unmarried, and widowed women
Tyldesley 82 – Women’ role inside the home, home life
Mertz, 58 – Women in the home
Oxford Vol. III, 512 – Women Domestic roles
Mertz, 59
Tyldesley, 83
Oxford Vol. III, 512
Tyldesley, 123-124 – Descriptions of jobs women could perform
Tyldesley, 114-121 - Education
Tyldesley, 192 – Roles of the Queen
Mertz, 56 – Jobs of women
Tyldesley, 125 – Direct quote of Lady Nebet, Wife of Huy’s title.
Tyldesley, 121 – Male and Female job roles
Mertz, 58 – Women in Ancient Egypt
Tyldesley, 145 – Married Life
Robins, 63 - Divorce
Mertz, 59
Tyldesley, 58-59 - Separation
Tyldesley, 60-62 - Adultery
Oxford Vol. III, 511 - Women; Divorce
Robins, 71-72 – Male adultery with a married woman
Robins, 68 -70 - Infidelity
Robins, 66-67 Illegitimate children
Tyldesley, 47 – Direct quote from introduction to chapter on marriage
Ray, 43 – Matrilineal Theory Debunked
Oxford Vol. III, 107 – Queens female line hypothesis; definition of ‘queen’
Tyldesley, 199
Oxford Vol. III, 107 – Queens; Role of the principal wife
Tyldesley, 192 – Queen-Consort
Oxford Vol. III, 106 - Queens
Littleton, 11 – Egypt’s Divine Kingship
Shaw, 237-38 – Regency of Hatshepsut
Ray, 45 - Hatshepsut
Fletcher, 219 – Hatshepsut cross dressing
Shaw, 239-243 – Accomplishments of Hatshepsut
Oxford Vol. III, 108 – Queens – Famous Egyptian Queens
Shaw, 243 – Thutmose III’s sole rule
Littleton, 61 – The mythology of Hatshepsut
Tyldsley (Nefertiti, 42) – different book from previous Tyldsley citations
Tyldesley, 231-237 – Queen Nefertiti
Littleton, 33 – Akhenaton’s Art
Tyldesly (Nefertiti), page I
Fletcher, 327 – After the death of Akhenaten
Fletcher, 327 – After the death of Akhenaten
Fletcher, 333 – Powerful people wanted Nefertiti out of the way
Nardo, 36 – Caesar installs Cleopatra
Nardo, 38-40 – Alliance with Caesar
Discovery, 150-153 – The Last of the Pharaohs
Nardo, 42 – Romance with Caesar
Oxford Vol. III, 108-109 Queens; Cleopatra VII
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Woman in Ancient Egypt:
Evolution of Personal and Social Posi-tions
Anastasia A. Banschikova
Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies, Moscow
ABSTRACT
The shortage of direct documentary evidence on the evolution of ancient Egyptian marital and extra-marital relations stimu-lates an analysis of such a secondary source on gender history as its reflection in didactic literature, as it was aimed at treat-ing and discussing standard and common situations, problems, goals and values of everyday life. If we integrate all the data of Egyptian Teachings as far as the image of a woman drawn there is concerned, we will receive a complex picture of a gradual evolution of Egyptian stereotypes of the woman from the Old Kingdom concept of wife as ‘the second power’ in the married couple the relations with whom are to be mutually balanced and aimed at obtaining psychological harmony be-tween husband and wife as two autonomous friendly persons, – through the New Kingdom concept of wife as the ‘family co-manager’ of her husband, while their relations are aimed mainly at providing ‘usefulness for domestic wealth’ (at the same moment the motif of adultery emerges in the Teachings for the first time) Turaev to the Late Period concept of essen-tially, at heart bad and corrupted woman who is not regarded as a real personality anymore. This evolution reflects a gradu-al increase in individualization of one's personality and his/her behavior (and, partial disintegration of social life and corrup-tion of its values) which have been taking place throughout Egyptian social history on the as a whole.
INTRODUCTION
The lack of direct documentary evidence on the evolution of ancient Egyptian marriage (cf. general overview of the prob-lem: Robins 1993) makes such secondary sources as literary texts substantially important for any research into this field as well as into Egyptian gender history and family relations in general. It may be possible that the evidence of special interest can be provided through the analysis of Egyptian didactic texts as they, being inherently quite pragmatic, were aimed strictly at treating and discussing what was regarded as the most standard and actual situations, problems, goals, and values within the framework of everyday life of the texts authors' audience.
The main specimens of ancient Egyptian didactics – the so-called ‘Teachings’ – contain special information on the real ‘gender history’ of Egyptians as well as on the evolution of the women's image in ancient Egyptian literature. On the whole the Teachings form a specific genre of Egyptian didactics (from which we know about two dozens of specimens; see the gen-eral characteristics in Brunner 1998). Every Teaching is usually formally composed as a series of advice given by a wise older man to a young addressee (often to his son); this advice in-cludes maxims, considerations and recommendations for the main cases and situations of this addressee's daily life, whoev-er would he be. The aim of the Teachings (sometimes declared explicitly) is to give their addressees some detailed instructions how to achieve prosperity and success (especially in career and family life) and to avoid disasters in social behavior. The most well-known and copied Teachings try to reflect as many rele-vant situations and spheres of life as possible. This pragmatic and wide-scoped character of the Teachings makes them a very important source for reconstructing Egyptians' social values and social life. It must be emphasized that the Teachings (at least those available for us, i.e. which were rather broadly cop-ied in Egyptian schools and among Egyptian literate people for many centuries) were never aimed at expressing any original, individual point of view or at reflecting any extraordinary or exotic phenomena; they are concentrated on standard situations which any person from the audience would have to face in his life, and treat these situations staying firmly on the ground of pragmatic ‘common sense’. Thus, they reflect ‘average’ social life and ‘standardized’ social values, attitudes, and opinions of their audience. That is why they are used as quite representa-tive sources for gender history and for reconstruction of the woman's position in society too (Robins 1993). There is only one important restriction in this usage of the Teachings: they typically deal only with the matters of life of their audience, i.e. of the literate people; and to the latter belonged the repre-sentatives of all the upper social strata of the Egyptian society (including all the officials) and indefinably a large part of wealthy commoners. Thus, using the Teachings we can learn immediately almost only about the life of the upper and middle classes of Egypt. To what degree the lower and higher strata shared values in their family life is a problem which cannot be solved satisfactorily: the great majority of all other sources re-flect mainly the life of the higher strata too. (Though one of the sources employed below, Teaching of Ani, was, quite excep-tionally, addressed to the middle strata and common people as well; see Lichtcheim 1973b: 135).
As for our theme, two additional considerations are neces-sary: first, based on daily experiences and common mode of life, they present to the audience common women known to the latter, taken in standard situations, and depict typical eve-ryday occurrences involving women; second, the Teachings do not construct any individualized image of a person, they tell about ‘a woman in general’ (women in a special situation or of special status, but without specialized psychological character-istics). In other words, they deal with a generalized stereotype of women's behavior and character as it existed in Egyptians' minds of this or that period.
It must be emphasized that there are common features in Teachings of all periods on the point of our study: the act of a man in respect to a woman which is discussed in Teachings more than any other is ‘to take for a wife’, while the most dis-cussed act of a woman in respect to a man is ‘to give (him) a son’. These two main actions enjoy no changes in their presen-tation or attention provoked by them; thus, they are the main phenomena of gender relations from the Egyptian point of view in any period. The second of these actions is evidently the main aim of the first one. It was not this general view that was subject to changes throughout Egyptian history but the so-cio-psychological context of this view and, partly, its specific realization.
Not all the Teachings give us enough material on gender history. The relevant texts analyzed here are the Teaching of Ptahhotep, composed, as it is usually adopted, in late Old Kingdom period, the New Kingdom Teaching of Ani and the so-called ‘Satiric Letter’, and the Teaching of Ankh-Sheshonk belonging to Late period (for dating see in general Brunner 1998). As we shall see below, each of them gives some new trends in comparison to the preceding ones, and these trends correspond to some new phenomena in social life of the epoch in discussion (contrary to the broadly accepted opinion, ac-cording to which the Teachings of various periods express one and the same consolidated concept, see Müller 1977: 349). We have no evidence on our topic in the Middle Kingdom Teach-ings (those available are dedicated to the matters of politics and career not related to the family ones), but as Ptahhotep's Teach-ing was, as we know, carefully copied throughout the Middle Kingdom and early New Kingdom times, we can assume that it, being thus fit to the tastes and requirements of the Middle Kingdom audience, somehow matched the situation of the pe-riod, too.
PTAHHOTEP'S TEACHING
Let us begin with the famous Old Kingdom text, ‘Ptahhotep's Teaching’ (Dyn. V–VI, the 25th–28th centuries B. C., Turaev 2000: 84, cf. in Lictheim 1973a), according to which a hus-band must treat his wife as follows: ‘fill her belly’, ‘clothe her body’, ‘make her heart joyful’, ‘answer to her arms (in embrac-ing)’ (lines 290–299, Brunner 1998: 122). Ptahhotep warns a husband against such actions as ‘to bring a lawsuit against her’, ‘to be cruel (with her)’, ‘to reject/repel her’ (lines 295, 425, Brunner 1998: 122, 127). It is stated that a wife has free will to stay in her husband's house if she is content with her husband, but can easily leave it otherwise; a husband is to keep his wife from impulsive actions to which she is usually inclined, as a woman often follows any impulse caused by ‘what she sees in this or that moment’ (lines 338, Žaba 1956: 43).
We can see a peculiar fact: the Teaching has two sets of statements in respect to any member of a couple: the sets of examples of his and her positive behavior as well as of nega-tive one. A husband can treat his wife well or not, and it de-termines if he would be able to keep her in his house or not, would she be a devoted spouse, or, as Ptahhotep eloquently gives it, would turn into a flowing (away) water, river, or storm (lines 326–349, Žaba 1956: 42–43). It must be stressed that the Teaching emphasizes the inevitability of reciprocal reactions of a woman in return to her husband's conduct, and represents it as a natural and important factor of family life; a husband is obliged to reckon with these reactions and to modify his own mode of behavior in order to provide his wife's positive reac-tions. As a result, the relations between a husband and his wife are regarded as a joint result of the both sides' efforts, with a man presented as the dominating and initiative figure and a woman – as the reacting one (while their behaviors are recipro-cally dependent upon each other).
Speaking of relations with a woman who is not the Teach-ing addressee's wife, Ptahhotep insistently advises to avoid any sexual contact with her; even death is named among the nega-tive consequences of such an intercourse. By the way, Ptahhotep does not speak of any responsibility of the woman in this case; all responsibility is that of the man, the text deals only with the consequences he would face and warnings ad-dressed to him. So, here the woman is also represented as a ‘reacting’ partner only, and that's why the text lacks any special qualification of her behavior.
A substantially positive characteristic of women as social beings can be seen in a marginal sentence of Ptahhotep: ‘The beautiful speech is more rare than emerald but it can be found among the maids at grain-mortars’ (lines 52, Brunner 1998: 111). Taking into account the substantial meaning of eloquence for the Egyptian culture, this praise should be qualified as a very high one in spite of its concessive character; we do not know other examples of such appraisals in the Teachings.
On the whole, Ptahhotep regards a woman as the ‘second power’ in the family which has her own will and legitimate and sanctioned interests; the normal and harmonized family rela-tions are impossible without taking her desires and needs into consideration by her husband; and the main aim of a family life (as far as the relations between a husband and a wife are concerned) is, according to Ptahhotep, just the psychological harmony between them (cf. Müller 1977: 349), not only redis-tribution of the family power or firm formal regulation of functions in the family.
THE NEW KINGDOM TEACHINGS
(SECOND HALF OF THE 2nd MILLENIUM B.C.)
The New Kingdom text, the Teaching of Ani (known by copies of the times of Dyn. XXI–XXII [the 11th–19th centuries B.C.] but dated back to New Kingdom times [Turaev 2000: 199]), also gives us a picture of harmonized marital relations, but here it is not psychological harmony, but, contrary to Ptahhotep, rather a functionary harmony of two ‘co-managers’, ‘co-administrators’ of a family; it involves not so much feelings, emotions or personal ties, but a construction of optimal ‘ad-ministration’ of the family as a social and economic unit. ‘The Teaching of Ani’ says nothing about sensual or emotional as-pects of family life. Two sets of statements in respect to hus-band and wife – of positive examples and of negative ones (which we have already seen in the Ptahhotep's text) occur in the Ani's Teaching, but now they deal with other aspects of behavior. Such actions of a husband in respect to his wife as to ‘supervise the house’, ‘ask: where is this or that?’, ‘oversee silently’, ‘put an end to quarrels’, ‘avoid blaming’, ‘learn that she is efficient’, ‘know her skill’ are mentioned (lines 315–324, Brunner 1998: 210ff.). The mentioned wife's actions in respect to her husband are to ‘take counsel with her husband’, ‘set things on their (proper) place’, ‘accept her husband's hand’ (reckon thoroughly but voluntary with her husband's will) (lines 186, 318, 321, Brunner 1998: 205–210). If we compare this list to the Ptahhotep's text, we will see that the sphere of mutual reactions and mutual perceptions of a husband and a wife is reduced here from a whole complex of personal and emotional perceptions (which is represented in the Ptahhotep's Teaching) to a mere reproduction of formal ‘family order’ without quarrels; all the actions of a husband (both appreciated or condemned) mentioned by Ani are aimed only at the wel-fare of the family economy and family as the whole, as a sys-tem but not at the welfare of his wife as a unique personality (as it was in the Ptahhotep's text).
This perception of a woman in the context of her family duties only diminishes substantially her role in comparison with the Old Kingdom period. Another peculiarity is that Ani, contrary to Ptahhotep, does not mention any negative reaction of the wife to her husband's unworthy behavior. The most probable reason for this silence would be that Ani, contrary to Ptahhotep, did not think that a husband should take such reac-tions into consideration. The whole Ptahhotep's paradigm of reciprocity of husband and wife's ways of conduct and of the necessary auto-correction of the husband's behavior in order to obtain the wife's proper behavior is completely absent in the Ani's Teaching. Ani does not give any appraisal addressing women beyond the sphere of their domestic duties ([lines 316, Brunner 1998: 210]; cf. Ptahhotep's appraisal for the feminine eloquence, ‘the beautiful speech’ that can be heard from the maids).
A wholly new motif we face in the Ani's text and in anoth-er New Kingdom composition, the so-called ‘Satiric Letter of the scribe Hori’ (c. 13th century B.C., Turaev 2000: 212), is the appearance of a lonely stranger-woman, either a newcomer to the town (who comes there alone thus getting far from her hus-band) or just a foreign girl (the situation takes place in the Asian city of Jaffa). In both cases the woman in discussion becomes an initiator of free sexual relations/adultery with a man, and both authors, Ani and Hori, persistently recommend not to answer to such an initiative. Ani says: ‘Beware to get close to a woman unknown in your town; do not watch her when she passes by, do not take her. She is deep water which flowing is unknown. A woman, who is far from her husband, “I am (so) soft/smooth”, she tells you every day when there are no witnesses against her. It is a crime worth death penalty when it happens this way, because her mouth would not hold it with-in’ (i.e. she will divulge it herself; the possibility of death pen-alty for adultery is mentioned by Ptahhotep as well) [A 50–59, Brunner: 200 f.]. Cf. in ‘Satiric Letter’: ‘You find a beautiful girl who works in a garden. She makes you her lover and gives her body to you. But you were convicted and exposed’ [Pap. Anastasi I. 25,3–5]; as a result the man bears some punishment (not fully clear to us) which compels him to sell his properties.
Both texts mention dangers of witnesses and resulting pun-ishments for a man. Ptahhotep warned from adultery too, but he spoke just of any woman except one's wife, while Ani and Hori speak about strangers and foreigners; in other words, the New Kingdom didactics reflects a broader circle of possible sexual contacts of a person than the Old Kingdom one. This fact is most probably caused by much higher mobility of a per-son and a certain individualization of social life in the New Kingdom age of imperial expansion than in the preceding cen-turies. A thousand years earlier when Ptahhotep wrote, the chance to meet a foreign woman or a woman living alone in a stranger town was much lower than in the New Kingdom. It should be stressed that neither Ani nor Hori express any invec-tive addressing women who initiate adultery, though the latter inflict dangers upon the man; no punishment for these women is mentioned (obviously not because the woman was left un-punished while the man bore punishment but because the woman's fate in this case was of no interest from the authors' point of view). Thus, contrary to Ptahhotep's Teaching, in the New Kingdom text the initiative for adultery belongs to a woman, but social responsibility for it (as far as it is depicted in the text at all) lies upon a man. If we can judge by all these fea-tures, the New Kingdom was characterized by certain diminish-ing of the woman's personal position and role in the family on the one hand, and by the restriction of family harmony to ma-terial welfare and effective collaboration of brides as deper-sonalized ‘family co-functionaries’, on the other hand. Be-sides, we can see increasing possibilities for extra-marital sexu-al contacts (while the woman de facto can abuse much more individual freedom than before, up to conducting a lonely free life in a stranger town) and actualization of the corresponding topic in Teachings.
All these new trends in didactic treatment of the gender problematic during the New Kingdom can well correspond to more general and profound social changes which mark the New Kingdom period in comparison with previous centuries. It is well-known that the times of militarized monarchy of the Dyn. XVIII–XIX saw substantial increase in individualization, social mobility (vertical as well as horizontal), more dynamism in, and freedom of personal behavior, activity in self-realization, and private initiative in Egyptian life. Autobiog-raphies of noblemen often depict them as self-made men obliged for their career achievements to their individual initia-tive, personal will, unique qualities and extraordinary feats (es-pecially feats of arms) – all of this standing quite away from traditional routine of standard functionaries' skills expressed in their regular daily activities (the skills glorified first and fore-most in earlier centuries). The vertical mobility is even stressed by the role of the new social term nemkhu which defines offi-cials and dignitaries of completely ignoble origin who lacked any hereditary corporate traditions of state service and whose careers were based only on their personal virtues and personal favor of the king (Perepelkin 2000: 341 f.). The phenomena of individualization, mass semi-privatization and lease of state properties by persons of various rank became characteristic of the socio-economic sphere in this period (see Stuchevskij 1982: 125 ff., 246; Bogoslovskij 1983; Perepelkin 2000: 254f., 263–273). Fine arts and literature also show strong desire to escape from the frames of canons, to increase significantly the degree of individual creativity and free self-realization of the artist in comparison with the preceding centuries; e.g., probably the lyrics as such emerged as a literary genre just in this period.
As we have already discussed in detail above, the New Kingdom didactics while construing the woman's image shows the increase in the same very trends in the sphere of gender relations: individualization, personal social, intellectual, and emotional mobility. Even the new image of the married couple members as ‘co-managers’ of family ‘economic enterprise’ corresponds quite fittingly to the aforementioned burst of pri-vate economic activities in the New Kingdom and reflects, in my opinion, the social role of a person as the ‘manager of his/her own life’ who must realize his individual life strategy in his family and in the wider society, what was stimulated by the innovations of the New Kingdom time, both in economic and social life.
THE TEACHING OF AHKH-SHESHONK
Let us turn to the only teaching of the Late period containing vast information on our topic –‘Teaching of Ankh-Sheshonk’ (c. the 4th century B.C., Brunner 1998: 257). First of all, in this text we find a much more complicated relationship between the notions of ‘woman’ per se and ‘wife’, because here we find the notion of ‘beloved woman’, which can be applied to one's both wife and mistress, and it is just this expression, ‘beloved woman’, that serves now the main positive characteristic of a woman while the term ‘wife’ practically loses the immanently positive essence inseparable from it in the earlier times. The paradigm of possible ways of conduct in the family and love affairs involved in discussion by the author is also much broader than before and its perception is different.
Ankh-Sheshonk's attention is concentrated on the relations held by the presumable addressee of his Teaching with any-one's wife – either the addressee's wife (family relations) or another man's wife (adultery). Ankh-Sheshonk mentions the following actions of a man in respect to his own wife: ‘to catch her with her lover’, ‘to expel her from the house’ (because of her childlessness), ‘to loose her’, ‘to be ashamed to sleep with her’, ‘to marry a wicked/godless woman’ (lines 169, 196, 336, 434; Brunner 1998: 276–289). It is a set of sentences with the most general meaning, and it demonstrates from the very be-ginning a great contrast to all the earlier Teachings. The motif of wife's adultery is developed so vividly for the first time as well as the motif of divorce (on husband's unilateral initiative and forceful decision) because of the childlessness. All the things against which a husband is warned by Ankh-Sheshonk are, surprisingly, the attempts to find a real personal contact with, and psychological closeness to his wife and personal at-traction to her: ‘do not take a maid for her’, ‘do not open your mind to her’, ‘do not teach her’ (i.e., because it would be in vain in any case), ‘do not rejoice at her beauty’ (lines 170, 174, 177, 283 ff., Brunner 1998: 276–282). Thus, a husband is strongly recommended not to try to establish any confidence and personal mutual acceptance with his wife, not to be affect-ed for her and not to meet her wishes (what a contrast to the Ptahhotep's maxims). Then, the preoccupation in this late Teaching belongs to strictly prohibitive statements with respect to one's wife: while earlier authors usually recommended what positive things one should do in order to reach good family relations, the later authors tell mostly what one must forbid or avoid in order to keep himself safe from family evils. Thus, the whole paradigm of family relations seems inverted in per-ception presented by the Teaching under consideration, and negative recommendations acquire a basic role while positive advice – a peripheral one.
On the whole, the main new features traceable in this late source are as follows: the only aim of marriage is to acquire posterity; the woman's personality is fully ignored and/or dis-honored as well as any possibility to get psychological contact with her. The only example of family relations which provokes the Teaching author's special attention is adultery of a wife which is presented as a constant threat to every husband caused by the common nature of women ‘as they are’, not by any specific negative situation within this or that family. This ‘woman as she is’ is described as a creature which does not deserve any confidence and is unable to understand her hus-band (‘to teach a woman is the same as to try to fill a torn bag with sand’ [lines 177, Brunner 1998: 276]) but, lacking a real personality of her own (cf. comparison with an [empty] quarry [lines 417, Brunner 1998: 288]), tries instinctively to imitate some of his features. The Teaching's author does not ascribe to her any positive quality, and the negative one stressed by him is her full involvement in sensual pleasures and constant readi-ness to an adultery as a result. The thirst for sexual amuse-ments is described as the main factor of woman's behavior; the main feminine actions mentioned in these Teachings are ‘to be with her lover (in an adultery)’, ‘to have sex not with her hus-band’ [lit. with another man], ‘to lie in bed not with her hus-band’ [lit. with another man] (lines 169, 354, Brunner 1998: 276, 285). The author proclaims that the wife's attitude to her husband depends upon his sexual strength (lines 210–211, Brunner 1998: 278) and that the woman's heart belongs to the one who is always ready to make sex with her. It is argued that women cannot keep in secret any confidential information and are even inclined to stealing. Moreover, even such basic quali-ties as an ability to bring up a child or physical beauty are men-tioned in negative contexts: ‘Do not take for a wife a god-less/shameless woman otherwise she would make your child godless/shameless’ (lines 434, Brunner 1998: 289); ‘Do not rejoice at your wife's beauty – her heart belongs to (any) one who makes sex with her’ (lines 283, Brunner 1998: 282). The only feminine quality really appreciated here is practical com-mon sense and cleverness as far as the ability to run the house is concerned (lines 68, Brunner 1998: 270).
Thus, the Teaching of Ankh-Sheshonk does not give a pic-ture of marital relations aimed at the establishment of family harmony or at providing the wife's fidelity; such issues are not even matters of hope and do not serve as an ideal, their ab-sence is not lamented for but is taken as quite natural and inev-itable. The balance in the husband-wife relations is completely forgotten, only unilateral and forceful steps are recommended to a husband (up to the expelling his wife out of the house if she is childless, what demonstrates to the best childbearing as the only real aim of a marriage, according to Ankh-Sheshonk).
On the other hand, the lack of interest to one's own wife is compensated now by increasing interest to a woman of another family, to another man's wife. Ankh-Sheshonk gives numerous examples of the kind: ‘Do not take for yourself a woman whose husband is still alive, otherwise he would become your enemy’, ‘Do not sleep with a married woman’, ‘Do not love a married woman’, ‘Do not be frivolous with a woman whose husband has a higher position than yours’ (lines 58, 353, 384, 247, Brunner 1998: 270–287). Note that earlier Teachings also contain warnings only as far as the contacts with another man's wife are concerned. Sometimes such warnings are motivated by possible reaction of this woman's husband, sometimes the case is different and more complicated: ‘Do not sleep with a married woman, if one sleeps with a married woman in bed, then another man will sleep with his own wife on the ground’ (lines 358f., Brunner 1998: 285); ‘Do not love a married wom-an, if one loves a married woman, then his own threshold will be broken’ (lines 384f., Brunner 1998: 287). The warning here is again motivated by the harm threatening to the addressee himself, but this harm is not a direct vengeance or punishment for his crime. The same idea is typical of warnings against the third category of women mentioned in the late Teachings, i.e. prostitutes: ‘Who loves a prostitute (lit. ‘a street-girl’), (has) his purse is cut’ (lines 363, Brunner 1998: 286).
It must be noted that the negative consequences of one's adultery are represented as much less dangerous and harmful in later texts than in earlier ones; in the latter the man who was guilty in adultery was threatened with death (lines 281, Žaba 1956: 38), while the late authors think it necessary to threaten his addressee, eloquently and in all details, with no harder con-sequence of his adultery than the possibility of the addressee's own wife's adultery in the future. Such a situation corresponds completely to the fact that adultery is regarded by Ankh-Sheshonk as something ordinary and widespread.
Ankh-Sheshonk is the first Egyptian author known to us who uses concrete terms for denoting women (other than one's own wife) by their social position and status (‘another man's wife’,
‘a street-girl’). In earlier texts such women received only per-sonal or situative but never social characteristics (‘a beautiful girl’, ‘a woman who is a stranger to the town’). It shows most probably that extra-marital relations were now more common than before and became a daily matter, as they do not need to be characterized by any especially favorable situation (such as contact with a foreign girl in a foreign land or with a stranger girl in one's own town – which were the situations of adulteries described by New Kingdom Teachings) any longer. Besides marital and extra-marital relations, Ankh-Sheshonk depicts the sphere of personal relations lying in a wholly new plane: he uses the term ‘a beloved woman’ without any further concreti-zation (she can be one’s wife as well as mistress, married or unmarried), and she is the only feminine being in respect to which Ankh-Sheshonk recommends a man to take any care (‘do not say any bad thing to your beloved woman’ [lines 368, Brunner 1998: 286]). We can conclude that this recommenda-tion reflects a great increase in individualization of private life, as the recommendations are motivated not by a woman's this or that normative status but only by a man's personal, informal, emotional attraction to her. It is just this personal attitude that determines good treatment of her, while all other women (in-cluding one’s wife) are recommended by Ankh-Sheshonk to be treated as inferior beings unworthy any meeting their personal wishes and needs. The separated, independent existence and actualization of the terms ‘wife’ (with rather negative emotion-al loading) and ‘beloved woman’ (with fully positive emotional loading) clearly demonstrates that the marital love is not re-garded now as something necessary or really desirable.
Another interesting phrase which has no precedents in ear-lier Egyptian texts is as follows: ‘He, who is ashamed to sleep with his own wife, will never have a child’ (lines 349, Brunner 1998: 285). This absolutely clear remark demonstrates the phenomenon of actualization of the most peculiar and individ-ual patterns of family relations; no attention at all was paid to such deviant or uncommon psychological attitudes in the Teachings of preceding centuries.
On the whole, in the late Teachings the woman is described as a sub-social being unable to accomplish any valuable social-ization, to react adequately and worthy to her partner's good will who can only follow the simplest basic instincts. In other words, she is described as a being unable to function as a per-sonality. (She even imitates the character of her male partner).
Again, all these new features can be closely tied to great social changes that took place in the Late period: disintegration of the Egyptian society both in the socio-economic and politi-cal aspects. The processes of parceling and privatization in economics rose on a new level (up to the vast spread of per-sonal slavery, including debt slavery), the state split into many petty kingdoms and princedoms struggling against each other, and the society became a conglomerate of various state, private and corporate structures (Perepelkin 2000: 391 ff., 431 ff.). Social psychology reflected these processes by developing (for the first time in Egyptian history) a real ‘ideal of the hero’ glo-rifying a mighty person, a strong man, who realizes his own will without self-submission to any higher authority of legiti-mate power or strict social obligations (Bolshakov and Sushchevskij 1991: 22–24). The border between legal and ille-gal practice in social life lost its former definitiveness and im-portance. Many traditional social ties were neglected or torn. All this could not be regarded by didactic tradition otherwise than as the greatest ill and prolonged crisis, when what was ab-normal theoretically became almost a norm in practice.
The Late period Teachings, as we can see, share just this general attitude as far as gender relations are concerned. Ankh-Sheshonk's ‘misanthropic’ view on the very possibility of true sincere unity even in a marriage pair fits well the picture of overall disintegration of traditional social structures and values, and the way in which adultery is presented here – as something illegal, but generally spread and in fact rather tolerated and ha-bitual in everyday life – reflects a really distraught and chaotic condition of social life as a whole, thus plausibly correspond-ing to the general spirit of the period.
CONCLUSION
Integrating all the data discussed above, we receive a complex picture of gradual transformation of Egyptian stereotypes of the woman (as they are reflected in didactic texts) from the Old Kingdom concept of a wife as ‘a second power’ within the family, beloved partner, the relations with whom are to be mu-tually balanced and aimed at providing for psychological har-mony between husband and wife as two autonomous friendly persons, – through the New Kingdom concept of wife as the ‘family co-manager’ of her husband while their relations are aimed just at providing ‘usefulness for domestic wealth’ (lines 68, Brunner 1998: 270) (at the same moment, the motif of adultery emerges in the Teachings for the first time) – to the Late Period concept of essentially, at heart bad and corrupted woman who, as a rule, is not regarded as an independent per-sonality anymore (and, quite predictably, this attitude correlates with the perception of adultery as the most usual business). This evolution could reflect gradual individualization and in-crease in social and personal dynamism which have been tak-ing place throughout Egyptian history. Thus, gradual disintegra-tion of political and socio-economic ties in the Egyptian society correlates with gradual deterioration and disintegration of the family relations, as it is reflected in the Teachings, also provid-ing a picture of increasing corruption of relations not only in the family but in all the spheres of social life; the picture that had the universal dimension in the country inhabitants' Egypto-centric Weltanschauung. Unfortunately, the substantial scarcity of evidence on the core problems of family evolution per se, such as kinship system and marital residence pattern combined with methodological problems of even those scarce data's in-terpretation (see, e.g., Allen 1998), does not allow us to recon-struct directly the way in which social processes influenced family relations, so we hardly could install the literary trends discussed above into a detailed picture of the family structures evolution.
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