Women in Egypt

Discussion Topics & Questions

Questions
[see The Queen's Husband and Nancy Luomala's essay]

  • Was Egypt originally a matrilineal society?
  • Was Pharaonic power conveyed through the female line?

    Gay Robins
    Women in Ancient Egypt

    Main Problems

  • (p. 12) "main problems...: first, the nature of the source material [archeological, textual, representational]; second, the interests and biases of Egyptologists."
  • (p. 15) "...the issue of father-daughter marriages in the royal family"
  • (p. 15) "Much of [the surviving material/written sources] comes from the New Kingdom or later..."
  • (p. 17) "...a study of women in ancient Egypt must almost wholly concentrate on women of [the] elite [scribal] class, together with women of the royal family about whom a certain amount of material survives."

    Discussion Topics

  • (p. 21) "Royal women in ancient Egypt derived their importance from their relationship to the King, who was always, apart from a very few exceptions, male"
    Discuss

  • (p. 56) "Defining marriage in ancient Egypt"
    Discuss

  • (p. 142) "In the Old Kingdom a large number of high class women were priestesses [hemet netjer] of Hathor."
    Discuss



    IMAGES OF WOMEN
    IN ANCIENT ART

    Chris Witcombe
    Sweet Briar College