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She Who is Known to the King: Women in Ancient Egypt
From: The British Museum
| By:
Gay Robins |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Although it is known that Ancient Egypt was a strictly hierarchical society, exact roles for individuals in society are hard to define, and most mysterious of all are the roles played by women. Gay Robins analyses the titles afforded to women in Ancient Egypt, and the complexity of inferring from these arcane appellations the real status and role of the Ancient Egyptian woman. |
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| Votive Stela of the workman Penbuy, his son Amenmose, and his wife Iretnofret. | |
It is hard to write about women in Egyptian society when the structure of that society itself is not fully understood. Undoubtedly it was extremely hierarchical, and the elite class must have comprised many different strata depending on each office holder's position. At the top would be the high officials and their families: the vizier, the overseer of the treasury, the first priest of Amun, officials who were part of the central government. Below them would come the officials who served on the staffs in their departments. There would also be officials based in provincial centres whose importance would correspond to the importance of the place in which they held office, but who would presumably rank below officials of the central government. Beneath these would be officials and scribes attached to smaller and less important centres or institutions. Scribes were also employed on private estates, and these were possibly not part of the government bureaucracy at all. |
Because so little study has been made of society in general, let alone women in society, I can do no more than present a partial and simplified picture of what was surely a very complex structure. First I shall look at some of the titles attested for women of high elite families in the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, and then I shall examine the sorts of occupations in which we find lower class women, including work on the land. Finally I want to consider women as renters or owners of farmland, and women who may have helped with the duties of their husbands' official government position. |
For the Middle Kingdom, William Ward (Essays on Feminine Titles of the Middle Kingdom and Related Subjects, 1986) was able to distinguish the social status of three groups of title-bearing women based on the ranks of their husbands. The first group consisted of wives of high officials such as the vizier and provincial governors or nomarchs, down to men with the title of 'sole companion' which was the lowest ranking title of the upper hierarchy of officials. The second group were the wives of minor officials below the level of sole companion, and the third group was below that. The titles held by the women in each group were different. In the first group are found women who had the female forms of the prestigious male ranking titles iry pat and haty-ahat~r-a'; none of these were particularly common. Much more frequent were 'priestess of Hathor' (hemet netjer ent Huthor) and 'sole lady-in-waiting' (khekeret nesu matet) which seem to be markers of the highest social status. It is unclear whether a woman gained this status in her own right, or whether it was simply a reflection of the status of her husband; one is not, in fact, mutually exclusive of the other. |
In the second group, we find several common women's titles of the Middle Kingdom. One of these was 'citizeness' (ankhet ent niut). This continued in use into the New Kingdom and was the most frequent title of women at Deir el-Medina in hieratic documents (but not in hieroglyphic texts) where it would seem to indicate a married woman. Its fundamental significance, especially in the Middle Kingdom, is unclear. Another frequent title is 'lady-in-waiting' (khekeret nesu) which is related to 'sole lady-in-waiting' but puts its holder in a lower rank. 'Wab-priestess' is the feminine counterpart of a mab-priest. Finally, 'servant of a ruler' usually marks women married to minor functionaries. The 'ruler' probably refers to a provincial governor rather than the king, so this would not be a position held in the capital. The third group of women contains those who bear titles of minor professions, household servants, and attendants. In the Old Kingdom women with high status were marked by the use of titles that refer to the king. 'She who is known to the king' is the feminine counterpart of a title used by high officials. 'Noblewoman of the king' is another feminine counterpart of a male title. Both male and female forms of this were first used in the Sixth Dynasty, but the female version continued in use into the Eleventh Dynasty, while the male form died out at the end of the Old Kingdom. Finally the titles 'lady-in-waiting' and 'sole lady-in-waiting' were used from the Fifth Dynasty on. |
In addition to these ranking titles, there were female titles in the Old Kingdom which are clearly administrative. Women as stewards were in charge of storehouses and supplies of food and cloth, perhaps as an extension of their responsibility for these items within the family sphere. They also held positions relating to weaving, wigs, singing and dancing, doctors, tenant landholders, and funerary cults. Many of these women seem to have been in the service of other women and may not have been part of the state bureaucracy. Two queens had female stewards, while a princess who was the wife of a high official called Mereruka had not only a female steward, but also a female 'inspector of treasure', 'overseer of ornaments', and 'overseer of cloth'. The one female overseer of doctors known was possibly in charge of female doctors who attended a queen mother. Otherwise doctors were normally male. |
Women singers and dancers were often supervised by female overseers, but alongside them there were also male overseers. The evidence seems to show that while men could oversee women, women probably did not oversee men. In comparison with male administrative titles, those used by women occur far less frequently and in far less variety. The only high administrative title attested for a woman is that of vizier once in the Sixth Dynasty. It is unclear whether its use was honorary or functional, but the very fact that the example stands alone and causes such surprise underlines the overwhelming absence of women from the administration. |
In the Middle Kingdom, women still had a few administrative titles, but they seem to have been fewer and even less common than in the Old Kingdom. We have already discussed the title 'female scribe'. We also find 'keeper of the chamber', 'butler', 'overseer of the kitchen', 'major-domo', and 'sealer'. All these are more commonly found in the masculine form, held by men. They relate to households, and perhaps belong to women in private not government service, possibly responsible to another woman. Henry Fischer, in a study of women's titles in the Old and Middle Kingdoms, concludes that 'it is difficult to avoid the impression that women of the Middle Kingdom were less frequently and significantly engaged in administering people and property than was previously the case--not that their role was ever of great importance except, of course, in the case of mother, wife, or daughters of kings.' |
The title 'lady-in-waiting' is also found in the New Kingdom, where it is used by the wives and sometimes the daughters of high officials. For a long time the title was taken to signify a royal concubine. Two scholars have pointed out the unlikelihood of this, since so many of the women were married to high officials. It hardly seems possible that the king would have relinquished his sexual rights over these women and handed them on to his officials as 'royal rejects'. Instead it is now proposed to see the title as signifying some sort of court position. Such an appointment would confer status and be appropriate for the wife of a high official. By the Eighteenth Dynasty the form 'sole lady-in-waiting' was no longer used, leaving 'lady-in-waiting' as the main form, which now carried high status. There is also another form found, 'great lady-in-waiting' (khekeret nesu meret). |
An important New Kingdom title which related the holder to the king is that of 'wetnurse of the king' (menat nesu and variants). These women are mostly known from the monuments of their husbands and sons, who are in the main high-ranking officials. This intimate connection with the royal family, especially with a future king, could bring royal favour to the whole family, and advancement for the male members within the bureaucracy, since as children of the king's wetnurse and thus milk brothers of the king, they were likely to have formed part of the king's intimate circle in his childhood. The position of 'wetnurse of the king' was not an office within the state bureaucracy, yet it was one that carried the potential for influence with the king himself, and therefore was a likely avenue of power. Literacy was unnecessary since the qualification for the position was the ability to produce milk, a biological function that only a woman could fulfil. We do not know how long a royal nurse remained with her charge after it had been weaned. |
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