Hatshepsut, drunkenness, sexuality and faience balls

I've just come across Betsy Bryan's uploaded paper here (Bryan 2014). I had heard about her work, but shame on me, I never read her paper. And it is worth a read.

Anyway, within it (on page 110), I saw a faience ball which looks remarkably similar to three faience balls which we have in the Egypt Centre. To the right is a picture of ours and click here for more information on them.

Betsy interestingly suggests that faience balls like this might have been associated with the ritual of 'striking the balls' which is illustrated on the Deir el-Bahri Hathor Chapel of Hatshepsut and is associated with the Festival of Drunkenness. Here is a picture of it, on the right, from Naville's 1901 publication. The balls represent the eyes of the enemies of the sun-god, these could represent the aggressive or vengeful aspects of the Eye of Re himself. In certain ancient Egyptian myths the Eye of Re is sent out by the sun-god to destroy human kind. The god changes his mind and the Eye needs to be destroyed or placated. The first written example of this myth, The Return of the Distant One occurs on one of the four golden shrines of Tutankhamun where it is called The Destruction of Mankind. Once Hathor is placated she revives her father through her sexuality.

While the balls can of course not be proven to be associated with such rites they do seem to have had some votive purpose and were associated with Hathor (references from the Egypt Centre web site link here)

As well as the myth of The Return of the Distant One, alcohol and music played important parts in the festivals of drunkenness, as well as young women taking on the guise of Hathor. I have wondered if these young women are the adolescent but unmarried daughters of the tomb owner (nfrwt) and whether one of the items we have in the Centre relates to this, our Amarna lute player ring bezel, pictured here on the left (Graves-Brown 2014). More information on this item can be found here. This would mean that objects such as this were ritual rather than purely sensual.

One might ask why the nfrt, the adolescent, unmarried daughter was considered particularly powerful. There is evidence that women were considered to have a dual nature, mirroring the goddess Hathor, and that female sexuality was considered dangerous and in need of taming. For a bit more on this see a previous blog and Kasia Szpakowska's comments on it.  Xekalaki (2007: 48–49) discusses the taming of the daughter through sexual activity and motherhood. This idea is given support from a passage from the Instructions of Ani urging a man to take a wife and teach her to be a ‘human’, thus implying that women were only considered fully adult once they had married (Toivari-Viitala 2001: 52–53). Adolescence is a liminal time, and cross-culturally, the liminal is considered perilous.

This might explain the presence of semi-clothed young women in tombs, they were mirroring the revivication role of Hathor. Indeed, a similar idea is suggested for New Kingdom royal daughters by O'Connor (2010). The daughter appears to revive the father through inebriation and music, and in The Return of the Distant One Hathor is appeased through music and drunkenness and in her turn revives her father through sexuality. The festivals depicted on tomb walls seem most likely to have been amalgamations of several festivals in which the deceased would wish to partake, (Harrington 2010/14), though the Hathorian daughterhood and revivication through her sexuality could be vital.

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So thank you to Betsy for food for thought, and as usual some speculation.



Bryan, B.M. 2014. Hatshepsut and Cultic Revelries in the New Kingdom, In eds. Galán, J.M., Bryan, B.M. and Dorman, P.F. Creativity and Innovation in the Reign of Hatshepsut. Occasional Papers of the Theban Worshop. 2010. Chicago, 93–125.

Graves-Brown, C.A. 2014. A Gazelle, A Lute Player and Bes. Three Ring Bezels from Amarna.In ed. Dodson, A., Johnston, J.J. and Monkhouse, W. A Good Scribe and an Exceedingly Wise Man. Studies in Honour of W.J. Tait. London: Golden House, 113–126.

Harrington, N. 2010; 2014/in press 18th Dynasty banquet scenes: ideals and realities, In C. Draycott (ed.), Dining and death: interdisciplinary perspectives on the "funerary banquet" in art, burial and belief, Leuven, Paris. A copy of the unpublished paper can be downloaded from: https://usyd.academia.edu/NicolaHarrington/Papers (accessed Dec 2013).

Naville, É, 1901. The Temple of Deir el Bahri Part IV. The Shrine of Hathor and the Southern Hall of Offerings. London: Egypt Exploration Society. Pl. 100.

O’Connor, D. 2010. The King’s Palace at Malkata and the Purpose of the Royal Harem,  In eds. Z. Hawass, Z. and J. H. Wegner, Millions of Jubilees. Studies in Honor of David P. Silverman, Vol 2. Cairo, 55–80.

Toivari–Viitala, J. 2001. Women at Deir el–Medina. A Study of the Status and Roles of the Female Inhabitants in the Workmen's Community During the Ramesside Period, Leiden.

Xekalaki, G. (2007) Symbolism in the Representation of Royal Children in the New Kingdom. PhD, University of Liverpool.

Stereotypes of women in ancient Egypt. Gentle Bastet or aggressive Sekhmet?

This is a small amulet about 3.5cm high. It is made of faience and was loaned to us by Woking College.  It shows a feline goddess holding a staff and wearing a cobra headdress. It’s accession number is WK42 and you can see it on display in the Egypt Centre.

Although we have called this a 'Sekhmet amulet', and indeed amulets of feline-headed goddesses are often so categorised, strictly speaking it could be one of a number of feline-headed goddesses: Bastet, Mut, Wadjyt, etc. All were daughters of the sun-god Re. The feline head may be either a cat or a lioness. If a cat it is more likely to reflect the passive, nurturing aspect of the goddess, if a lioness, it is more likely to show her aggressive side.  The addition of the uraeus cobra may possibly be to reinforce the aggressive or protective side of the goddess and to show her as the Eye of Re, a daughter of the sun-god.

The Egyptians may not have minded exactly which goddess was intended. Indeed, in the New Kingdom tale of the Return of the Distant Goddess (time of Tutankhamun), the aggressive goddess Sekhmet is changed into the gentle goddess Hathor by plying her with alcohol! Additionally the Egyptians commented on the dual nature of the female comparing her to the goddesses.

Much Egyptian literature presents the stereotypical passive woman, the good wife, or the active but dangerous temptress. Literature was written largely by men for men, so we may assume that these were male views of women, although in the case of stories, it is likely that they were publicly performed for both men and women. There are always exceptions: in love poetry women are shown as actively ensnaring the male, but this does not seem to be regarded as subversive or dangerous.

In texts, the quiet, obedient wife is praised. An Old Kingdom husband praises his wife in a tomb chapel inscription: ‘she did not utter a statement that repelled my heart; she did not transgress while she was young in life’. Another wife is credited as ‘one who speaks pleasantly and sweetens love in the presence of her husband’[i]. The Middle Kingdom Instructions of Ptahhotep advise: ‘love your wife with proper ardor, Fill her belly, clothe her back . . . . ’ [ii]. But they also say ‘Remove her from power, suppress her! . . . Restraining her is how to make her remain in your house; a female who is under her own control is rainwater’.

The Middle Kingdom Tale of the Herdsman  recounts the story of a dangerous temptress: a herdsman sees a woman, possibly a goddess, in the marshes, she unclothes herself and the herdsman is terrified by what he witnesses. Unfortunately, this story survives only in fragments, but what we can piece together invokes the archetypal story of the watery siren, both erotic woman and terrifying monster. A parallel has been drawn in this tale with the story of the Mut goddess who resided in the marshy borders of Egypt and Libya.

In the Middle Kingdom Instructions of Ptahhotep, the dual nature of women is described:

One is made a fool by limbs of faience

And then she turns into carnelian.

Here the woman is described as both ‘faience’ and ‘carnelian’. The positive and beautiful blue of faience turns into the aggressive and fiery red of carnelian[iii]. The Tale of the Herdsman may suggest, in the unclothed nature of the woman, that it is women’s sexuality that was feared. However, in the Middle Kingdom there are some positive associations of women, such as the princesses in the Tale of Sinuhe, reviving the hero through the shaking of sistra.

The danger afforded by women continues in New Kingdom literature. In the Instructions of Ani, a man is warned of women traveling alone:

A deep water whose course is unknown,

Such is a woman away from her husband.

‘I am pretty,’ she tells you daily,

When she has no witnesses;

She is ready to ensnare you,

A great deadly crime when it is heard.

In the Tale of the Two Brothers, Anubis’ wife attempts to seduce her husband’s younger brother, Bata, and Bata’s young wife betrays her husband. In Truth and Falsehood, a woman rescues Truth, but then treats him badly after sleeping with him[iv]. While men may also be shown in an unfavourable light, in Egyptian tales it is usually suggested that women accomplish sinister deeds through their sexuality.

The dual and dangerous nature of the woman continues into the Late and Graeco-Roman Periods. In the Late Period, the Instructions of Ankhsheshonk remark:

When a man smells myrrh his wife is a cat before him

When a man is suffering his wife is a lioness before him[v]

In the Graeco-Roman, The First Tale of Setne Khaemwes, a character called Tabubu seductively dressed in transparent linen, ensnares the hero and then mysteriously vanishes[vi].

Women are rarely shown actively engaged in any vigorous activity in tomb art, and they appear as passive partners to the male. This is even the case in the Old Kingdom, where it could be argued that women had more status than in later periods. Men are shown striding forward, while women stand with their legs closer together. The man always sits on the right (superior) side and the woman on the left (inferior) side[vii]. By tradition, women may cling to, or adore their active husbands, but in a study of 42 New Kingdom couples, only 2 show reciprocal gestures of affection. Men are central while women show them deference( Whale 1989; Robins 1994).

Women are also shown as passive in Old Kingdom fowling scenes and in one case a woman urges the male to get a bird for her. Usually, women stand by their husbands, who are actively hunting the birds Two unusual instances of women depicted alone in fowling scenes have been noted, but the woman’s role is ambiguous in both instances as she is described as ‘viewing’ rather than ‘performing’ the activity . The lack of active female roles in art may be because Egyptian tomb imagery used women largely as sexualized images, placed in supporting roles to men.

The apparently restrictive nature of women’s clothes, as shown on tomb paintings, may have been because they were expected to be less active than men. However, it could equally be true that these clothes were not tight and restrictive, but merely appear so in ancient Egyptian art because the typical wrap dress would have been shown two dimensionally. Certainly, actual Egyptian women’s clothing found in tombs is not restrictive, but rather sack-like.

To a certain extent, the passive/aggressive duality and positive associations of passivity extend to deities like WK42. There are aggressive goddesses, such as the creative and active Eye of Re. While such goddesses are not necessarily seen in a negative light, the story of the dangerous lioness goddess, Sekhmet, sent out on a killing spree by Re shows this goddess must be controlled and changed into the passive and beautiful Hathor if humankind is not to be annihilated. The connection between deities and mortal women is described in Papyrus Insinger: ‘the work of Mut and Hathor is what acts among women. It is in women that the good demon and the bad demon are active on earth’

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[i] Fisher 2000, 3–4.

[ii] Lichtheim 1973, 69.

[iii] Troy 1984, 78.

[iv] Troy 1984, 211–14.

[v] Troy 1984, 78.

[vi] Lichtheim 1980, 127–38.

[vii] Fischer 1989, 6–7; Fischer 2000, 3–4.

Fischer, H.G. (1989), 'Women in the Old Kingdom and Heracleopolitan Period', in Lesko, B. S. (ed.), Women's Earliest Records From Ancient Egypt and Western Asia. Proceedings of the Conference on Women in the Ancient Near East. Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, November 5–7, 1987. Atlanta: Scholars Press, pp. 5–24.

– (2000), Egyptian Women of the Old Kingdom and of the Herakleopolitan Period. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Lichtheim, M. (1973), Ancient Egyptian Literature. Vol. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press.

– (1980), Ancient Egyptian Literature. Vol. 3. Berkley: University of California Press.

Robins, G. (1994), 'Some principals of compositional dominance and gender hierarchy in Egyptian art', Journal of the American Research Centre in Egypt, 31, 33–40.

Troy, L. (1984), 'Good and bad women. Maxim 18/284–288 of the Instructions of Ptahhotep', Göttinger Miszellen, 80, 77–81.

Whale, S. (1989) The Family in the 18th Dynasty of Egypt: A study of the representation of the family in private tombs. Sydney: Australian Centre for Egyptology.

Mentuhotep II embracing his wife

A diversion from my work- but related. Mentuhotep II embracing his wife Sadeh in his temple at Deir el-Bahri (from Naville 1910).

An unusual depiction of a king embracing a woman. Usually, the woman embraces the man. Mentuhotep is also shown embracing Ashayt. Such scenes are rare but not unique. A fifth Dynasty fragment from the mortuary temple of King Sahure shows the king embracing his wife. Embracing can show power relations as well as intimacy - in such cases however, the embracing is usually carried out by the lesser partner.

The temple tomb of Mentuhotep on the west bank at Thebes incorporates the tombs of at least 8 women. They are sometimes said to be his wives, but reality seems more complex.

Depictions of the king embracing do not occur in the 'wives' funerary structures. It has thus been suggested that the so-called 'harem' of Mentuhotep were only his wives for the purpose of cult. They are all priestesses of Hathor and their chapels designed to show the king's special relationship with this goddess.

For more information on this site click here.

Valentine's Day: Love is in the air

When I hold my love close
(and her arms steal around me),
I'm like a man translated to Punt
or like someone out in the reedflats
When the whole world suddenly bursts into flower.
In this dreamland of South Sea fragrances,
My love, you are essence of roses.

New Kingdom Love Song (translated by JL Foster).

The ancient Egyptians were clearly not totally morbid people, but like us lived and hoped and loved. So here we have a 'bouquet' of three items associated with love in the Egypt Centre:

AB23, part of a faience sistrum showing the goddess Hathor. Hathor was goddess of drunkeness and love, a gentle contrast to Sekhemet. For more information on this object follow this link: http://www.egypt.swansea.ac.uk/index.php/collection/75-ab23

W961p. A pendant from Amarna showing the deity Bes with tamborine. Bes often appears with Taweret in scenes associated with childbirth. You can find more about this object by following this link: http://www.egypt.swansea.ac.uk/index.php/collection/26-w961p

W1150. A ring bezel, again from Amarna, showing a nude or scantily clad musician with monkey. The figure and monkey are both associated with eroticism. For more information on this item follow this link: http://www.egypt.swansea.ac.uk/index.php/collection/40-w1150