Sex and Gender in Ancient Egypt: 'Don Your Wig for a Joyful Hour'

243 Pages·2008·16.745 MB·English

by  Carolyn Graves-Brown

Sex and Gender
in
ancient eGypt
‘
Don your wig for a joyful hour’
Edited by
Carolyn Graves-Brown
sex and Gender
in
ancient eGypt
‘Don your wig for a joyful hour’

Editor
carolyn Graves-Brown
Contributors
Kathlyn M. cooney, Thomas a. dowson,
terence duQuesne, Jiří Janák, renata Landgráfová,
Heather Lee Mccarthy, Hana navrátilová, r.B. parkinson,
Greg reeder, carolyn routledge, racheli Shalomi-Hen,
deborah Sweeney
The Classical Press of Wales
First published in 2008 by
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cOntentS
page
acknowledgements vii
introduction: Gender, sex and loss of innocence ix
Carolyn Graves-Brown (Swansea University)
1. the problem of female rebirth in new Kingdom egypt: the
fragmentation of the female individual in her funerary equipment 1
Kathlyn M. Cooney (Getty research institute)
2. Queering sex and gender in ancient egypt 27
Thomas A. Dowson
3. power on their own: gender and social roles in provincial
new Kingdom egypt 47
Terence DuQuesne
4. people vs. p. turin 55001 63
Jiří Janák and Hana Navrátilová
(czech institute of egyptology, prague)
5. Breaches of cooperative rules. Metaphors and parody in
ancient egyptian love songs 71
Renata Landgráfová (czech institute of egyptology, prague)
6. rules of decorum and expressions of gender fluidity in
tawosret’s tomb 83
Heather Lee McCarthy (institute of Fine arts, new york)
7. Boasting about hardness: constructions of Middle Kingdom
masculinity 115
R.B. Parkinson (British Museum)
8. Queer egyptologies of niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep 143
Greg Reeder
9. did women ‘do things’ in ancient egypt? (circa 2600–1050 bce) 157
Carolyn Routledge (national Museums Liverpool, and University
of Liverpool)
v
Contents
10. the bearded woman and the queen. the formation
and transformation of female divine classifiers 179
Racheli Shalomi-Hen (University of Jerusalem)
11. Gender and requests in new Kingdom literature 191
Deborah Sweeney (tel aviv University)
index 215
vi
acKnOWLedGeMentS
First and foremost i would like to thank my colleague Wendy Goodridge,
and former colleague Stuart Williams, who together did most of the hard
work in organizing the conference from which this book emerged. This was
a conference organized on a shoe string and a conference which, because of its
egalitarian approach, was not always a smooth ride. Wendy and Stuart have
been the driving force behind several of the egyptological conferences held
in Swansea, admirably complementing the work of the University’s degree
schemes. it has been an honour to work with them.
i would particularly like to thank anton powell for his moral support in
the lead up to and during the conference, and also for agreeing to publish this
volume. Both anton and ernest Buckley (who has splendidly typeset this
volume) have been constantly good humoured in their support of a novice
editor.
There have been several individuals and organisations whom i know
Wendy and Stuart would wish to join me in thanking. Firstly, UWicaH
were able to provide a financial contribution toward the conference, for
which we were extremely grateful.
Several individuals gave up their time to ensure that the event went
smoothly. We are much obliged to Bob partridge and peter phillips who
provided practical help, laughter and advice, even running the conference
raffle which enabled us to continue our Saturday Workshops for disad-
vantaged children. Our volunteers gave out packs, helped with food, and
generally made all feel welcome. especial thanks go to Kenneth Griffin for
his technical support ensuring that presentations ran without a hitch.
We are grateful to all participants who enabled the friendly and scholarly
atmosphere of the conference, and particularly to those participants who
generously submitted papers to this volume. Thanks are further due, without
incrimination, to the conference chair, Thomas Schneider.
alan Lloyd has been a great supporter of egypt centre’s several confer-
ences and immensely helpful in contributing his wisdom toward this volume.
Finally, thanks to Greg reeder for allowing us to use his image of ‘The two
Brothers’ on our publicity material.
carolyn Graves-Brown
vii
introduction
Gender, Sex and LOSS OF innOcence
Carolyn Graves-Brown
egyptologists share the ancient egyptians’ fear to travel beyond the realm.
(Guksch 1989, 41)
it was with some trepidation that in december 2005 the staff of egypt
centre, Swansea University’s egyptology museum, welcomed participants
to our third annual conference. The event had received extensive coverage in
The New York Times, Zone, The Sunday Times, The New Zealand Herald and
The Times Higher Education Supplement, largely in reference to controversy
surrounding the tomb of niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, but there was
also discussion sparked by certain fringe views. We were delighted by the
coverage, of course, but concerned that passionate debate was getting out of
hand. additionally, well-meaning colleagues had cautioned against organ-
izing a conference on gender as it would attract alternative views. Would we
bring egyptology at Swansea into disrepute?
in accordance with our remit to widen participation, the aims of the
conference included not only furthering research into egyptology but
involving diverse groups. as subjects sex and gender were felt by us to be
profile-raising and important to academic and non-academic egyptologists.
egypt centre colleagues, Wendy Goodridge and Stuart Williams, spent
months disseminating information to diverse groups, and ensured that this
conference was carried out in a true spirit of egalitarianism. debates ensued
on how a genuinely egalitarian conference could be organized. Should we
have a keynote speaker, should we try to attract ‘names’ by offering added
incentives to already famous and better paid egyptologists? How should
we choose speakers? it is our belief that thanks to delegates, the support of
various individuals especially anton powell, the centre’s volunteers and
University of Wales institute for classics and ancient History (UWicaH),
the conference succeeded. This was the first international egyptology confer-
ence to be held in Swansea and boasted over a hundred participants including
respected academics, interested amateurs and even those on the fringe. This
volume is a selection of the conference papers.
ix
Carolyn Graves-Brown
Here i will situate the conference papers within egyptological gender
studies more generally and indicate what i feel should be the way forward
for gendered egyptology and indeed egyptology more generally – to remain
queerly critical, to lose its innocent trust in mainstream authority. This way
forward i have singled out from many possibilities, not only because i feel it is
important to gender studies and egyptology, but also because it falls squarely
within the centre’s remit to welcome diversity. i wish to state, however, that
a number of egyptologists are taking this route, and my description of the
negative aspects of egyptology is a generalization.
Summary of sex and gender studies in Egyptology
i begin with an overview of gender studies in egyptology, which is not an
exhaustive description but rather a scene-setting selection. it is usually stated
that archaeology (e.g. Wylie 1997, 88–9) and egyptology (e.g. Meskell
1997) came late to explorations of sex and gender. On the positive side,
egyptology did not suffer from the extreme relativism or constructivism seen
elsewhere in early feminist studies, an apparent backlash against androcen-
tric gender essentialism. egyptology did not generally employ overstretched
generalizations but rather, using its traditional tools of philology and art
history, demonstrated that ancient egyptian evidence did not always fit the
normative patterns seen by some early feminists.
Scandinavian archaeologists were publishing feminist studies in the 1970s
(outlined in Sørensen 2000) though Gero (1983) and conkey and Spector
(1984) are often credited with establishing beginnings (Wylie 1997, 89;
pyburn 2004, 4). The earliest extensive published studies dealing specifically
with gender in egyptology are probably those of troy 1986, Ward 1986 and
Fischer 1989. troy’s work in particular could be described as methodologi-
cally radical for egyptology of the 1980s, using models of myth to construct
overarching views of egyptian queenship, though the data used fell squarely
into that of traditional egyptology – art and philology.
The early 1990s saw publication of two more typically orthodox works
on women in ancient egypt, those of Watterson 1991 and tyldesley 1994,
both intended for more popular appeal and thus easy and unfair targets for
academic criticisms. These books were structured along traditional euro-
centric and presentist lines (see Meskell 1997 for a review). The 1990s saw
an outpouring of publications in english on women in ancient egypt (e.g.
robins 1993 and 1994; Sweeney 1993; Gillam 1995; capel and Markoe
1996; tyldesley 1996, 1998; Sabbahy 1997; Wilfong 1999; Lesko 1999;
roth 1999; among others). robins 1993 was the first critical overview of
women in ancient egypt intended for the interested lay person but also
useful for the serious scholar. none of these publications was explicitly
x
Introduction
feminist or reflexive in the same way as conkey and Spector 1984 had been,
nor did they espouse general theories. rather, these were largely contextual
approaches, again often heavily dependent on egyptology’s noble history in
philology and art history and often assimilating new data.
Most studies of gender to date concern women, including those on
sexuality. For the pharaonic period, sexuality has been extensively examined
by Manniche 1987 and de araújo 1995. Meskell (particularly 1999, 2000)
discusses issues of embodied sexuality (see also robins 1988 and toivari-
Viitala 2001, 139–82). For ancient egypt, sexuality and fertility were very
much linked and there are extensive studies on rebirth1 and associated aspects
of fertility (to cite only a few: pinch 1983; O’connor 1996; robins 1996;
roth 2000). it might be assumed that the connection between birth and
rebirth was largely the reason why studies of sexuality centered on women.
However, as cooney (this volume) and others (references in cooney; see
also Meskell 2003, 119) have pointed out, for the egyptians, the male was
essential for birth and rebirth.
Studies other than those of heterosexual women are rarer. Male homosexu-
ality is discussed by parkinson 1995 and Montserrat 1996, 136–62. Lesbi-
anism is briefly explored by toivari-Viitali 2001, 159–61, and more extensively
for the Graeco-roman period and later by Wilfong 2002. Masculinity is rarely
discussed, except in references to homosexuality, but see parkinson (this
volume). additionally, Fox 1985, 305–7, discusses the passivity of the male
lover compared to the active female in egyptian ‘love poems’.
increasingly, egyptologists explore the detail of women’s lives, demon-
strating nuanced and contextual views (men are less rarely explicitly consid-
ered as a specific group, though one might argue that most studies of
egyptology implicitly centre on men). These deal with particular social
groups such as that of the chantress (Onstine 2005) or with specific places
(toivari-Viitali 2001; Sweeney 2006; Quirke 2007). Meskell 1999 considers
gender in relation to other roles and gender’s physical embodiment (2003).
Very often these studies show that there are no clear-cut patterns in women’s
lives in the past, that they rarely conform to stereotypes of women as
imagined either by traditional egyptologists or by early feminists. Grand
scale theories, whether of the traditional normative approach or of early
feminist approaches, do not always fit the egyptological data.
Montserrat 1996 and Meskell 2003 are unusual in egyptological circles in
using contemporary theory (in their cases Foucault) to analyse new data in
exciting and challenging ways. While egyptological studies are often descrip-
tive rather than explanatory and analytical, efforts have been made to explore
explanations for changes in gendered constructions: for example Galvin 1981
and Gillam 1995 explore reasons for the decline of the title High priest of
xi
Carolyn Graves-Brown
Hathor among non-royal women. There are also challenges to orthodoxy,
for example Küllmer’s 2007 thesis on the high status of women in trade and
weaving (in part contra eyre 1998).
additionally, gender research outside egyptology appears to have
influenced our discipline through reinterpretations of women who had
previously been seen in a negative light; Hatshepsut (tyldesley 1996) and
cleopatra (ashton 2003), for example. arguably, too, gender research has
led to an increase in interest in other ‘hidden’ groups such as children and
the aged (Feucht 1995; Janssen and Janssen 1990, 1996; Janssen 2006;
Szpakowska 2007).
it is within this context that the 2005 conference papers are situated, largely
nuanced, contextual works with several scholars using theory developed
outside egyptology. There are no sweeping generalizations in these studies,
but rather largely macroscopic individualistic approaches. Most deal with
women, with the exception of parkinson who considers masculinity and
dowson who looks at the normative approaches of egyptologists themselves.
Some consider the political constructions of past egyptological thinking.
Sweeney explores a new area in egyptology, that of gender and language.
She considers request strategies and their relationship to gender. it is
sometimes considered that women are more polite, an assumption not always
borne out by cross-cultural studies and moreover not borne out by the
ancient egyptian data, though of course what was considered polite in
making requests is difficult to fathom for ancient societies. While there is no
evidence that women were more polite, Sweeney does show that in stories
women sometimes had to try harder than men to achieve the same aims,
even to the extreme of threatening suicide if they did not have their own way.
(Some of us would claim the same holds true today!)
Shalomi-Hen shows that the development of the female divine classifier
is related to the rise of the male god Osiris. The female divine classifier of the
seated women is introduced in the Middle Kingdom to complement the rise
of the seated man, Osiris, as the male divine classifier. Further female divine
classifiers arose according to the need to differentiate between an ordinary
and divine female.
routledge re-examines the much-discussed but usually uncritically
accepted view that women are shown as passive in egyptian art. She considers
the term iri xt which corresponds to effective activity resulting in cosmic
order. This term is rarely used in relation to women, suggesting that they
were not considered suitable persons for maintaining cosmic order. Thus, the
passive role of the female may be understood as a product of the need for an
active male to maintain cosmic order. in some ways, routledge’s approach
xii