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Nefret rolled up the family sleeping mats and piled them against the wall. She took the short reed brush and swept the dirt floor even and smooth again. Going out to the first room of their house, she looked out the small wooden door. Her mother was not yet coming up the street from the pen where they kept their pig. Her father and two older brothers had already left for the South Tombs when the disk of the sun appeared. Her father was a stone cutter, and her brothers hauled away the baskets of chipped stone. Today was the day of the week that Nefret always hated, grinding day—many hours kneeling and grinding enough grain in order to bake bread for the whole week. Her knees and shoulders always hurt, but she didn’t want to complain. She wanted to learn to be a weaver, like their neighbor, who made linen cloth and traded it for wheat already ground.
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HOUSE
Archaeologists have excavated ancient Egyptian towns and villages and found remains of fairly well-preserved houses. Although the roofs have collapsed, and the tops of the walls are mostly worn away, the plan of the rooms can be seen, and sometimes objects are still in them. Just like in the modern world, there were large, fancy villas as well as small, cramped houses. The houses themselves, whether large and fancy or government housing, were almost always made out of mudbrick, and the walls were covered with mud plaster. The interior walls could be whitewashed and decorated. The houses were roofed with wood, such as palm or acacia wood, or were covered with other plant materials, such as straw and reeds. Some evidence, such as the remains of a stairway, points to two-story houses, or even three-story, but they may not have been that common. Doors and window frames could be wood as well. Doorsteps, basins, and column bases were stone, but other than that, stone was not used for everyday buildings; stone was used for temples and tombs, as they were to last forever. House floors were generally packed dirt, although in nicer homes, the floor could be done with mudbricks.
A VILLA AT AMARNA
Ancient Egyptian house plans were somewhat standardized, as in all but the smallest houses, there was always a core unit of three rooms arranged in a square that formed the central part of the house. Ancient Egyptian houses were multifunctional, and the largest room of the center part might also have served as the house owner’s office. This room was square shaped and the largest room of the house, which is another statement of its importance. Usually, several pillars in the room held up the room’s ceiling higher than the ceiling in the rest of the house, so openings or vertical windows let in light and air. Behind the large room was a much smaller room for a bed and another for a bathroom, which is thought to have belonged to the “man of the house.” Bedrooms in ancient Egyptian houses can always be recognized by a niche in the room, which marked the space for the bed. Outside of villas at the New Kingdom city of Amarna dating to the reign of King Akhenaten (1352–1336 BCE), and several New Kingdom (1550–1069 BCE) royal palaces, evidence for bathrooms is not preserved. The bathroom was small and lined with plastered walls and with a stone floor. Water had to be brought into the bathroom, and there was a pipe leading from it to the outside of the house where the water could sink into the ground. Wooden toilet seats have been found and may have been placed over pots that were taken out and emptied.
Anyone let into one of these large villas by the front door would have to turn and go through two or three small rooms to reach the large central room, making it a fairly private space. Inside the wall of the house, but outside of the central core of rooms, other rooms were used by the members of the household, as well as the servants and workers who took care of the food and all the other daily chores. Some villas have a second, smaller version of the central core of rooms behind or beside the main one, and this is assumed to have been the wife’s bedroom, perhaps for her and the children, although there is no evidence to prove this.
Some studies of the plans of the houses at the city of Amarna have concluded that they “were predominantly two-story buildings” (Spence 2004: 151) and that a second story would have covered approximately 60% of the house. Having a second floor would have moved much of the more private family life upstairs, leaving downstairs for more of the work-based activities. In fact, the study suggests that the upper floor would be planned as an area for women.
VILLAS AT LAHUN AND THEIR DOMESTIC LAYOUTS
Nine very large villas were excavated at the Middle Kingdom (2055–1650 BCE) site of Lahun in the Fayum. They were built on the northeast side of the town, where the land was higher up than the rest of the town, and these elite, and perhaps even royal, villas received the clean and cooling prevailing winds coming from the northeast. Down in the lower part of town were much smaller houses, along with a walled-off portion of the settlement that seems to have been for laborers only. Each of these large villas had a set number of three core rooms. The first in the center part of the house was the reception area/office and private rooms for the man of the house. Alongside that was another similar but smaller unit that could only be entered from the private part of the man’s unit. It is thought, therefore, that this unit was for the lady of the house and other family members. On the other side of the man’s unit, but with no connecting door from the private part, was a third similar unit. This unit stretched out along the whole side of the house and connected to storage rooms and the granary for the house. This unit also had its own entrance from the outside and was connected only to the outermost of the reception rooms belonging to the man’s part of the house. It is thought that the steward of the house and the servants must have lived in this part.
THE TITLE “LADY OF THE HOUSE”
Beginning with the Middle Kingdom and lasting down into Ptolemaic times (332–360 BCE), the most frequently used title for a woman was “Lady of the House”; in ancient Egyptian, nebet per. It is assumed that this title was given to the wife of a homeowner, and it implied that she was in charge of the household, whether large or small. However, it is problematic to find archaeological evidence that gives us an idea about the position and status of this woman or what particular rooms or spaces in the house were hers or used by her. Maybe the central core of rooms was just as important to her as to her husband? Maybe she shared this core space with him and it was her sitting place and sleeping place as well? Or, in a very large villa, she may have had a set of core rooms of her own, and her management of the house was carried out from there, just as her husband used his sitting room as an office. Ancient Egyptian villas have been referred to by scholars as “hybrid households” as they were spaces that were both lived in and used for official purposes (Picardo 2015: 244).
Seal impressions of five women with the title nebet per, “Lady of the House,” were found in association with an area of large villas in the ancient town of Wah-Sut in southern Abydos, dating to the later Middle Kingdom (1870–1650 BCE). A seal impression refers to a piece of mud that has been impressed by a stamp and placed over the opening of a vessel, box, door, linen bag, or a papyrus document. To open the object it is on, it is necessary to break the seal. These seals from Wah-Sut suggest that the women named on them were “in charge of wealth stored in boxes (or behind doors)” (Nelson-Hurst 2017: 136). This wealth could have been jewelry, or possibly expensive commodities like unguents, oils, or other luxury items.
The New Kingdom tomb of Djehuty-nefer at Thebes, Theban Tomb 104, dating to the reign of King Amenhotep II (1427–1400 BCE), is a painting of his multistory townhouse. Djehuty-nefer is depicted seated on a chair in the central large room, while food and drink are being brought to him by a female who is possibly a servant. In another smaller room, he is also shown seated while others are seated on the floor in front of him. The lady of the house does not seem to be depicted, nor are any rooms that may have been hers. The other rooms shown all have servants at work spinning, weaving, grinding, and preparing food. Since the tomb belonged to Djehuty-nefer and the scenes were to present his official life, adding in his wife may have been irrelevant. His wife does appear in religiously related scenes in the tomb, however, such as being seated at an offering table with her husband.
VILLAGE HOUSES AT AMARNA AND DEIR EL-MEDINEH
Small village houses had three to four rooms. These houses are best preserved at Deir el-Medineh on the West Bank of Thebes and at the workmen’s village east of the city of Amarna. This village at Amarna was surrounded by a large square wall, and the houses were arranged in six rows, with five narrow streets in between. The houses all had the same layout of three rooms, the last one of which was divided into two spaces. The first room is thought to be a multiuse family area.
There is evidence in some of these houses that a horizontal loom had been set up in the first room, so the woman of the house must have been involved in weaving, perhaps producing cloth for her own family and trading it with the neighbors as well. Other evidence points to animals kept in the first room and that rather than a roofed room, it was a small unroofed courtyard. In many of the houses, one of the rooms in the back has a blackened wall, so this room must have been the space used for cooking. This would have made the house a very smoke-filled place. Some of the houses, when excavated, seem to have evidence of roof material and oven fragments in the uppermost levels of fill in this back room, suggesting that the material fell down from above. If the woman of the house cooked in an oven on the roof, that would have alleviated the smoke problem. Since the roof and what was on it collapsed down into the room below, evidence for an oven on the roof could be missed, if the excavator was not careful. Early archaeologists tended to clear out rooms, not thinking that the strata inside them were important.
The village of Deir el-Medineh, as it remains now, dates to the Ramesside Period (1295–1069 BCE). It was also a walled village but had a long rectangular shape with one main street down the middle. Approximately seventy houses were built, perpendicular to the street with the house doors all opening onto it. These houses each had four rooms all in a row. First was the outer room with front door to the street. This room often contained a small, rectangular, enclosed platform with several steps leading up to it. It was plastered painted white and commonly decorated with figures of the god Bes, the protector of children and pregnant women. There have been various suggestions put forth for the purpose of this platform; undoubtedly it was associated with the magical protection for newborn babies.
The remains of the New Kingdom workmen’s village of Deir el-Medineh on the West Bank of Thebes. (Kar Wai Chan/Dreamstime.com)
The second room always had a dais, probably for sitting on, and a niche for either a stela or an ancestor bust commemorating a deceased ancestor. Because of the sitting area and the special space for ancestor worship and offerings, this room may have been the main family room. This room also had a wooden column in the middle of it that held up a roof higher than that of the other rooms. This allowed vertical window slots to let in air and light. This room also often had a small cellar dug down under it, which was used as a storage space. Beyond the room with the column was another small room that is usually called a bedroom, although that might be a modern interpretation and not correct. At the very back of the house was the kitchen.
THE KITCHEN AND COOKING UTENSILS AND CONTAINERS
A kitchen is usually interpreted as a space for women, and it is assumed that ancient Egyptian women did the daily cooking, just as women do today. When the houses at Deir el-Medineh were excavated, some of the kitchens had a bread oven, a grinding stone, or quern with a handstone. Some of the kitchens even had a small silo, or a large pottery vessel for storing grain or water, still in place. Cooking pottery was also found in some of the kitchens. Similarly, some houses in the workmen’s village at Amarna still had a cylindrical clay oven preserved in the back corner of the house.
It was traditional that women did the grinding of grain for the household. We have written evidence that at the village of Deir el-Medineh, as grinding was considered to be a tiresome chore, servant women were brought in to grind the grain for the households. The two staples of the ancient Egyptian diet were bread and beer. Emmer wheat was ground for making bread, and barley was ground for making both bread and beer. Grinding would have taken a significant number of hours every day. If the grinding was done kneeling down and rolling a handstone on a grinding stone, the work would become very uncomfortable after a time and would have caused skeletal changes in the woman’s upper spine, knees, and feet that would have eventually caused pain and discomfort. For that reason, by the time of the New Kingdom, a quern, a sloping stone set up on a platform, was used so that the woman grinding could stand and do the work without the physical discomfort of kneeling. One other problem with grinding grain was that small fragments of stone would get in with the grain, along with sand, which was sometimes added on purpose to break down the grain faster. By eating bread, the ancient Egyptians chewed on sand as well and wore down their teeth terribly. Almost all ancient Egyptians of older adult age suffered from extensive dental problems because of this.
It is usually stated that the kitchen at the back of the house was left unroofed, but it is also possible that early excavators did not recognize that decayed wood or plant material or even bits of clay from plaster could have been from a roof that caved into the room. Some of the kitchens had evidence of stairs that led up either to the roof or possibly to a second-floor room. Clearly, several of the village houses at the workmen’s village of Amarna had staircases up to a second floor where the oven was put in order to keep smoke out of the house, but this can’t be proven at the village of Deir el-Medineh.
DAILY FOOD AND DRINK
A great deal is known about what food was available to the ancient Egyptians. Food was actually placed in tombs for the deceased to eat in the afterlife, and food was depicted in tomb scenes as well, being prepared and offered to the deceased. The ancient Egyptians believed that the living, the dead, and the divine, all had the same physical needs and needed to eat and drink. The so-called false door of an ancient Egyptian tomb, which was located inside the tomb chapel and “walked” through only by the soul of the deceased in order to receive food in the afterlife, is inscribed with an offering formula that begins: “A thousand of bread, a thousand of beer, a thousand of oxen, and a thousand of geese.” Just in case the soul-priestess, or ka-priestess, did not come every day with food for the deceased and place it before the false door, the formula itself could magically feed the deceased.
At North Saqqara, archaeologists found a tomb from the time of the Second Dynasty, around 2900 BCE. The burial inside was that of a woman, and they found that an entire set of dishes with food was laid out by her coffin. Based on visual examination, the meal was composed of porridge made from ground barley, a cooked quail, two cooked kidneys, pigeon stew, cooked fish that had been cleaned and the head removed, ribs of beef, small triangle loaves of bread, a small circular cake, stewed figs, and a bowl of berries. As this meal was meant for the afterlife, was this a particularly fancy and extravagant meal, or was it what this woman would have eaten at home?
The main problem about food is that we don’t know basic things about how food was prepared, as there are no recipes or cookbooks known from ancient Egypt. It is estimated that only 2% to 5% of the ancient Egyptians were literate, so there was probably no point for written out recipes. People who cooked taught others, just by showing them. Mothers must have had their daughters in the kitchen with them, teaching them how to cook, and so knowledge of meal preparation was passed down through the generations, person to person. We also don’t know typical mealtimes in ancient Egypt, or even how many meals a day were eaten. It is logical to think that Egyptians started their day with breakfast. We do know that services in temples, which included feeding the deity, took place three times a day, with the most important service being at dawn, so maybe people ate at dawn as well and then had two more meals later in the day.
The main food and drink that the ancient Egyptian housewife had to prepare and have available every day were bread and beer. The bread could be made of emmer wheat or barley. Wheat made a finer and perhaps more expensive bread, which was round and thin, like modern pita bread. The majority of Egyptians probably ate barley bread more often. This bread was baked in molds and came out cone shaped. Bread was made in various shapes, especially for festivals. It could be sweetened and made into a dessert; honey cake was a special dessert. Honey, figs, and dates were used if anything needed to be sweetened, but probably honey was expensive and not used by most Egyptians.
Beer was made from barley and was very thick, like a soup, and had to be strained before drinking. It was made on a weekly basis, like bread was. It was not as alcoholic as beer is nowadays and was also quite nutritious. Ancient medical texts mention giving this barley beer to women after childbirth in order to build up their strength. Women seemed to have made the beer, perhaps because they also did all the grain grinding, and it was a task that could be done in the house. The production of wine seems to have been a male activity. There is a tomb scene that shows a woman picking grapes along with men, but otherwise scenes of the treading and pressing of the grapes, filling the wine jars, and taking care of the wine cellar all depict men.
It has been said that the typical ancient Egyptian workmen’s meal was bread, beer, and onions (Wilson 1988: 21). Was that also what women and children typically ate as a meal? Did families eat together or at specific times? We really don’t know. Meals were probably plant based, rather than protein based, because vegetables, lentils, and beans would have been more affordable for most people. Small gardens could have been planted near village houses so that people could grow their own onions, cucumbers, and Romaine lettuce, which were the most common vegetables.
We know ancient Egyptians fished in the Nile, where there were numerous species of fish, mullet, and tilapia being two of the most common fish eaten. Ducks, geese, and pigeon were raised, while wild birds, such as crane and coot, were caught in nets in the swamp. The ancient Egyptians ate the eggs from these wild birds, as the chicken did not appear in Egypt until Ptolemaic times (332–30 BCE). Egyptians also raised pigs, goats, and sheep. Milk from goats and sheep was used to make cheese. Along with fish, pigs were the main source of protein for the majority of the population. Beef was a very expensive, elite protein and also the meat that was offered in temples to the gods and goddesses. Also expensive was wine, which the ancient Egyptians made out of both white grapes and red grapes. In the New Kingdom, there was a second kind of red wine, which until recently had been thought to be made from pomegranates. Tests on the residue in a wine jar from the tomb of Tutankhamun proved that it was made from grapes.
There are some tomb scenes depicting the cooking of meat. It could be grilled on skewers over a fire or else put into a large pot and boiled like stew. We have no idea, however, what was put into the pot with the meat or what types of seasonings, if any, were used. The Egyptians did have onions and garlic, celery, cumin, and fenugreek, as well as herbs and spices, although identifying them by their ancient Egyptian name is often difficult. The only way to keep meat, bird, or fish was to dry it in the sun and pack it with salt.
In the New Kingdom that started around 1550 BCE, Egyptian pharaohs went north into the area of Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon with military expeditions, where they ultimately controlled an empire. The environment of the Northern Empire was very different from that in Egypt, and so the Egyptians of the New Kingdom imported many new foods from the north into Egypt, including apples, dates, pomegranates, almonds, walnuts, sesame seeds, and sesame oil, as well as olives and olive oil. The trees to produce these fruits, nuts, and seeds also became grown in Egypt. The diet of the Egyptians was added to again in Ptolemaic and Roman times when such things as citrus fruits, chickens, and pepper were brought in from India.
FURNITURE
Quite a bit of evidence for furniture has been preserved from ancient Egypt, as furniture was placed in tombs for the deceased to use in the afterlife. Furniture is also shown in many tomb scenes, providing pictorial evidence for furniture use as well. The ancient Egyptians did not have many pieces of furniture in their houses, however. This might have been because Egypt never had the environment in which good wood-bearing trees would grow. The trees used for furniture were mostly acacia and sycamore, which only produce fairly short pieces of timber. Other types of wood, such as cedar, had to be imported from Lebanon and was for the most part used for royal furniture.
There were beds, but they were small and equivalent to the size of what would be a single bed nowadays. The assumption made by modern scholars is that such a bed would have been used only by one person, but that might not have been true. Ancient Egyptian beds had footboards, not headboards. Some beds slanted down so that the foot end was closer to the ground. The “mattress” for the bed was made of fiber, or sometimes leather cords, crossing back and forth from one side of the bed to the other. Two complete and made-up beds with headrests were found in the tomb of Kha and his wife, Merit, at Deir el-Medineh on the West Bank of Luxor. Although this site was a workmen’s village, Kha seems to have been a man of some status and wealth. On her bed, Merit had sheets of light linen and a blanket made from heavier linen. Merit would have slept on her side with a U-shaped headrest on a base to hold up her head. The headrest is wrapped with linen to make it more comfortable. Most people probably just slept on a rush or reed mat that was rolled up and put away during the day.
There is usually only one chair found in a tomb, and it seems to have belonged to the man of the house, who was also the tomb owner. One such chair was found in the tomb of Kha and Merit. It was even found with a statuette of Kha standing on the chair, and the chair has two inscriptions giving his name. Also found in the tomb was a small, rectangular, wooden table and four wooden stools, one of which could fold up. A tomb with furniture for the afterlife was probably restricted to fairly well-off officials and their family, and most of the people in ancient Egypt must have sat on mats on the floor, or on a dais, but not on furniture. All these pieces of furniture were built with rather short legs, so that the person sitting on the chair or laying on the bed was much closer to the floor, than in most modern furniture. All furniture was also made out of wood, although furniture for royalty could also have parts of it in ivory and gold.
A wooden jewelry and cosmetic box from the Eighteenth Dynasty, found in a tomb at Thebes. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
People’s personal belongings were kept in wooden boxes; there were no drawers, cupboards, or clothes closets in ancient Egyptian houses. Clothing, footwear, jewelry, and toiletry items were all kept in wooden boxes. These boxes could be with or without short legs, and inside these could be divided into compartments designed to hold different objects. These compartments are most commonly found in boxes for jewelry and cosmetics. Jewelry boxes tended to be smaller and much more decorative than the other boxes, and ebony, ivory, and faience were often applied to the wood or used for the handles.
Merit had a rectangular wooden box put in her tomb when she was buried (Vassilika 2010: 51–53). When it was found, the box was still tied closed and sealed with a mud sealing. A short inscription on the side of the box, which must have been added just before her burial, says that it is for Merit’s soul. The box was painted with a checkerboard pattern and rows of lotus blossoms and divided into five compartments inside for her cosmetics. She had four alabaster jars, three with covers and one with a little silver handle. She had one unusual jar made out of a horn, with a bronze handle, and one tall-necked faience jar. She also had a dark blue jar with a lid made out of glass, which was rare at that time. Merit also had a blue and yellow kohl tube, also made out of glass with a wooden stick to apply the kohl. All these containers were found fitted into the compartments of the box, along with a wooden comb.
A bronze mirror from an early New Kingdom tomb at Thebes. The handle is in the shape of a papyrus plant. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Other objects in these types of boxes included mirrors, razors, combs, and tweezers. Metal mirrors are known from the time of the Old Kingdom. A polished copper, or later, bronze, disk was fit onto a wooden, ivory, or metal handle, most commonly made in the shape of a papyrus column but sometimes, especially in the New Kingdom, made in the shape of a standing young woman. The mirror was kept in a slim leather bag to keep it from being scratched. Razors were also made out of bronze, and the thin blade was fit with a wooden or bronze handle. Combs were made in a rectangular shape, with evenly spaced-out teeth. They were most commonly made out of wood, but ivory could also be used.
THE FURNITURE OF QUEEN HETEPHERES
Queen Hetepheres I was the wife of King Sneferu (2613–2589 BCE) and the mother of King Khufu. In 1925, a shaft leading down to a burial chamber (G 7000x) was found on the south side of Khufu’s pyramid causeway, just off the northeast corner of one of his queen’s pyramids. The objects stacked in the chamber were a canopic chest; two chairs; a bed with headrest; a wooden frame for a canopy over the bed; a wooden carrying chair set on poles; a wooden box for the canopy; vessels of pottery, copper, alabaster, and other stones; bracelets; and cosmetic objects. There was also an empty alabaster coffin with scratch marks on the lid. The wood of the furniture had largely turned to dust, but the gold sheet decoration was preserved and carried the name and titles of Queen Hetepheres on the carrying chair and a jewelry box, and the name and titles of her husband, King Sneferu, were on the poles of the canopy and the box for storing it.
So, what was the queen doing buried in Giza when she should be buried near her husband, King Sneferu, in Dahshur? And where was her body? The excavator George Reisner suggested that the queen had originally been buried at Dahshur, but the burial had been robbed, destroying the queen’s mummy. Officials of King Khufu, son of Sneferu, took whatever was left in the tomb and reburied it at Giza, probably not telling the king what had happened to his mother’s body. For years, this has been accepted as the explanation, but lately, it has been questioned. It is possible that the queen was originally buried in chamber G 7000x when she died, but then when the small pyramid G1 was completed nearby, her body was moved from the chamber to the pyramid, as the pyramid chamber had been prepared anew with all the funerary goods that she needed.
COSMETICS AND TOILETRIES
Women of all levels of ancient Egyptian society used eyeliner. The black powder known as kohl, which is made from a lead-based ore named galena, helped with the glare of the sun and also was somewhat antibiotic and helped with eye infections. Galena is found in the Eastern Desert, parallel to the area of Upper Egypt. The other color used for eyeliner was green from malachite, which is a copper carbonate and also somewhat antibiotic. Malachite is found in copper ore deposits in both the Eastern Desert and southern Sinai. Green eyeliner was used from earliest times in ancient Egypt, while black eyeliner was more popular beginning in the New Kingdom. Both the kohl and the malachite were ground on a small stone palette, mixed with water or a sticky gum, and were applied to the eyes with a wood or bronze stick, which was rounded at the end. Early containers for eyeliner were little round stone jars, often made out of alabaster. By the time of the New Kingdom, tubes were used instead and were made out of many different materials, including stone, glass, and wood. There could be a single tube with just black eye paint, or two tubes together, one with black and one with green, each with their own stick for applying it. Women also used red ochre mixed with a light grease to rub on their cheeks like rouge, and mixed with oil, red ochre could have been used for lipstick.
Women used both perfumes and oils. Oils, commonly olive oil or almond oil, as well as castor oil and sesame oil, were rubbed on the skin to keep it soft in hot, dry weather. Some of the medical papyri from ancient Egypt include in their prescriptions ways to treat the skin with oils and keep away wrinkles. Perfumes were fat or oil based, impregnated with flowers, leaves, or seeds to give them a pleasant scent. Resins could be used as well. Perfume was rather thick, like an unguent. It was best stored in an alabaster container and was scooped out with large decorative wooden spoons, often with the carved figure of a young woman swimming as the handle.
Perfumes and oils, and the containers and spoons used with them, must have been expensive and must have not been as widely used by women as eyeliner. Moringa oil, for example, was traded into Egypt from northern Syria or Cyprus and apparently was one of the finest and most expensive oils for cosmetics. New Kingdom banquet scenes show elite women with cones of solid perfume on top of their wigs, and as the partying went on, the perfume would melt down into their wigs and clothing.
HAIR AND WIGS
From earliest times, the ancient Egyptians were very concerned about their hair. The excavation of burials in the Predynastic Period cemetery HK43 at Hierakonpolis, dating to around 3500 BCE, discovered many bodies with hair intact. The woman found in burial 16 was about thirty-five years of age, and her shoulder-long hair was not only filled out with false hair extensions but henna had been used as well to dye the hair that had turned gray. A hair problem still found today, lice, was also found in ancient Egyptian hair. Perhaps this is a reason why some ancient Egyptians shaved their head and wore a wig. Women, however, are never shown with a shaved head, like men are. Also, when women wear a wig, their actual hair is often noticeable above their forehead, making it clear that they are wearing a wig. In general, all women in ancient Egypt kept their hair rather long, and elite women had their hair done in elaborate styles that changed through time.
All through pharaonic Egyptian civilization, hairstyles changed continually, as they reflected both social and economic status. Wigs were very common, especially for upper-class women, and were a sign of elite status and worn on special occasions such as banquets celebrating festival days. Wigs were kept in a special tall wooden box that was made just for the wig, in order to keep it clean and undamaged. One such box is known from the tomb of Kha and Merit at the cemetery of the workmen at Deir el-Medineh. Merit’s wig was made of human hair and was about twenty inches long. Her wig box opened at the top so that the wig could be lifted out carefully from the wooden bars it hung down from. On the front of the box, just like her cosmetic box, a short inscription had been added that the box with the wig is for Merit’s soul.
JEWELRY
Ancient Egyptian women of every class of society wore some kind of jewelry. Jewelry was not only important for adornment but it could also have amuletic power and offer personal protection. Jewelry was worn in life and then placed in burials for the afterlife. The very earliest jewelry known from ancient Egypt are beads of steatite glazed green, which were found in burials of the Predynastic Badarian culture of Egypt, dating to approximately 5500 BCE. Many different stones used in jewelry could be mined in Egypt’s Eastern Desert, such as carnelian, feldspar, amethyst, and jasper, and turquoise came from the Sinai Peninsula. Gold was mined in both the Eastern Desert and the Nubian Desert. These materials were expensive and possibly hard for most people to attain, so the ancient Egyptians reproduced the colors of red, blue, green, and yellow in powdered quartz, called faience, which could be heated and molded into any shape and glazed with these same colors.
In the Old Kingdom (2686–2125 BCE), the most common pieces of women’s jewelry were bracelets, anklets, and necklaces. The standard colors used followed that of royal court jewelry: gold, blue or green, and red. Gold was the color of the sun, blue was the sky and water, while green was the fertile fields. Red was blood and symbolized life. Although most necklaces worn by women were single strings of beads, the most common necklace in ancient Egypt was the broad collar, composed of multiple rows of beads. The broad collar was worn by both women and men and was also placed on mummies.
In the Middle Kingdom (2055–1650 BCE), scarab rings became very common. Eventually they were made with a bezel so that the scarab could swivel and reveal the person’s inscription on the bottom of the scarab, which gave their name and most important title. In this way, a person’s scarab ring could be used to stamp and seal various objects. Large numbers of scarab seals and sealings have been found from archaeological sites of the later Middle Kingdom. By the New Kingdom, beginning about 1500 BCE, the scarab ring develops into a solid gold signet ring, which was much more practical for the purpose of sealing. Earrings, studs, and plugs became very popular in the New Kingdom, and these were done in gold, various stones, and also in faience. Simple rings were also done in faience, which was inexpensive and could be used for the equivalent of modern “costume jewelry.”
One form of jewelry only worn by elite or royal women was a girdle made out of a string of cowrie shells or gold beads shaped as cowrie shells, which was worn around the hips. Small metal beads would be put inside the shells, and they would make a soft rattling sound as the woman walked. These girdles had religious symbolism and were tied to the goddess Hathor, as the sound made was supposed to be reminiscent of the sound of Hathor, in her form as a cow, coming through papyrus plants in the swamp. Simpler girdles that did not rattle could be worn by dancers or musicians, as is shown in New Kingdom tomb scenes.
CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR
Ancient Egyptian clothing was made out of linen, which comes from the flax plant. Long fibers are removed from the stems of the flax plant and spun together into a thread that is then woven into a fabric, referred to as linen. Linen could be woven in different weights and could be very soft and thin or else coarse and heavy. Linen was already being produced by the Neolithic Period people living in the Fayum around 5000 BCE. Women in ancient Egypt wore two types of linen clothing, either a dress or a tunic. A dress was composed of a rectangular piece of linen that was wrapped around the body and kept in place by straps, a sash, or a knot. There could be a fringe along the edge of the linen or even colored threads woven into the linen. Tunics were tailored and could have sleeves attached or pleats sewn into the fabric. A woman’s tunic “is characterized by its V-neckline” (Vogelsang-Eastwood 1993: 95).
Women also could wear a shawl over a dress or tunic. Some statues, particularly of royal women, depict them completely wrapped in a cloak; this might have been a way to indicate that the woman was old. In art, tunics are shown very slender and tight, so modern scholars often call them “sheath dresses.” The depictions are probably idealized, and not realistic, however, because the tunics are shown so tight that it would have been impossible for the woman to walk. Also, many ancient tunics were placed in tombs and so have been preserved, and none of them are very slender. Most ancient Egyptian tunics are “one size fits all,” and these are referred to as the bag-tunic, which could be worn by a man, woman, or child of any social status (Vogelsang-Eastwood 1993: 130). The bag-tunic is simply made out of a rectangular piece of cloth folded in half, sewn together on the sides except for holes for the arms, and a hole is cut at the top to put the head through. Many tunics of this style have been found in tombs dating to the New Kingdom.
One last type of dress was not made out of linen but out of beads strung in geometric patterns. The bead dress was known from the period of the Old Kingdom, although there are only a few examples that have been preserved from ancient times. It is not understood if the bead dress was put on so that it was against the woman’s skin or was put over a linen garment. It is also not known what the meaning of the dress was or for what particular reason or occasion it might have been worn. The oldest bead dress was discovered in a tomb at Giza in 1927. The tomb dates to the reign of King Khufu (2589–2566 BCE) of the Fourth Dynasty. It is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.
Sandals were the most common type of footwear for everyone in ancient Egypt, although most people probably just went barefoot. Sandals seem to have expressed elite status, in the same way that a wig on a woman expressed elite status. Sandals could be made out of plant fibers, such as palm leaf, reeds, or leather. There does not seem to have been any difference in the sandals for women and those for men; women’s sandals just seem to have been smaller. It is clear from tomb and temple scenes, as well as some group statues, that footwear was removed in the presence of someone more important.
DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND HOUSEHOLD PETS
Village women raised small animals such as sheep, goats, and pigs. At the worker’s village at Amarna, there was an area just to the east outside the village wall that clearly had small but walled open spaces and pens for animals. As women were in the village all day, while the men went away to work at various areas of the city of Amarna, the women and children undoubtedly took care of the animals. By the animal pens, archaeologists found remains of limestone, plaster, and pottery water troughs. The bone evidence recovered shows that, in particular, pigs were being raised, fed grain, and also slaughtered, providing meat for the village as well as meat that could be sold.
Written evidence from the village of Deir el-Medineh on the West Bank of Thebes shows that women there took care of cattle or oxen owned by their families, as the workmen would have been away from the village, working at the Valley of the Kings for eight to nine days at a time. The cattle and oxen were not raised for food but to be used for plowing. Some people at Deir el-Medineh did own agricultural land and would have rented a bull, or more probably an ox, to pull the plow, or to thresh the grain. These animals are also shown pulling the sledge with the coffin at funeral processions. Sledges rather than wheeled carts were used because wheels would have been useless in the sand on the West Bank of Thebes.
Actually, wheels were not used by the ancient Egyptians other than on chariots, which had to be driven on fairly hard surfaces. Chariots were specifically for royalty and elite male officials and used in the military beginning in the New Kingdom about 1550 BCE. Women, except for royal women in the Amarna Period (1352–1336 BCE), are never shown in chariots. Donkeys were commonly used to carry heavy loads, and sometimes they are depicted with officials sitting on their back, but women are not shown riding on donkeys or riding on horses. In fact, there is very little evidence from ancient Egypt for horseback riding at all; horses, in teams of two, were instead used to pull chariots.
Royal or elite women could travel in a carrying chair set on poles, which was carried by men, although there is not much evidence for women having a carrying chair. In the Old Kingdom (2686–2160 BCE), for example, only four women appear to have owned carrying chairs, and three of those four women were royalty. Perhaps the most interesting carrying chair scene is in the tomb of the vizier of King Tety of the Sixth Dynasty, Mereruka. He married the oldest daughter of the king, named Waatetkhethor, and she had a section of the rooms in the southwest corner of the superstructure of his mastaba tomb just for herself. In one of her four decorated rooms, a scene of the princess going out in her carrying chair fills the wall. Waatetkhethor sits up in a chair like a throne, with her young son, Mery-Teti, at her feet. The chair is set on long poles being carried not by men but by eight women, four in front and four behind. Her pets, three dogs and a monkey, walk alongside, along with twelve other women, eight of whom are dwarves, carrying boxes and other personal possessions of the princess. The topmost part of the scene is broken, but enough is preserved to show that there was a man walking behind her and holding something to shade Waatetkhethor from the sun.
Travel for any distance was done by boat in ancient Egypt. Canals and the river, not roads, were used. The ancient Egyptians really did not have roads. The idea of travel being tied to water was part of life in ancient Egypt; even the sun god, Ra, was thought to cross the sky every day in a boat. Women are often shown in boats, but they never have a part in sailing or steering the boat; they are always passengers. In fact, there is even a depiction of a royal woman in a carrying chair who has been set down in a boat for a trip on the river.
Dogs and cats must have been present at village communities as either pets or strays looking for food. The evidence for pets comes from tomb scenes and therefore reflects life at an elite level, as most people could not afford a stone-built, decorated tomb. A woman depicted sitting next to her husband in an offering scene in their tomb often has something that belongs to her under her chair. It is frequently a cat, sometimes just sitting, sometimes with a collar and leash tied to the leg of the chair, and sometimes the cat has been given a bone or a fish to chew on. Other times, a vervet or green monkey is shown sitting under or tied to the chair. Both cats and monkeys were accepted, for the most part, as female pets, while dogs, almost always shown with men, were understood as male pets. Dogs are usually depicted in scenes of hunting, a very elite, male sport in which women did not take part. Cats were the sacred animal of Bastet, the cat goddess, who was thought of as nurturing and protective, and were associated with women, children, and the household. Vervet monkeys were also associated with women, and often female cosmetic objects, such as a kohl jar, were made in the shape of monkeys or decorated with the figure of a monkey. There is also a bronze razor with a handle in the shape of a standing monkey (Janssen and Janssen 1989: 51, fig. 13).