1. The Role of Women
Deir El Medina

2. The Role Of Women
A woman’s status in ancient Egypt was determined by her relationship to her male relatives. Evidence from burial tombs supports this, for women rarely had tombs of their own but were nearly always buried in the tombs of their husbands or male relatives.
The way they were depicted in tomb scenes also reveals their social status.
How is the wife of the foreman
Ankerekau depicted in this tomb painting?

3. The Role Of Women
The most important woman is the wife of the tomb owner, or sometimes his mother. She is usually depicted seated with her husband (or son) at a table piled high with offerings, and is dressed in elegant clothing.
In other scenes she might be shown with her husband as he inspects the activities of the workers. Women of the lower classes are also depicted in tombs as servants, as musicians and dancers or performing everyday household tasks, such as making bread and beer, or spinning and weaving.
‘The way women are shown is, of course, the way men saw them, and displays a public, ideal state of affairs. What two important issues does this statement raise about the reliability of ancient sources on Egyptian women?

4. The Role Of Women What were the main roles and occupations of women?
Why were most women illiterate?
3. How were the women of Deir el Medina different from other Egyptian women because of their husbands’ work?

5. Marriage
Many ordinary Egyptians practised monogamy. (married to one partner).
There is no evidence of any formal marriage ceremony.
Marriage was a private agreement between a man and a woman and their families that they would set up house and live together.
It appears that some kind of financial agreement was made between the groom and the family of his wife-to-be. Evidence from Deir-el Medina suggests that the woman’s father may have been involved in the transaction. In one document a man writes ‘I brought a bundle to the house of Payom and I married his daughter’ while another gives a ‘list of all objects which Usekhnemte gave to his father-in-law when he made Aset (his) wife.
Married women were shown in tomb scenes and ostraca but always as men wanted them to look, attractive, with youthful, slender bodies wearing skin tight dresses. The truth is not found in these paintings and pictures, which shows an ideal world but in the everyday aryefacts that have been found. In reality most dresses hung loosely, hiding the wearer’s shape. Often pregnant, married women preferred comfort to elegant fashions.

6. Legal Rights
Inheritance passed from father to children and family property was recorded by marriage settlement and by deeds of transfer or in wills.
The woman’s role in these affairs was important, but still secondary to that of her husband. She brought a proportion of the property into the marriage, and retained rights over it if she divorced. When she became a widow, she inherited one-third of her husband’s property and the rest went to the children. She could also make a will and leave her property as she wished.
A famous document from Deir el Medina in the 20th Dynasty is the will of the widow Naunakht, who remarried after the death of her first husband and subsequently had eight children by her second husband. She had a scribe draw up her will in which she indicated which of her children would benefit from her will and which would not. It seems that one of her sons contested the will, but it was upheld by the local court.
What legal rights did Egyptian women have?

7. Mistress of the House
The commonest title for a woman was ‘mistress of the house’. This was a term of respect.
The most important role of a woman was to be a wife and mother.
Pregnancy and childbirth were full of dangers, and mortality rates were often very high. A variety of magico- religious aids were called upon to assist in the safe delivery of a baby and its survival into childhood.
Pregnant women seeking protection for themselves and their children often dedicated votive stelae to special fertility gods such as Bes and Taweret. These offering prayers contained powerful medical and magical symbols.

8. The Women of Deir El Medina
The evidence from Deir el Medina shows that married women regularly worked outside the home. They delivered food to their husbands working on the royal tombs. They also did more back-breaking work. The scribe, Butehamon, who missed his dead wife, wrote a letter to her spirit:
‘You beautiful one… You have been taken from me… you who brought the cattle home-who attended to our fields… while you were loaded with all kinds of heavy loads…Ithtay, you gracious…woman.’
If a man had a clever, reliable wife, she could help him with his work. The scribe, Nesamunopet, made his wife Hennuwtawi, his deputy. When he was away, she handed out the wages to the workmen on payday.
Women could also make money for the family by running part-time businesses. They sold extra cloth and clothing that they and their household made, hired out their government servants and bought and sold market produce as seen in Source (River Nile market scene.)

9. The unmarried woman and the stranger
Unmarried women and low-class workers were depicted very differently, as sexy, nude dancers, musicians and acrobats. Many of these ‘entertainers’ have their thighs tattooed with the image of Bes, the ugly dwarf god of female sexuality and fertility.
This may have been true for some unmarried women, but the way these women were drawn tells us more about male fantasy than the women themselves. Men wished to show them as sexually attractive and available. In reality not all unmarried women fitted this mould.
Although never shown in a wall scene, ostacon or papyrus scene, the most feared woman was the stranger. The Instructions of Ani, a book of moral rules explains why:
8.1 “Beware of a woman who is a stranger,
One not known in her town;
Do not stare at her when she goes by,
Do not sleep with her.
[She is] a deep water whose direction is unknown,
Such a woman away from [without/] her husband.
‘I am pretty’ she tells you daily,
When she has no witnesses;
She is ready to trap you’
A great deadly crime…’

10. Source 10.1: a female acrobat
Source 10.2: female dancers and musicians