Daughters of Isis - Joyce Tyldesley Read online

  Double the food which your mother gave you and support her as she supported you. You were a heavy burden to her but she did not abandon you. When you were born after your months she was still tied to you as her breast was in your mouth for three years. As you grew and your excrement was disgusting she was not disgusted.

  New Kingdom scribal instruction8

  Although the detailed mechanism of menstruation was not fully understood the significance of missing periods was clear, and most Egyptian women were able to diagnose their own pregnancies and even forecast the expected delivery date without any medical interference. Those who were in doubt could consult a doctor who, for a fee, would conduct a detailed examination of the woman’s skin, eyes and breasts, all of which are known to undergo marked changes in the first few weeks following conception. As an additional test, a urine sample was collected from the hopeful mother-to-be and poured over sprouting vegetables or cereals, with subsequent strong growth confirming pregnancy. The changes in the levels of hormones present in the urine, monitored in our modern pregnancy-testing kits, had a stimulating effect on the vegetation. Following a positive test it was even possible to anticipate the sex of the unborn child by a further study of the growing power of the mother’s urine; if it was sprinkled on both wheat and barley a rapid growth of barley would indicate a boy, wheat a girl. The physicians also developed a number of tests which could be used to determine whether a childless woman was ever likely to become pregnant. A physical inspection of the lady could prove particularly informative in this respect as, ‘if you find one of her eyes similar to that of an Asiatic, and the other like that of a southerner, she will not conceive’. An expert examination of the breasts could be used to indicate a fertile woman, a newly pregnant woman and even the sex of an unborn child.

  Certain vegetables were strongly equated with fertility, and so vast quantities of lettuce were consumed by those wishing to conceive. The Egyptian lettuce grew tall and straight, rather like a modern cos lettuce, and when pressed it emitted a milky-white liquid. It is therefore not entirely surprising that this vegetable became associated with the ithyphallic god of vegetation and procreation, Min, and was firmly recommended by the medical papyri as a sure cure for male impotence. The experts, however, differed over the precise effects of lettuce. Discorides and Pliny believed that it should be taken to repress erotic dreams and impulses, while Hippocrates felt that it was actually an anti-aphrodisiac. Pliny recommended leeks rather than lettuce to stimulate the sexual appetite.

  Sadly, although the skill and wisdom of the Egyptian doctors was famed throughout the ancient world, even the most experienced of physicians could offer no real hope to those faced with the tragedy of a childless marriage. The Egyptians well understood what had to be done to make a woman pregnant but they were less certain of the actual mechanics of conception, and without this knowledge backed up by sophisticated laboratory techniques infertility was almost invariably blamed on the wife. Consequently, barren marriages were often ‘cured’ by divorce, with the husband simply taking a different and hopefully more fertile partner; whether in these circumstances anyone realized that the man himself might have been the infertile partner is not clear. A second practical means of ending sterility was adoption. The short life expectancy and high birth rate meant that there was a readily available supply of orphaned children, and infertile couples frequently adopted the child of a poorer relation.

  He who is ashamed to sleep with his wife will not have children.

  Scribe Ankhsheshonq

  The lack of even the most basic medical help, and the air of mystery and ignorance which surrounded the creation of a new life, meant that those who longed for pregnancy were far more likely to turn to religion and magic than to professional doctors. In all societies and at all times conception and childbirth have attracted numerous superstitions and old wives’ tales, and we can assume that Egyptian girls were no different in trying out the unofficial remedies passed down by word of mouth from one generation of women to the next. Unfortunately, it is precisely this sort of information which is lacking from our record of women’s lives. The type and extent of information which is lacking is suggested by Winifred Blackman’s 1927 survey of the peasant communities of modern Egypt which included a whole chapter devoted to fertility rites and rituals, all of which were very important to the hopeful mothers-to-be, but none of which would yield material evidence for the archaeologists of the future. For example, she noted that:

  It is a popular belief in Egypt that if a dead child is tightly bound in its shroud the mother cannot conceive again. Therefore the shroud and the cords binding it are always loosened just before burial, dust also being put into the child’s lap. The dust is put there, so I was told, in order to keep the body lying on its back. The woman who gave me this information said that sometimes a body twists round when decomposition sets in, and if this happens the mother cannot have another child. If, in spite of precautions, the woman as time goes on seems to have no prospect of again becoming a mother she will go to the tomb of her dead child, taking a friend with her, and request the man whose business it is to do so to open the tomb. The disconsolate mother then goes down inside the tomb where the body lies, and steps over it backward and forward seven times, in the belief that the dead child’s spirit will re-enter her body and be born.

  More alarmingly, Miss Blackman observed that ‘sometimes if a woman has no children her friends will take her to the railway and make her lie down between the lines in order that the train may pass over her’. This frightening rite gives some indication of the despair felt by women who are prepared to risk their lives for the chance to conceive a child. The ancient Egyptians have left us no evidence for similar fertility rituals, although we do know that a variety of amulets, worn next to the skin for increased efficiency, was available. The hippopotamus goddess Taweret, the bringer of babies to childless women, was a very popular charm, as was the dwarf god Bes.

  Who makes seed grow in women and creates people from sperm. Who feeds the son in his mother’s womb and soothes him to still his tears. Nurse in the womb. Giver of breath. To nourish all that he made.

  The Great Hymn to the Aten

  Childbirth itself was not generally considered to be a matter for either medical or male interference, and the medical papyri offered little practical advice to the midwives who customarily assisted at the delivery. Indeed, the whole process of birth developed into a female-controlled rite far beyond the experience of most men, and consequently we have no contemporary description of childbirth. This means that our understanding of the single most important event in the Egyptian woman’s life has to be pieced together from fragments of surviving stories and myths combined with the illustrations of divine births carved on the walls of temple mammisi.9 Not surprisingly, this type of evidence is very strong on ritual and symbolic content but rather weak on practical details. The Westcar Papyrus gives us our most detailed account of childbirth when telling the story of the miraculous birth of triplets to the Lady Reddjedet. We are told that for her delivery Reddjedet used a portable birthing stool, and that she was assisted by four goddesses who arrived at her house disguised as itinerant midwives. Isis stood in front of the mother-to-be and delivered the babies, Nephthys stood behind

  Fig. 10 The goddess Taweret

  her, and Hekat used an unspecified technique to ‘hasten’ the births. Meskhenet then fulfilled her divine role by telling the fortunes of the new-born babies while the god Khnum gave life to their bodies. All three infants were washed in turn, the umbilical cords were cut, and they were placed on a cushion on bricks. Reddjedet then presented the midwives with a payment of corn, and ‘cleansed herself in a purification of fourteen days’.

  Although ostraca recovered from Deir el-Medina suggest that women in labour may have entered a specially constructed ‘birth bower’, a tent-like structure with walls hung with garlands (see Chapter 8), these representations probably have more symbolic than literal meaning with most bi
rths occurring within the

  family home. For her delivery the naked mother-to-be either knelt or squatted on two low piles of bricks or sat on a birthing-stool, a seat with a hole large enough for the baby to pass through. Gravity was used to assist the birth, and the midwife who squatted on the floor was able to help the mother by easing the baby out. Most women were left to give birth unaided, although for more difficult cases there were several approved procedures intended to ‘cause a woman to be delivered’; these included bandaging the lower part of the abdomen and the use of vaginal suppositories. The only surgical implement used by the

  Fig. 11 The goddess Hekat

  midwife was the obsidian knife which was used to cut the umbilical cord after the delivery of the afterbirth; this knife had an unknown ritual significance. We do not know what happened to the afterbirth, but it seems likely that it would have been disposed of carefully. Traditionally, in Egypt, the fate of the placenta is believed to be directly linked to the life of the baby, and it is often safely buried at the threshold of the house or thrown into the Nile to ensure the survival of the infant. It may even be that the afterbirth, rich in iron, was partially eaten by the new mother. A piece was occasionally offered to the newborn child, and if it was refused, or if the baby turned its head downwards, groaned, or cried ‘no’ rather than ‘yes’, this was taken to be a very bad omen, indicating that the infant would soon die. The umbilical cord was also regarded as important; in the Myth of Horus, Horus recovered the umbilical cord of his murdered father and buried it safely at Herakleopolis Magna.

  The Westcar Papyrus provides us with one of the few Egyptian references to multiple births. Twins do not seem to have been particularly welcomed: ‘… we shall fill her womb with male and female children, and save her from giving birth to twins’, an attitude which perhaps reflects the additional dangers involved in a multiple birth. Although we do know of examples of Egyptian twins these are few and far between, which has led to suggestions that either one or both of a set of twins may not have been allowed to live. This is a theory, however, which is very difficult to prove, and one which does not immediately agree with the often-repeated belief in the Egyptian love of children.10

  Unfortunately, tragedies associated with childbirth were all too common. Female pelvic abnormalities sufficient to have made childbirth difficult, if not impossible, have been recognized in several mummies and serve to stress this point; one of the worst examples is the 12th Dynasty mummy of the Lady Henhenet which shows a dreadful tear running from the bladder to the vagina, almost certainly caused during childbirth when a large baby was dragged through the mother’s abnormally narrow pelvis. The royal family was not exempt from these tragedies, and the body of Mutnodjmet, wife of King Horemheb, was recovered with the body of a foetus or new-born child, suggesting that the queen had died attempting to provide an heir to the throne. Surprisingly few mummified or buried babies have been recovered, and it is likely that in many cases an infant who was stillborn or who died soon after birth was not regarded as a full member of society and consequently not accorded full burial rites; the recovery of infants buried under village houses implies that the dead baby itself may have had some religious or superstitious value. This suggestion is reinforced by the discovery of two miniature coffins of gilded wood which had been carefully placed in the tomb of Tutankhamen. Each contained an inner coffin and a tiny mummified foetus. These could be the remains of two premature children born to the young king and his queen, Ankhesenamen, but the inclusion of the small bodies within the tomb may have had a more complex symbolic meaning as yet unexplained.

  The new mother was expected to ‘purify’ herself for fourteen days following the delivery. The term ‘purification’ was also used to describe menstruation, indicating an understandable confusion between menstrual bleeding and the lochia or discharge from the womb which follows childbirth. Whether the use of this apparently emotive term, with its connotations of impure or dirty, should be taken to indicate some religious or ritual avoidance of ‘unclean’ bleeding women, or whether it was simply a colloquial expression with no deeper significance than ‘the curse’, is unclear. It does indicate, however, that the new mother was allowed a period of rest after the birth, with her female relations taking over her household duties and allowing her to concentrate on recovery and caring for the new arrival.

  I made live the names of my fathers which I found obliterated on the doorways… Behold, he is a good son who perpetuates the names of his ancestors.

  Middle Kingdom tomb inscription

  The mother named her new baby immediately after the birth, presumably following an advance briefing by the father, thereby ensuring that her child had a name even if she or he then died. Names were very important to the Egyptians, who felt that knowledge of a name in some way conferred power over the named person or object. One of their greatest fears was that a personal name might be forgotten after death, and rich men spent a great deal of money building commemorative monuments to ensure that this would not occur. Dying a ‘second death’ in the Afterlife – the complete obliteration of all earthly memory of the deceased including the name – was almost too awful to contemplate, and specific spells ‘for not perishing in the land of the dead’ were included in the texts routinely painted on the wooden coffins.

  Most non-royal Egyptians were given one personal name but could also be distinguished by his or her relationship to others, for example, as in the case of Ahmose, son of Abana, the subject of a famous New Kingdom war biography. We know of many examples of personal names being favoured repeatedly within one family; a good example is the family of the New Kingdom Third Prophet of Amen, where the sons were named in alternate generations Pediamennebnesttawy (literally ‘Gift of Amen who is Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands’) and Hor (literally ‘Horus’). Family names were also given to girls, and it was not considered confusing that both a mother and one or more of her daughters should share the same personal name. Presumably these women were distinguished from each other by their nicknames. The Egyptians certainly did not baulk at giving their children very long names; Hekamaatreemperkhons, son of Hekhemmut, would not have felt particularly hard done by, although again it is perhaps not surprising that nicknames were both common and widely used. In the absence of a favourite family name it was considered a good idea to include the name of a local god or goddess within a child’s name, and some children like the above-mentioned Pediamennebnesttawy were named in a way that suggests that they were considered to be the specific gift of a particular deity. Some names emphasized the relationship between the child and her mother or family, such as Aneksi, ‘She belongs to me’ or Senetenpu, ‘She is our sister’. Naming children in honour of members of the royal family was also popular, and attractive animals or flowers made nice names; Susan, ‘a lily’, was a favourite Egyptian girl’s name.

  My son, O King, take thee to my breast and suck it… He has come to these his two mothers, they of the long hair and pendulous breasts… They draw their breasts to his mouth and evermore do they wean him.

  Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts

  It was customary to breast-feed infants for up to three years, much longer than is common in western societies and way beyond the point where the child would be happily eating solid foods. Not only did breast milk provide the most nutritious, most convenient and most sterile form of food and drink available for babies, it also had a certain contraceptive effect, reducing the chances of the new mother becoming pregnant too soon after she had given birth. There was no false prudery over breast-feeding, and the image of a woman squatting or sitting on a low stool to suckle a child at her left breast became symbolic of successfully fertile womanhood, frequently depicted in both secular and religious Egyptian art. The medical papyri suggested that the quality of the milk should be tested before feeding the infant; good milk should smell like dried manna but ‘to recognize milk which is bad, you shall perceive that its smell is like the stench of fish.’ To ensure a copious supply of milk
the same texts advise rubbing the mother’s back with a special mixture, or feeding her with sour barley bread. Mother’s milk, particularly the milk of a woman who had borne a male child, was regarded as a valuable medical commodity, useful not only for feeding babies but also for increasing fertility and even healing burns. It was often collected and stored in small anthropomorphic pots shaped like a woman holding a baby.

  Mothers of high birth and those who were unable to breastfeed left the feeding of their baby to a wet-nurse. Wet-nursing was one of the few well-paid jobs which was open to women of all classes, and the unfortunately high rate of female mortality during childbirth meant that it was a profession always in demand. It was usual for the parents to draw up a legal contract with the chosen nurse, who would undertake to feed a child for a fixed period of time at a fixed salary. Late-Period contracts usually included a clause stating that the nurse should not indulge in sexual intercourse for the duration of the employment, as this may have resulted in pregnancy and possibly ended the lactation. There was no shame attached to working as a wet-nurse and indeed, during the Dynastic period, the position of royal wet-nurse was eagerly sought after as it was one of the most important and influential positions that a non-royal woman could hope to hold. Royal wet-nurses were therefore often married to, or were mothers of, high-ranking court officials. During the Roman period the position of wet-nurse became less valued. We have a number of contracts from this time which make it clear that nurses were being paid to rear totally unrelated foundlings who were presumably the abandoned babies rescued from the local dump. These children were later sold by their owners, a practice which made sound economic sense at a time of high slave-prices.