Daughters of Isis - Joyce Tyldesley Read online

  When death comes he steals the infant from the arms of the mother just as he takes him who has reached old age.

  New Kingdom scribal instruction

  The high levels of infant mortality meant that childhood illnesses were always worrying times for the mother. Very few parents could afford to take their sick children to consult doctors, and anyway the lack of some of the most basic of medical skills meant that little effective treatment was available. If, for example, a child had teething trouble the standard cure was to offer the infant a fried mouse to eat; this must certainly have presented a challenge to a baby without molars. Illnesses such as measles which we today regard as trivial were, without proper treatment, fatal. Not surprisingly, mothers turned again to folk wisdom and magic to protect their darlings, placing their trust in a variety of charms, amulets and spells:

  Perish, you who come in from the dark. You who creep in with your nose reversed and your face turned back, and who forgets what he came for. Did you come to kiss this child? I will not allow you to kiss him.

  New Kingdom medical advice

  The evil spirit described in this incantation cunningly wore his nose reversed so that he would not be recognized sneaking into the house. These spells were known to be so effective that they were frequently written on a small scrap of papyrus packed into a specially carved wooden or gold bead and carefully suspended around the neck of the beloved child to ensure maximum protection. Two thousand years later, little had changed in the Egyptian village and as Miss Blackman observed: ‘To prevent or cure disease in their children the women will go to one magician after another and purchase from them amulets and written charms, not grudging for a moment the expenditure of what may be to them considerable sums of money. Numbers of these prophylactics may be seen hanging from the necks of the hapless infants.’

  There is no question that the care of babies and children, not only her own but also her younger brothers and sisters, her grandchildren and the children of friends and relations, would have played a major part in any Egyptian woman’s life. Royal children are occasionally depicted with male child-minders or tutors but, as a general rule, it was women who cared for children. Unfortunately, this type of work is not easily detected in the archaeological record, and in consequence we are left with very little knowledge of Egyptian child-care practices.11 The most important aspect of child-care, however, is clear; all surviving evidence indicates that most parents were loving and conscientious guardians who made every effort to ensure a happy and carefree childhood for their offspring.

  Parents bought or made a wide range of toys for their darlings, and boys and girls were able to enjoy carved wooden animals, miniature boats, wooden balls and spinning tops which would still delight any modern child. For those who could not afford such luxuries there were the open fields to play in and the river and canals to swim in, while thick Nile mud was always in plentiful supply for use as modelling clay; several primitive clay dolls and animals, presumably made by children themselves, have been recovered from workmen’s villages. However, as might be expected in a hard-working society where teenage marriages were common and formal education a luxury, childhood was a relatively short-lived experience in ancient Egypt. As the children grew older they were gradually introduced to the work which they would be doing for the rest of their lives. Young children were expected to supervise their tiny brothers and sisters or to take care of the animals, girls helped their mothers around the house while older boys were sent to school, worked in the fields or started to learn their trade. ‘Teenagers’ as a distinct class of young adults simply did not exist. At the age of thirteen or fourteen a daughter would be eagerly anticipating her own marriage, while her mother, probably herself less than thirty years old, could look forward to the pleasant prospect of acquiring a new son-in-law and becoming a respected grandmother.

  3

  Mistress of the House

  Do not control your wife in her house when you know she is efficient. Do not say to her ‘Where is it? Get it’ when she has put something in its correct place. Let your eye observe in silence; then you will recognize her skill, and it will be a joy when your hand is with her. There are many men who don’t realize this, but if a man desists from strife at home he will not find it starting. Every man who establishes a household should hold back his hasty heart.

  New Kingdom scribal advice

  In the ancient Egyptian mind housework was very firmly equated with women’s work. Domesticated house-husbands were quite simply unknown, and the married woman’s most coveted title of Mistress of the House was a constant reminder of her principal wifely duty: to ensure the smooth day-to-day running of her husband’s home. It seems very unlikely that either sex would ever have dreamed of questioning the inevitability of this division of labour. Males and females were understood by all to be different types of people destined to live very different lives, and any upsetting of this natural order would clearly have been wrong. In every household, therefore, the wife was nominally responsible for all domestic tasks. Naturally, the amount of housework which any individual was personally required to undertake was dependent upon her social status. A queen had no need to disrupt her social life to cook, clean or change nappies, while a wealthy society lady could rely upon the help of a large number of servants including maids, cooks, nurses and brewers, but was expected to supervise and order their activities. A poor woman would need to perform all the domestic tasks herself, helped only by her unmarried daughters and her other close female relations. Given the absence of modern luxuries such as running water, electricity, gas, supermarkets and motorized transport, the care of the home was a full-time occupation involving a great deal of hard physical work.

  We have surprisingly little information about the size or composition of the typical Egyptian household, although archaeological evidence suggests that, as in present-day rural Egypt, the western-style nuclear family was unusual and the extended family was the general rule, with family groups of six or more adult members being common. Such extended family units were economically highly efficient, particularly in rural areas where all the members of one family worked the same plot of land. Perhaps more importantly, they represented security for their members, providing welcome physical and financial support in a society with no formalized welfare programme and a rather crude legal system. From the woman’s point of view, domestic chores must have been very much eased by sharing with the other females in the household, and childcare would not have been the problem which it is for many mothers today. However, to modern eyes at least, there was a price to pay for this security: the almost complete lack of privacy in the average Egyptian home. Society had absolutely no regard for the individual’s need for solitude, and the western concept of parents and even children requiring their own personal space would have seemed incomprehensible to people who regarded sharing their sleeping quarters with four or five other family members as reassuring rather than invasive.

  Although some young boys left home to enlist in the army, daughters almost invariably remained with their parents until marriage. They then left their family to live with their husband, either joining him in establishing a new home or moving in with their new in-laws and all their dependent children. Consequently, the population within each house varied from year to year, dwindling as the older members died or married out only to swell again with new births and the introduction of new brides. Contemporary census information indicates that the immediate household of a soldier named Hori, a resident on the Middle Kingdom housing estate of Kahun, was fairly typical. The dimensions of his house measured 12 × 15 metres, and into this rather cramped space he packed his wife, his baby son Snefru, his mother and five assorted female relations who may well have been his dependent unmarried sisters. When, many years later, Hori died and Snefru became head of the household he continued to provide a home for his mother, his widowed grandmother and at least three of his maiden aunts.1 A similar picture of apparent overcrowding is obtained from the m
ore wealthy household of the priest Heqanakht which included his mother Ipi, his concubine Iutemheb, his five sons and an unspecified number of assorted daughters, daughter-in-laws and servants.

  Almost all Egyptian houses, rich or poor, whether built as homes for the living, the dead (tombs) or the gods (temples), followed the same basic pattern, with an open public area or courtyard leading through semi-private reception rooms into a private area. In the houses this private area was firmly restricted to women, children and immediate male family members. This pattern is still followed in most Egyptian villages today, where convention dictates that many domestic activities may occur in front of the house and that guests may be entertained in the main reception area, but male visitors will never expect to set foot in the private women’s quarters at the back of the house. Whether there were areas of the ancient Egyptian house specifically reserved for men is less clear, although illustrations preserved in tombs suggest that women were in no way confined to their quarters or prevented from mixing socially with the men of the household. To be ordered back to the women’s quarters was considered a dire

  Fig. 12 Cross-section and plan of a typical Deir el-Medina house

  disgrace: the oath taken by women testifying in the law courts was ‘may I be sent to the back of the house if I am not telling the truth’.

  Despite this universal houseplan there was, as might be expected, a wide discrepancy in the scale of available accommodation which ranged from extensive royal palaces and magnificent country estates to small one-roomed huts which were occupied by the poorest of families. Nevertheless, the preferred building material for rich and poor alike was always sun-dried mud-brick, a material in plentiful supply along the banks of the Nile. Mud-brick was used to build all the internal and external house walls, while strong and reasonably watertight roofs were made by resting bundles of reeds on a framework of wooden cross-beams and sealing them with mud. Wood was then used to make doors, columns and window frames as required. Stone was both expensive and less easy to handle than mud-brick and consequently only used in domestic architecture when there was no alternative – for example, at Deir el-Medina, there was no convenient source of either water or mud to make the cheaper and lighter bricks. Wealthy householders did occasionally employ stone for high-visibility status symbol features such as thresholds, door-frames and the bases of wooden pillars, and these expensive stone components were often salvaged and re-used by subsequent generations when the less durable mud-brick surrounds had collapsed. In the grandest of households these stone fitments bore carved inscriptions and were painted in bright colours.

  The use of mud-brick imposed certain limitations on the Egyptian architects. Their first priority was always to avoid the damp soil which would cause the house walls to decay and collapse, and consequently all villages and towns were sited as far away from the highest level of the inundation as was practical. This would have been a sensible precaution even if building in stone. The mud-brick also had a direct effect on the internal structure of the houses, as the walls had to be relatively thick in order to support the load-bearing roof while the roof itself had to be relatively narrow due to the shortage of timber to span the gap between the walls. Any increase in house size therefore required a corresponding increase in internal divisions to support the roof, and only those wealthy enough to incorporate free-standing pillars in their plans were able to construct imposing and spacious halls. However, there were definite advantages to using mud-brick. The houses were cheap and easy to build and, as mud-brick is an efficient insulating material, remained both cool in the summer and warm in the winter. As an added bonus it was easy to extend or divide up the properties, and throughout their useful lives most mud-brick buildings underwent a series of DIY alterations designed to adjust the available living space to suit the ever-changing needs of the occupants.

  Your heart rejoices as you plough your plot in the Field of Reeds. You are rewarded with what you have grown. You gather a harvest rich in grain.

  Inscription from the New Kingdom tomb of Paheri

  Throughout the Dynastic period Egypt was ruled from a succession of different capital cities, with Memphis, Thebes, Amarna and Pa-Ramesses each serving at different times as the principal seat of government and home to the royal court. Local administration was delegated to the forty or so regional capitals which acted as the centres for all provincial bureaucracy, while other towns such as Abydos grew in size and importance due to their links with major cult temples. These flourishing urban centres were always the exception rather than the rule, and the vast majority of the population lived the lives of rural peasants, inhabiting small and politically insignificant villages and farming the surrounding land. The importance of agriculture to the economy and to the general well-being of Egypt was never underestimated by her people. Rural living, in a rather glamorized and sanitized form, was widely perceived to be the ideal way of life for all right-thinking upper-class Egyptians, and wealthy individuals spent many a happy hour relaxing in the countryside while watching the local peasants toiling in the fields. Their idea of the ultimate heaven, or the Afterlife, was to supervise the performance of basic agricultural tasks in the ever-fertile ‘Field of Reeds’.

  It is not surprising that the most widely coveted residence, often depicted in tomb scenes of the Afterlife, was a spacious ranch-style country bungalow or even a two-storey villa set in its own extensive grounds and further sheltered from the hurly-burly of life by a protective mud-brick wall. In an ideal world this perfect home would have an impressive columned portico, elegant and well-proportioned central reception rooms and extensive family quarters, servants’ rooms and of course a well-fitted kitchen. Outbuildings would provide further accommodation and storage areas, and the flat roof, reached by a narrow external staircase, would have a multitude of uses. The formal landscaped leisure garden, artificially irrigated and lovingly tended by hard-working gardeners, would include a shallow artificial pool with ornamental fish, many colourful and exotic flowers and shrubs, and leafy trees to provide welcome protection from the harsh glare of the midday sun. There may even be a private shrine or chapel situated within the garden wall. The estate would naturally have a private well and perhaps even its own little farm to supply fresh produce for the household. To enjoy this bucolic existence, untroubled by the stresses of city life and, naturally, with enough labourers to perform the necessary agricultural and domestic tasks, was every rich Egyptian’s dream.

  The gardener carries a yoke which makes his shoulders bend with age; it causes a nasty swelling on his neck, which festers. He spends his morning watering his leeks and his evening tending to his herbs, having already toiled in the orchard at noon. He works himself into an early grave far more than do the other professionals.

  From the Middle Kingdom Satire of the Trades

  The Egyptian rural idyll came closest to reality at the city of Akhetaten, King Akhenaten’s custom-designed capital set in the desert sands of Middle Egypt. In this arid and unpromising place luxurious villas were constructed for the wealthiest court officials and bureaucrats. Some of the more spacious homes had twenty or more internal rooms including a large master bedroom with en suite bathroom facilities, and were surrounded by delightful pleasure gardens enclosed by thick mud-brick walls. The servants’ quarters and storage areas were set a little apart from the main house in order to ensure maximum peace and quiet for the residents. Sadly, Akhenaten’s city proved to be indeed a dream, and the new capital was abandoned after less than twenty years’ occupation.

  The more typical Egyptian village must have appeared very much like its modern counterpart, with closely-packed thick-walled houses of varying size arranged higgledy-piggledy along narrow passageways and courtyards, and new buildings or extensions springing up as and when required with absolutely no formal planning procedure. The average villager probably lived in a modest four- or five-roomed house which would have been home to the extended family, the family dependants, the family pets, the foodstor
es and perhaps a few birds and a sheep or two being raised for food. It is perhaps fortunate for family sanity that due to the good weather most tasks could be performed out of doors, either in front of the house, in the yard or on the useful flat roof, and the overcrowded homes were frequently little more than bases used for eating and sleeping.

  The houses, especially the better built ones, admirably suit the Egyptian climate. There is only one thing lacking to make them really pleasant places to live, and that is greater cleanliness within the houses themselves and within the streets. The salvation of the people lies in the fact that they lead essentially an outdoor life, the houses being regarded almost solely as places to sleep and cook in; otherwise the mortality would be considerably higher than it is.

  Miss Blackman’s comments on modern Egyptian village housing

  Town and city houses were generally smaller than their village counterparts and, as land within the walled town was at a premium, they were often built in terraced rows without the luxury of a garden or yard. To compensate for their enforced narrowness the houses grew upwards, and homes two, or even three, storeys high were designed. Actual depictions of urban life are rare, but it is clear that the towns were very densely occupied and in certain more central quarters rather squalid, with the tall buildings crammed together around the important public buildings and excluding the light from the narrow streets. Purpose-built housing complexes such as Deir el-Medina or Amarna, with their organized ranks of neat buildings arranged along straight streets and right-angled road junctions, give a false impression of the efficiency of Egyptian urban planning; these towns were atypical in being conceived for one purpose and built relatively quickly by the state. In contrast, the long-established centres of trade and commerce evolved slowly and randomly. The lack of any official sanitation or waste-disposal system, the overcrowded conditions and the ubiquitous presence of the animals needed for food must have made town life at times unappealing, if not downright unhygienic, particularly during the long hot summer days; the attractions of country life must have been widely felt.