The Berlin and Carlsberg VIII Papyrus provided pregnancy tests which necessitated urinating over barley and emmer seeds. Should the barley sprout first the baby was a boy, if the emmer sprouted first then it was a girl, but if neither sprouted the woman was not pregnant.96 It has been suggested that the only reason they chose barley to prove a boy and emmer a girl is because these words were masculine and feminine in ancient Egyptian.97 The idea itself is one that is used in modern pregnancy tests, which look for indications of increased hormones associated with pregnancy. Experiments were conducted in 1968 where forty-eight urine samples were used: two from men, six from non-pregnant women and forty from pregnant women. These were poured over barley and emmer. Neither grew with male urine or that of non-pregnant women. However, in twenty-eight of the forty samples watered with the urine of pregnant women there was growth from one or both seeds; the sexing of the baby only proved correct in seven of the twenty-eight cases.98 The conclusion was drawn that should either cereal grow then the woman was pregnant, but should neither grow this did not eliminate the possibility of pregnancy.
Once pregnancy was established, spells were recited over knotted fabric; this was placed inside the vagina as a tampon in order to prevent blood flow, which the Egyptians identified with the start of a miscarriage. The spell was thought to prevent any blood from soiling the fabric.99
There was a very high mortality rate among infants. It is estimated that 20 per cent of pregnancies failed, 20 per cent of newborns died in the first year and 30 per cent did not survive past five years old.100 The highest death rate was in the first few days of life;101 the threat slowly decreased in the first month and then again after the first year. A woman may have ten children with only half surviving into adulthood. The New Kingdom ‘Instruction of Ani’ warns, ‘Do not say “I am too young to be taken,” for you do not know your death. When death comes he steals the infant who is in his mother’s arms, just like him who reached old age’.102
Childbirth itself was a very dangerous time in a woman’s life and many women died during or shortly afterwards. At the base of the eastern necropolis at Deir el-Medina, at the lowest point of the hill, was a cemetery dedicated to very young children, including the burials of infants, neonates, foetuses, placentas, viscera and bloody cloths. In general, the higher up the cliff the burial was situated, the older the individual. Each of the child burials was in a small pit only 40–90 centimetres deep, and included simple grave goods such as beer, plates of food and ceramics for use in their afterlife. Very young children were buried in a variety of ways, including in amphora, baskets, boxes or coffins, and resembled, to a certain degree, a mini adult burial. As the New Kingdom progressed, children and adolescents were buried in the family tombs and benefited from the spells and images within.
A similar children’s cemetery was discovered at Gurob, which Diana Craig Patch studied along with other cemeteries, showing that 50 per cent from Gurob, 48 per cent at Matmar and 42 per cent at Mostagedda were children’s graves, demonstrating the high infant mortality rate.103
There were three categories of childbirth: Htp, satisfactory; bnd, difficult; and wdf, protracted.104 The medical papyri offer numerous remedies to ensure a safe birth for both mother and child. The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus had remedies for, among other things,
Causing a woman’s womb to go to its place.
Recognising good milk.
To loosen the child in the belly of a woman.
To separate a child from the womb of its mother.
The birth could be speeded up by burning resin near the abdomen or massaging saffron powder steeped in beer to reduce the pain. The Ebers Papyrus also postulates that should a newborn’s first cry be ny then he would live, but should it be mb then he would die.105
During birth the woman was aided by a midwife, and it is suggested it took place in a special room or an external bower. Images of such bowers have been discovered on ostraca decorated with a vine, which most identify as the convolvulus leaf, although Harer suggests it is the aristolochia which grows wild in Egypt and is often used for uterine contraction. To give birth the pregnant woman crouched with her feet, or perhaps, as Harer suggests, her buttocks,106 resting on sacred birth-bricks; there is an image of this at the mammisi (birth house) at the temple of Hathor at Denderah.
An example of a birth-brick was discovered in Abydos near fragments of an apotropaic wand in the mayor’s residential building.107 The brick was discovered with a number of seals bearing the name of princess Reniseneb, and it is thought she lived here during the second half of the thirteenth dynasty and was married to the mayor.108 It may have belonged to her or one of the other women in the household. The brick was 35 centimetres by 17 centimetres wide and was decorated with a woman holding a baby boy, flanked by Hathor standards. Protective deities, of the same type discovered on apotropaic wands, decorate the other sides of the brick, clearly showing the important protective nature of these items.109 The top surface of the brick is extremely worn, which is to be expected as this was the place where the woman placed her feet during childbirth. The wear on the brick could indicate much use over multiple births.
B. Middle Kingdom birth-brick, Abydos. (Drawing after Szapakowska, 2008, fig. 2.1).
It is suggested the image of a woman giving birth balanced on the bricks resembles the hieroglyphic sign of the horizon, which is the sun rising between two mountains.110 The baby’s head represented the rising sun and therefore connected all babies with the sun-god. The few depictions and written descriptions of childbirth indicate someone stood behind the pregnant woman to support her and the midwife was in front encouraging the birth.
Ritual prayers and activities may have been carried out with a ceremonial ivory apotropaic wand engraved with images of Bes, Taweret and other protective deities. The names on the wands are normally of the mother and the child, normally a boy, and indicates that either the child was named during gestation or the wand was inscribed with the child’s name after the event. Wileman suggests that the child was in fact named at birth and the mother was responsible for choosing the name.111 However, many child burials do not include a name, simply calling the child ‘The Osiris’, indicating that perhaps names were given at a later date. This may have been dependent on the individual family. The spells inscribed on the wands were designed to protect the mother and child: ‘Cut off the head of the enemy when he enters the chamber of the children whom the lady has borne.’112
Although it is unknown exactly what role it played, it is assumed the apotropaic wand needed to come into contact with the woman and to remain in the room with her and her baby after birth. A number of them have been found in tombs, ritually broken in two, presumably to prevent the harmful spirits from escaping. The edges of some wands are worn away and it is suggested they were used to draw a magic circle around the child. Some also have holes pierced into them with a cord threaded through, perhaps to carry them. On tomb walls wands are shown being carried by nurses, but their presence in a funerary context also indicates they were important for rebirth too.
Men were not present at the birth, although their help in the home may have been required afterwards and the absentee record of Deir el-Medina states, ‘Second month of inundation, day 23. Kasa his wife being in childbirth and he had three days off.’113 It is likely that Kasa’s wife was having a difficult birth and therefore he needed to be with her in case she died.
Even if the mother did not die in childbirth, there was danger of infection. The medicinal means of soothing an injury to the perineum were recorded in the Kahun papyrus: ‘Instructions for a lady suffering in her pubic region, her vagina and the region of her vagina which is between her buttocks. You shall say concerning it: very swollen due to giving birth. You should then prepare for her: new oil, 1 henu [450 ml] to be soaked into her vagina.’114
After birth, in an attempt to keep mother and baby safe, they were kept secluded in a room called a hrryt for two weeks. In a house at Tell el-Amarna in a s
mall room under the stairs there were two female figurines, two model beds and a stela dedicated to Taweret, which led many to believe this was an example of a hrryt.115 While there is little doubt of a confinement period, whether this is carried out in the seclusion of a small room is not clear. A letter from Deir el-Medina makes arrangements for a servant woman who has given birth to be provided with bread, meat and cakes, sgnn-oil, honey, wood and water,116 indicating they were well fed and cared for during this period.
In wealthy families where the absence of the women was not so marked, woman also confined themselves in the hrryt during menstruation. It is interesting to note that some of the workmen at Deir el-Medina were absent from work because women in their household were menstruating, indicating they were needed at home during this confinement.
Upon leaving the confinement the new mother resumed her daily life. There is no doubt the birth of the child was celebrated, and there are records from Deir el-Medina describing how the birth of a child was celebrated in the Place of Hard Drinking. Both men and women took part in this celebration.117 The new mother breastfed the child for up to three years as a means of ensuring healthy food for the baby. If a nursing child was ill the medicine was fed to the mother, as ancient Egyptians appreciated the connection between health and mother’s milk.
If the family were wealthy, the mother had died in childbirth or was unable to produce milk, a wet nurse was hired. In the New Kingdom this was a sign of status118 and some officials used the lofty title of Milk-Brother with the King to show a shared wet nurse. From the Middle Kingdom it was not unusual to name the nurse on a funerary stela alongside other family members, showing her revered status within the family. However, the contracts between a family and a wet nurse were rather strict. The child should be shown to the mother at regular intervals so she could monitor its health and progress. The wet nurse should not feed any other children, except for her own, and she should not fall pregnant or participate in sexual intercourse while feeding the child.119
There seems to have been little stigma surrounding breastfeeding your own child, and Papyrus Lansing (a schoolbook) praises the practice by comparing it to that of writing: ‘more enjoyable than a mother’s giving birth, when her heart knows no distaste. She is constant in nursing her son; her breast is in his mouth every day.’120 However, elite women are never shown breastfeeding their children; only goddesses are ever shown in this state.121
Not all women wanted to get pregnant again straight after giving birth and prolonged breastfeeding was thought to prevent this from happening. However, other contraceptives were also available. These included such things as ‘crocodile dung, chopped over hesa and awyt liquid’122 as suggested in the Ramses IV Papyrus and the Kahun Papyrus. This was inserted into the vagina and the dung acted as an absorbent sponge,123 and was probably expected to act as a deterrent for the man.124 Honey was also used, which may have had some spermicidal characteristics; others included fermented vegetables, which produced lactic acid, a substance used in modern contraceptive jellies. An oral contraceptive used beer, celery and oil, which was heated and drunk for four days. According to scientific reports it is proven to have anti-fertility effects.125
Despite such methods women still became pregnant and gave birth to numerous children. Once the child was born it was the mother’s responsibility to ensure they had a happy and healthy childhood.
5.
CHILDHOOD
‘You smote my back and so your teaching entered my ear.’1
Childhood in ancient Egypt was not much different to that of a modern child, albeit somewhat shorter, with adulthood starting in the early teens for both boys and girls. It would appear the main difference is that children in ancient Egypt had far more responsibility than those today, and could be found working in the family business, temples or construction sites from a very young age.
In tomb art children past the age of puberty are almost indistinguishable from adults, as they are depicted in exactly the same way, albeit sometimes on a smaller scale than their parents. Younger children, however, are clearly differentiated as they are not only presented on a much smaller scale, at times only reaching the knees of the adults, but they are also often depicted as being naked. Evidence shows that this was simply an artistic method meant to denote childhood, as a number of child-sized tunics have been discovered, demonstrating that children did wear clothes. One of the main age markers was the side-lock of youth (discussed in chapter two), which was a curled or plaited lock of hair on the right-hand side of an otherwise shaved head.
With the men working in the tombs, temples or fields throughout the week, it was the women’s responsibility to care for the children in the home. Raising a child was known as ‘to make into a human’,2 presumably meaning through the teaching of the appropriate and right ways to act and behave. Tomb images show women carrying babies in slings across their backs, keeping the baby close to the body while still enabling them to do their chores. Mothers held a very special place in the heart of ancient Egyptians and the ‘Instruction of Ani’ emphasises this bond:
Double the food your mother gave to you. Support her as she supported you. She had a heavy load in you but she did not abandon you. When you were born at the end of your months, she was yet yoked to you. Her breast in your mouth for three years. As you grew and your excrement disgusted, she was not disgusted, saying ‘What shall I do?’ When she sent you to school, and you were taught to write she kept watch over you daily with bread and beer in her house.3
From this it is clear that mothers were responsible for all aspects of raising children, from breastfeeding to organising education and protecting the children from harm. Although this text makes it clear that breastfeeding lasted for three years, evidence from the Upper Egyptian Palaeolithic site of Wadi Kubbaniya shows that by the time children were able to crawl they were weaned and were eating mashed vegetables.4 However, from such an early site the practices cannot automatically be assumed to have still been valid in the pharaonic period. What are thought to be weaning cups were discovered by Petrie at El-Lahun and comprised a small, Nile-clay bowl with a pinched spout that made it easy to pour food into the mouths of young children or even the infirm.5
Children played an important role in the household and participated in many of the same activities as their parents, enabling them to learn their expected roles in life. A proverb states, ‘You shall not spare your body when you are young: food comes about by the hands, provision by the feet,’6 making it clear that the Egyptians had a very strict work ethic. Only very young infants would not have an active role to play, and girls helped their mother cook, clean and take care of the younger children. As some women worked at making linen, shoes or pottery, their daughters trained alongside them; perfect examples of children learning from their parents are among the mourners at funerals, when the women were accompanied by their daughters dressed as miniature adults.
Girls are often depicted in a family and household environment, serving drinks and helping with domestic chores, and therefore they were unlikely to have had an education. The boys, once old enough, helped their father with his work, so their activities varied depending on their father’s occupation. One young boy, described in a New Kingdom schoolbook,7 worked with a baker. His role was to prevent the baker from falling headfirst into the bread oven by holding his feet as he placed the bread on the fire: ‘If ever he slips from his son’s grasp he falls into the blazing fire.’8 A Middle Kingdom tomb also shows an apprentice working in a bakery, whose role was less responsible than the boy in the above text; he was only charged with informing the customers their orders were ready.9 Another young lad working in a meat kitchen is told, ‘Get to work, that you may summon the lads to eat,’ to which he eagerly answers, ‘I’ll do it.’10 Another example of a young boy helping his father out was discovered at Abydos in the form of children’s footprints in the mud plaster around the mortuary complex of Khasekhemwy, indicating that very young children were present,11 possib
ly carrying water or tools for the workmen.
The temple singer, Tjatasetimu, from the Temple of Amun at Thebes during the twenty-second dynasty, was only seven years old when she died, but was buried as an adult in an adult-sized coffin. The adult depicted is slender and wearing a tight-fitting dress with one arm across her chest and the other down by her side. Her hairstyle reveals she no longer wore the side-lock of youth and had a hairstyle often associated with girls of marriageable age but who were not yet married. Her role was to sing in accompaniment to her own harp or lute playing for the cult of Amun.12
Despite having responsibilities at such a young age, children were still children, and an image from the tomb of Neferhotep (TT49) shows a nanny looking after a little boy and girl. She is taking at drink from a jar, oblivious to the doorkeeper waving a stick at the children as they passed. One wonders how the children had antagonised him.
Although literacy was low in ancient Egypt, estimated at less than 1 per cent, school was essential for certain careers and was seen as a rite of passage. Papyrus Sallier states, ‘Man comes forth from his mother’s womb and runs to his master.’13 At towns like Deir el-Medina literacy was probably much higher, and McDowell has suggested that forty percent were educated and literate.14 However, as Szpakowska points out, there is a scale of literacy, with some people able to read and write to the extent of producing documents, and others only able to write their own name so that they could sign and witness documents. All could be considered literate, but this obviously skews the literacy estimations.15
The earliest reference to a school or House of Instruction is from the Middle Kingdom and it is only from the New Kingdom that school texts and student writing tablets give an insight into how the system worked. For middle class and elite boys who were expected to enter into government administration or upper levels of priesthood, a school education was necessary. As women were unable to hold administrative positions, girls were not schooled in an official capacity. This is not to say that women were uneducated, and there is evidence that there was a female student at the school at Deir el-Medina. Another female student is mentioned in the Late Ramesside letters, the daughter of Khonsu-mes. She was encouraged to study hard and even to write a letter to the scribe Djehuty-mes.16
Lost Voices of the Nile: Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt Page 12
