Egyptian Woman

A year in the life of a woman during the reign of Ramesses II

Hilary Wilson

• Publisher: Michael O'Mara
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781782432883
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia dell'antico Egitto

Following the experiences of Nebetiunet - an Egyptian mother and wife living in the holy city of Waset (Thebes) during the fifth year of the reign of Ramesses II - Egyptian Woman offers a fascinating insight into a year in her busy and remarkable life. When Nebet was orphaned at the age of ten, she was taken into the household of her Uncle Nebneteru in Thebes and was established as an apprentice seamstress in the linen workshop of the great Temple of Amen-Ra. She later married a young scribe, Amenmose, and had six children in the first nine years of her marriage. Now, with a household to run, servants to manage, a husband and family to care for, and a highly responsible job to do, Nebetiunet's hardworking life is never without incident. From the inundation of the Nile at the start of the year, through the winter and summer months, we share in the many highs and lows encompassing birth, death, marriage, war, work and education, all experienced by Nebetiunet and her close family and friends. Described in vivid and accurate detail, Egyptian Woman provides an absorbing fictional account of a year in the life of an exceptional woman in ancient Egypt.

CHAPTER ONE

First Month of Inundation

‘WILL THEY BE WAITING FOR US? WILL THEY BE ABLE TO SEE ME?’

Nebetiunet smiled at her daughter’s excitement but the boat’s captain frowned. The River was almost at its lowest and he was concentrating on negotiating the treacherous shallows and mudbanks just north of the city of Waset. Nubnefert, hopping up and down with anticipation of her homecoming and the news she had to share with her family, was oblivious to anything else.

‘Come, sit down Neferti,’ her mother said. ‘It will be a little while yet before we reach the quay. The River’s current may seem slow at this time of year but we still have to move against it. The sailors must be vigilant and you are likely to distract them.’

Neferti sighed and flopped down beside her mother on the sack of their belongings. ‘But will they, Muti?’ Clearly she was not ready to let her questions go unanswered.

‘Will they what, little one?’

‘Will they be waiting for us and will they be able to tell what’s happened to me?’

Nebet put her arm round her daughter’s thin shoulders. ‘I am sure a lookout will have been arranged, and as soon as the boat is sighted someone will be sent to meet us. But you must remember that your father may not be back from his trip yet.’

‘So he won’t know, but will anyone else?’

‘Someone may guess, I suppose, when they see you wearing your new gown.’

Neferti giggled and smoothed the white linen over her knees. The simple dress had been given to her by her namesake, her mother’s sister Nubnefert. Nebetiunet had been invited with her youngest daughter to the city of Iunet to celebrate the New Year with her closest surviving relative. Neferti had complained of a pain in her midriff on the evening of the great festival, and by the next morning she was feeling so unwell that she did not even want to watch the procession of the goddess Hathor, let alone take part in it. The very thought of the open-air party with beer and sweet-cakes for allcomers made her feel queasy.

Nebet was more than a little put out when her older sister recognized the signs that she, as a mother, should have seen at once. Nubnefert had found the necessary cloths and a respectable cast-off gown which had belonged to her own daughter Hunero. ‘Neferti cannot go naked now she is a woman,’ Nubnefert had said, making Nebet feel even more inadequate. At least she had had time to explain what was happening before the first blood appeared, so Neferti was prepared and not frightened, but Nebet was still annoyed that she had not thought to bring a suitable grown-up garment for her daughter. Neferti was not quite twelve years old. Her older sisters had not commenced their moonflows at such an early age, and at the hottest time of the year she had not even packed one of Neferti’s shifts. She could only accept Nubnefert’s gift gracefully and gratefully. ‘Let it be my New Year offering to our new young woman,’ her sister had said, and so Neferti was the proud, if second, owner of a simple tunic dress of lightweight linen, which reached just to her ankles and was gathered at the waist by a plaited cord.

Pains forgotten in the excitement of her new status, Neferti had gone to the festival after all, and her family gave thanks to their patron goddess for her safe transition to womanhood. Later Nebet had talked everything through with Neferti and discussed the practicalities of cleanliness and laundry. There were plenty of clothes stored away at home, outgrown but not outworn by Neferti’s sisters, Mutemwiya and Mutnefert. ‘We shall have fun going through the linen chests to see what you can have. You can’t wear that dress for ever and it’s hardly practical for everyday.’ Neferti was thrilled at the prospect and had talked of little else for the remainder of the holiday.

Snuggling into a comfortable position against her mother’s shoulder, Neferti brushed aside a strand of Nebet’s hair that had fallen across her forehead. ‘What about my hair, Muti?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes, of course, your hair. Well, you can let it grow now as you wish.’ Nebet lovingly caressed her daughter’s close-cropped scalp. ‘We’ll have to see whether it comes out straight like mine or wavy like your father’s.’

‘I hope it’s straight. I want to grow it long, like the Goddess, and like Iset.’

Iset was the housemaid, who was the same age as Neferti but whose mother encouraged her to dress and act older in what Nebetiunet considered to be a most unsuitable manner.

‘I don’t want you to think of Iset as the perfect model for your appearance or your behaviour. I hope you’re too sensible to be taken in by her ways. Besides, you may find that long hair is not very comfortable, especially in the summer months, and while it’s growing, before it’s long enough to plait or tie back, it can be dangerous in the weaving shop. I think it would be better to keep it short and neat. Then, when the time is right, you can have a wig for special occasions.’

‘A wig!’ Neferti had not considered this aspect of growing up. Her contemplation of hairstyles kept her quiet for some time.

Nebetiunet leaned back against one of the crates of deck cargo and took a deep breath of morning air. The early mist had burned off and the air over the River was clear and bright with only a slight breeze from the north. Along the banks, beyond the broad stands of reeds and sedges, farmers were making their last preparations for the annual inundation, strengthening dykes, clearing out irrigation channels and dredging catch basins. Already the River was rising, though imperceptibly. Within a few days the change would be noticeable as the mudbanks disappeared beneath the rising waters, and after another month or so the River would have overflowed, bringing new life to the land beyond as the floodwaters deposited their gift of rich silt. Peasants were already saying daily prayers to Hapi, god of the inundation, and making simple offerings, begging him to send a good flood this year.

The compelling rhythm of a seasonal carol drifted over the water from a group of peasants working on a shaduf beside one of the major canals opening out of the River. The sight and sound brought back vivid memories of her childhood when, after the death of her father, Nubnefer, she had been adopted by his brother, Nebneteru. Some of her happiest days had been spent on the family farm outside Iunet, where she had often watched workmen, like those on the riverbank, preparing for the inundation. The shaduf was a simple mechanism for raising water: a bucket was suspended from one end of a long pole lashed to an upright (in this case a tree stump) in such a way that it could be rocked up and down as well as swung round. The lashings needed constant attention as they stretched or frayed or became stiff with age. The counterweight on the shorter end of the pole was no more than a mass of mud, stones and other debris, and it too had to be repaired or renewed regularly.

Nebet remembered marvelling at the ease with which a lad no older than her middle son Senmut could lower the pole to dip the bucket into the canal then raise it up again, pivot it round and empty the bucketful of water into the cistern nearby. She had never tried it herself, as it was not women’s work, but Nebneteru’s son Paser had explained that the counterweight balanced the heavy leather bucket and made it easy for even a young boy to lift a full load of water. Nebet, who had practised carrying water jars on her head, knew just how heavy water was. She was very glad that now she did not have to do this every day but had servants like Iset to do such work for her.

‘Look, Muti, we’re nearly there.’

Neferti’s cry brought Nebet out of her daydream. The great temple of Ipet Esut had come into sight as the boat cleared the last bend in the River. The two massive pylons on either side of the new ceremonial gateway were still partly shrouded in scaffolding of wood and mudbrick. It would be a while before the huge bronze-clad cedarwood doors were hung in their sockets. Behind and beyond the Temple the city of Waset stretched along the riverside as far as the Southern Sanctuary, which was also undergoing radical building-works. In fact, Nebet thought, there was hardly a time when one or other of the major buildings in Waset was not being modified, renovated, rebuilt or extended, all to the glory of the god Amen-Ra and his son, the Lord of the Two Lands, Usermaatra-Ramesses.

She looked to her right, towards the opposite bank, where the houses of the Western Town clustered around the quays that served the canal and causeway linking the River to the royal mortuary temples on the edge of the cultivation. Just visible was the half-built Mansion, the new temple complex dedicated to the cult of the king, as living god and the god he would become after his death. Surrounding the temple itself were workshops, storerooms and huge mudbrick magazines, which would eventually hold the grain collected annually by the King’s tax officials. Currently the tithed barley and wheat were stored in the granaries of other gods, especially at the neighbouring temple of the deified Menkheperura-Thutmose where Ramose, the husband of Nebet’s eldest daughter Mutemwiya, worked as an accounting scribe. The King’s grand new design included the main administrative offices for Waset, from where her kinsman Paser would conduct the affairs of the South. Paser, who had befriended the orphaned Nebetiunet and whom she had come to worship as a beloved older brother, was the Tjaty, the principal secular authority and head of the judiciary.

Nebet wondered if Paser had yet returned to Waset having attended His Majesty at Suan for the festival of the start of the Inundation. Her husband, Amenmose, as the Tjaty’s secretary, had accompanied him. As far as she knew the royal barge had not passed them on its way north to Per-Ramesse and, since she could not see the great boat moored at either the eastern or western docks, she presumed that the royal party had not yet reached the City. Suan was on the southern-most border of Kemet and consequently Hapi’s blessing reached that town before anywhere else in the country. Nebet looked forward to hearing her husband’s report of a good forecast for this year’s flood from the priests of Khnum, controller of the River. They maintained a careful watch on the water level and, by consulting the records of previous years, kept for untold generations, they could predict the extent of the Inundation with remarkable accuracy.

‘I see him, I see him!’ Neferti squealed in delight as she wriggled out from under her mother’s encircling arm.

‘Who is it you think you can see?’ Nebet asked indulgently.

‘The lookout. There, see, it’s Gemni, at the washing place with Ibi.’

Nebet’s gaze followed her daughter’s pointing finger. On a stony beach on the northern edge of the town, a party of washermen had just set down their bundles of dirty linen. It was impossible to identify faces at this distance but she had to admit that the one young boy in the group had the stance of their houseboy.

‘I think you’re right. Gemni is just the person I would have expected Mutemwiya to send.’

Neferti began to wave and jump up and down to attract the attention of those on shore. The boy seemed not to notice at first, though he was clearly watching the boat as it began to turn towards the eastern dockside. Then suddenly he too started to wave and leap about, causing his elderly companion to look up and stare hard in their direction. The boy must have said something to the old man who turned and waved him away. Gemni needed no further bidding. He darted along the path through the reeds and was lost to sight.

‘Will he reach home in time?’ Neferti wondered. ‘I don’t want to have to wait around on the quayside too long.’

‘We have legs, child,’ Nebet reminded her, ‘and we know our way to our own house. We can walk.’

‘But it’s so undignified, Muti, especially when I’m wearing this dress.’

Nebet sighed. How quickly her little girl had grown up. Almost overnight she had become a young woman and she was unlikely to let anyone forget it for a long time.

‘And besides, I’m hungry,’ Neferti added.

Nebet laughed.

Nebetiunet was gratified to find that her careful arrangements for the management of her household in her absence had all gone to plan. Her eldest daughter, Mutemwiya, had moved back temporarily to see that her mother’s instructions were followed precisely and to make sure that the daily supplies were delivered to her younger brothers, who attended the Temple’s scribe school. Amenmose’s father, Montmose, had made the occasional surprise visit to ensure that the servants were not cheating his son, as he assumed all servants would do given half a chance. Though Nebet was more confident than Montmose of her employees’ trustworthiness, especially that of her personal maid, Meryt, and Amenmose’s manservant, Sendji, she was happy to know that the household had been kept on its toes. Meryt, as it turned out, had spent much of the holiday with her own parents, as her services were not required by Nebetiunet. Sendji, who tended to be a little officious in dealing with the household servants when his master was away, was more moderate in his behaviour when he knew that Montmose might appear at any moment.

The elderly cook, Tia, had poured out the expected string of minor complaints about the laziness and insolence of the living-out housemaids, Hotepu and Didet, and was particularly virulent in her report on the young Iset, but Mutemwiya confirmed that everything had gone as smoothly as could be expected. The servants Menna and Bak had spent their time tending the family’s garden and vegetable plot along with their own, but had not neglected their other duties. Most importantly they had accompanied Mutemwiya to the Temple commissary to carry back the supplies due to both Nebet and Amenmose as employees of the state, so there was plenty of grain in the bins. Tia had kept Hotepu and Didet busy and there was a good quantity of milled flour ready for Nebet’s first large baking session after her return.

First thing the next morning, after a hasty breakfast of barley porridge and dates, Mutemwiya helped her mother make up the daily ration baskets for her brothers Senmut and Khaemwase, then she called for Gemni to help her deliver them to the school gate.

‘I must go home after I’ve seen the boys,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve done everything here but I must go and see how Ramose has been getting on without me.’

‘Yes, of course. Thank you for all you’ve done, my dear. I couldn’t have asked for a better housekeeper,’ Nebet said warmly, and she kissed her daughter before letting her out through the garden gate.

In the kitchen courtyard Tia had already warmed the bake-oven and was stoking the fire with pellets of animal dung mixed with straw, and some lumps of charcoal to increase the heat and keep the smoke down. Tending the fire would keep her occupied for most of the morning. Nebet measured flour and water into the mixing vat, pleased to see that Tia had kept a decent sourdough leaven which, blended with a little beer, should make a good batch of dough. She instructed Hotepu and Didet as to the mixing and kneading and then went back to check the other kitchen stores.

Her daughter had done well. She had not been tempted to overstock by claiming too much at a time of her parents’ official rations. Nebet had left the storerooms in the basement adequately stocked with jars of dried fruit and sacks of chickpeas, beans and lentils. Now there were bunches of newly harvested onions and garlic, and bundles of herbs hanging to dry. Nebet checked to see that the seal on her precious jar of honey was unbroken and that mice had not gnawed their way into her box of spices. She noticed a small new hole in the corner of the store and made a mental note to have Gemni check it out. Mice and rats were a constant menace and her cat, Tamiu, was no longer the efficient pest control she had been in her prime. If it were a snake, however, Nebet would have to find other ways to deal with it.

In the next room Nebet noted that the corner where Tia slept was as neat as ever, the mattress rolled up against the wall behind the two lidded baskets that held the old woman’s worldly goods. If Tia had any living relatives, Nebet knew nothing of them. Tia had been Amenmose’s wet-nurse and, having become nanny and then chaperone as her charge grew up, she had naturally followed her young master when he set up a home of his own. Her position as an old family retainer gave her more licence to speak her mind as regards the running of the household. The newly married Nebetiunet had been very grateful for Tia’s guidance and advice, especially since her own mother had died long before she could teach Nebet anything of the craft of housewifery. Now Tia was crotchety and increasingly forgetful. Her back was permanently bent from years crouched over a kitchen hearth, her joints were swollen and stiff, and she rarely walked further than the well at the end of the street. But there was no question of replacing her. Amenmose was well aware of his duty to care for his foster-mother and Tia would have a home in his house as long as she lived.

Nebet next looked in Iset’s corner and was equally unsurprised to find it a mess. She was supposed to be training Iset to be a lady’s maid like Meryt, but first the little madam had to be taught how a proper household was run from the bottom up. She would be a good worker if only she would stop putting on airs. Her attitude was encouraged by her mother, Henut, who was constantly checking to see that her little darling was not being put upon or overworked. Nebet had no doubt that Tia’s moans about Iset were more than justified.

The little ablutions room was next on her tour of inspection. The urine jar had been emptied and Menna was just replacing the sand in the dry trench. Nebet nodded her approval as he scrubbed the limestone seat and the surround of the bathing stall.

‘When you’ve finished, Menna, I want you to go to the poultry yard. Bring back four good birds, geese for preference,’ she said. ‘Has Bak gone to the gardens already?’

‘Yes, mistress. There should be a good basket of vegetables for the evening meal and he said he’d pick out a melon.’

Returning to the kitchen Nebet approved the kneaded dough and divided it into two batches. The first was cut and shaped into ovals, slashed to allow an even rising of the crust, and set to prove on the limestone bench along the kitchen wall. The rest was to be used for flat breads, cooked by slapping discs of dough on to the outside of the clay cylinder stove. Neferti, now wearing a simple, straight shift dress to advertise her womanly status, joined the kitchen crew as they watched to catch each loaf of bread at the moment it fell from the stove, its underside speckled brown. Quickly the loaf was turned and slapped back in place to cook its other side. They soon had a stack of bread, some of which Nebet insisted sho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Floorplan of family home
• Author’s Note About the Calendar
• Chapter One First Month of Inundation
• Chapter Two Second Month of Inundation
• Chapter Three Third Month of Inundation
• Chapter Four Fourth Month of Inundation
• Chapter Five First Month of Winter
• Chapter Six Second Month of Winter
• Chapter Seven Third Month of Winter
• Chapter Eight Fourth Month of Winter
• Chapter Nine First Month of Summer
• Chapter Ten Second Month of Summer
• Chapter Eleven Third Month of Summer
• Chapter Twelve Fourth Month of Summer
• Chapter Thirteen The Five Days upon the Year
• Map of Waset