In my research paper, I will be exploring women in ancient Egyptian society. Although I have never done any research on ancient civilizations, I find this topic to be interesting as I believe it may lead me to other curiosities that would fall under the header of “women in history” such as the similarities and differences from women in ancient Egypt and throughout time until now and if there are differences, when and how did those differences take place and most importantly, why. I have read books or watched documentaries throughout my life that demonstrated, through space and time, the roles women play in their individual societies, but I have yet to learn about ancient Egyptian women, other than Cleopatra of course.
I think that selecting ancient Egyptian women in society as my research topic has the capability of being a difficult topic due to the immense time period that spans ancient Egypt. I have, however, found many references about women and their roles in ancient Egypt. I have yet to find a reference that specifically breaks down the status of women in each kingdom or dynasty time period though. Though, from what I have read so far, most of the differences between kingdoms that pertain to women are relatively subtle, and some of the references do acknowledge the differences between kingdom time periods. Due to the possibility of either having differences or no differences, I plan to arrange my paper to accommodate for both specific topic and time period. Some of the topics will be about the importance of women in ancient Egypt, the roles they held, their standing in the community, any rights they may have, marriage, and child-rearing as well as possible other topic or questions that may arise during my research. Under each topic, if there are differences between time periods of kingdoms I will annotate as such and then describe the differences between each for that specific topic
Utilizing a connection between history, archaeology and anthropology from my references, I intend to capture a picture of life for women during the different time periods in ancient Egyptian history. This will include the differences between the poor, the rich or affluent and those that are royalty to illustrate that power and/or money can afford a woman more rights than that of a peasant woman. I have found multiple references that not only tell the stories of the women who lived in ancient Egypt, but also have many translated papyrus scrolls regarding women. These scrolls range in letters to friends and family, simple household transactions or a legal register for a slave; and some are just a male pointing out appreciation for a woman. I have also found a few references that discuss the archaeological perspective to women in ancient Egypt and some of the references combine both the archaeological and historical perspective together. I plan to elaborate on the archaeology and anthropology from these resources and how it relates to each section of my paper.
References
Meskell, Lynn
1999 Archaeologies of social life: age, sex, class et cetera in ancient Egypt, Malden, MA, Blackwell.
Robins, Gay
1993 Women in ancient Egypt. Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press.
Tyldesley, Joyce A
1994 Daughters of Isis: women of ancient Egypt, London, Viking.
Wilson, Hilary
1997 People of the Pharaohs: from peasant to courtier, London, M. O’Mara Books.
I think that this is a very interesting topic that would work well as a research paper. Women in ancient Egypt seem to play an important role in society and I think that examining their roles throughout different time periods and looking at how their social status changes over time is a cool idea. Seeing as how women could range from slaves, housewives, doctors, to even Pharaohs, their roles in ancient Egyptian seem very varied and I think it would be interesting to learn about. I think it is a good idea to talk about the rights that they were given like the right to marry, and I think they were even given the right to divorce, which was a bit surprising for me to hear because I never would have expected them to be given as many rights as they were. Considering how important fertility is to ancient Egyptians, having multiple Gods and Goddesses associated with fertility, I think it would also be interesting to talk about women’s role in this. Looking at them from different socioeconomic statuses, like comparing the poor and rich, also seems like a very interesting aspect of Egyptian culture to discuss. I think it is a good idea to talk about different types of women, such as slaves, average housewives, and female Pharaohs, and how different their roles would have been in their culture. I also think it could be cool to talk about specific women that you are able to find information about and talk a bit about their stories.
Wow, we have a relatively similar paper topic! Neat! Anyways, I have a few comments that might help you flesh out this paper and turn it into something even more rad.
Are you going to be focusing on royal women, or are you going to be focusing on common women? The experiences of those two widely different groups of women will drastically impact the types of sources that you will read and write about for the paper. The societal expectations that you plan on discussing in your paper are very different for each group of women, so it would be important for you to determine which group you are planning on focusing on so you know which sources you are planning on using.
Secondly, you mentioned that you were planning on discussing the differences between the time periods in Ancient Egypt. Is this including the different Intermediate periods? My worry is that if you were including all of those along with the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, AND the New Kingdom, your paper would get incredibly bogged down by discussing how women were treated during all of these various time periods of Ancient Egyptian society.
And, lastly, you named a lot of different topics that you hope to touch on in your paper, along with other questions and topics that may arise during the actual researching and the actual writing of the final paper. Do you think that you should narrow your window of what you want to research so you feel less overwhelmed and the paper is more focused, or do you want to have more of an overview of the role of women in Ancient Egyptian society?
This paper seems very fascinating, and with some minor tweaks, you will have a great start.
It is no secret that women have been systematically excluded from much of human history, which is what makes your paper topic so important and interesting. Academia is androcentric, it favors the male participants, not just in the present, but also of people living in the past. With this strong bias, it is often difficult to cut through the prejudice and learn about women of the past. Archaeology especially is guilty of this androcentric bias. We have seen time and time again models of past cultures, explanations for their behavior, and talk of their kings. But, unfortunately, women have not had a fair representation in the archaeological record. In the past few years, however, there has been some backlash against the male bias, especially in the feminist movement. The feminist movement not only affects today, but it also affects the past. Feminist archaeology (or if you don’t want to be placed under that label, “archaeology that incorporates feminist theory”) has emerged in the 21st century. There has been a great deal of publications on the matter, with scholars taking a look at the role of individuals (which, in turn, illuminates past roles of women in society). I encourage you to do some kind of online search for feminist archaeology in ancient Egypt. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a fair amount of literature on the matter. Many people share the same interests and concerns as you, as it is of course an important issue. I’m interested to see what you will find in your research on women in ancient Egypt.
I think this is a super interesting topic to write on! First off, women in history, especially in early history, are barely focused on due to the male centralization. Women always play a role in ancient societies that are rarely seen, but is so enormously important! I really think you try to focus on everyday women as much as you possibly can. While the reigns of females pharaohs are very important to Egyptian history, it’s the story that is almost always told. People know how women like Hatshepsut lived, whereas the women who lived normal lives are ignored. Of course, acknowledging the fact that documents on the everyday person are incredibly hard to acquire, the information may be limited. But, to the extent that you can, put some energy into that! It will make for a very interesting read!
I also think focusing on women within the Egyptian religion would be very interesting to look into. Firstly, the Egyptian pantheon is full of women, most of which hold very important positions like Isis and Maat. Also it would be interesting to focus on priestesses! They were rare, but held some serious positions of power. Much like the female pharaohs, they were women in a role normally held by men. Some priestesses even had some pretty extensive tombs (there was a priestess of Hathor, I believe who had a lavish tomb).
It may be cliche, but I wouldn’t skimp out on Cleopatra. I did a huge year-long research project on her a couple years ago, and she was one incredible woman! People underestimate her a lot, I think, and just reduce her to a sex symbol. She was absolutely so much more, very intelligent, one of the only Ptolemaic rulers who spoke Egyptian, her list of traits just goes on and on.
Good luck with this!
I really enjoyed reading about the topic you chose. I also briefly thought about writing about something similar but ended up going with Ancient Egyptian medical practices. I am happy to hear that someone is going to focus on women from this time period though!
I think the biggest issue may be the lack of documentation and information about women during this time. Don’t get me wrong, I know that there is quite a bit of information to go off of, but when compared to the amount of information we have about men of the time period it does not seem to be any where near as much. You also mentioned how the big expanse of time may be an issue, so it might be good to focus on specific examples from specific sections of time and compare how women’s roles have changed. Just a thought! Then you can focus more on each example and really hit home about what it is that you are trying to portray to your reader.
I also wanted to comment on your sources. I was pleased to see that they all seem to be scholarly articles (as required). I do think you might want to try to find a source that is a little bit more recent, because all of the ones you have right now are nineteen years old and older. I do not think it will be that big of a deal in the long run, but just something to keep in mind.
Overall, I really like your ideas and honestly would enjoy reading your finished paper.
I think that when talking about women in Egypt people only know as you pointed out Cleopatra. Many people don’t realize when talking about THE Cleopatra that there have been many with the same name that came before her. I think that it will be interesting to learn what roles that the women held and different rights and similar things like that. I think that in the time we live in now women hold an important part in society. It is so important to learn history like this because of the fact that we haven’t really gotten that in other readings or really history in general. Egypt has had so many men that we learn about, not that it’s a bad thing, but we miss out on learning things like this. It is something different and I’m interested in reading more of your paper. I think that also because we have seen so much about the men in Egypt that it will be really challenging to find resources but I think that if you’re successful in finding them that it will be a great paper.
I’m glad to see the topic of women in Egypt again! The first immediate thought I had when reading your title however was that it is a very broad subject. You address this in your writing almost immediately, which is promising. Another thought I had was that the layout of your paper might be difficult to piece together cohesively. It seems like you either have to choose if you want to write it from time period to time period, or if you’re doing more of a holistic type of paper where the time isn’t as important and the entirety of the descriptions.
It’s a lot to cover but from what I read of your plans I think it should come together very well. The part that stood out the most to me was how you said you wanted to speak on the differences between Nobel women and peasant women, I think this would be a very interesting topic as I don’t really know much about the lives of the average Egyptian because it seems as if the noble people take over everything and that’s what people tend to focus on. Having the translations from papyrus scrolls is a very interesting source and one that I think will really bolster up your paper. Good luck!