Evidence for Female Literacy from Theban Tombs of the New Kingdom (original) (raw)

1985, Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar

In their recent work on literacy in ancient Egypt, 1 John Baines and Chris Eyre include a section on women consisting largely of indirect evidence for literacy among a segment of the female population. That documentation includes a few scribal titles, letters signed by and addressed to women, and palettes that probably were used for writing and drawing. A few examples here will serve to demonstrate the evidence and the problems inherent in evaluating it. Later in this article I will present representational evidence for female literacy in the New Kingdom. The translation of the Middle Kingdom titles sit and sat r.s as "female scribe" and "female scribe of her mouth" has been questioned, for the contexts of several examples are puzzling. 2 Posener attributed a meaning of •cosmetician" to the latter, but Fischer, noting the rarity of lip-painting in Egypt, doubted this interpretation. The Ashayet coffin, JE 47267, is the most ambiguous example. There on the interior in hieratic, women tf sst (?), carry a mirror, jar and chest. On the exterior a woman called jg leads Ashayet by the arm. Male scribes written with the correct hieroglyphic signs so occur on the coffin in writing poses. Perhaps the hieratic and hieroglyphic signs applied to the women here should not be understood as sat. In P. Boulaq 18 (Dynasty 13), the inclusion of a female scribe among singers, nurses, a Scribe of Prisons, an Overseer of the Audience Chamber for the Royal Nursery (k3pl, and others hardly guarantees that sat r.s means •cosmetician". The order of • Research for the Catalog of Non-royal Women and therefore for this article was conducted through the aid of a grant from the Smithsonian Institute funds of the American Research Center in Egypt. I am deeply grateful for the assistance. And I am also appreciative for the unfailing cooperation of the Egyptian Anitiquities Organization and its many representatives.