3 Bronze Age divine queenship dowry fertility figure ideal idols infanticide intercessor monotheism Mother Goddess Neolithic Paleolithic polytheism portrait priestess regent ■ CHaPtEr 1 Prehistory and the First Civilizations The works discussed in this chapter span the longest duration of any chapter in this book—25,000 years. The surviving group of Paleolithic small sculptures is the main evidence discussed in the context of the “Mother Goddess” debate, an ongoing issue with scholars since the 1970s, if not longer. As opposed to the preceding Paleolithic period, there is little surviving evidence of female sculpture from the Neolithic era. An example of a female figure from the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea is considered. Moving from the prehistoric era into the historical era, we then turn to evidence from two of the better-known hierarchal societies, which were centered around the river valleys that formed the earliest “civilizations:” the ancient Near East, or Mesopotamia in the Fertile Crescent, which developed between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the civilization of Egypt centered on the Nile River valley. The historical era is defined by the survival of the earliest written records in the third millennium BCE. The past 5,000 years are a relatively recent epoch in human history. Written documents emerge from civilizations in which both patriarchal institutions and class structures with ruling elites and slaves existed. Therefore, the archeological evidence from the thousands of years of social organizations that preceded the third millennium BCE have been a source of great interest for archeologists and feminist scholars. KEY TERMS Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. PALEOLITHIC HUNTING AND GATHERING SOCIETIES: THE MOTHER GODDESS DEBATE The main issue that has generated a lively debate is centered on the existence of a Mother Goddess. Some scholars believe that Paleolithic societies worshipped an all-powerful female deity, which ensured a celebration of nature and an equal balance between the genders within a matriarchal hierarchy. 1 On the opposite side of the argument are archeologists who disagree with such a metanarrative, stating that a static religious concept would not survive over such a long period of time and in so many different geographical sites. Such scholars believe that an all-encompassing Mother or Great Goddess was just wishful thinking for feminists, especially in the 1970s, when a need for an alternative social organization distinct from patriarchy was widely discussed among feminist artists and art historians. Opponents of the existence of the Mother Goddess refuted the perceived links between worship of a female deity and a correspondingly high status for women in hunting and gathering communities, frequently citing the medieval worship of the Virgin Mary within the strongly patriarchal society of medieval Europe (see Chapter 3) as evidence that cults of female deities did not transfer to power for women in the real world. FEMALE SCULPTURE: SMALL STATUE FROM WILLENDORF Evidence to support these advocates of the Mother Goddess movement derive largely from the existence of a group of female figures. More than sixty sculptures have been found over a wide area of Europe, from southwestern France to east- ern Russia. The oldest examples have been dated to the Upper Paleolithic era, and most appear to have been created within a relatively short time span of 2,000 years; that is, between 25,000 BCE and 23,000 BCE Most of these surviving examples were carved in stone or mammoth ivory, although a few were modeled from baked clay. As a group, they are quite small in scale, the largest being only 8.5 inches tall. The most often noted example, excavated at Willendorf in Austria, is frequently referred to as the “Venus of Willendorf” (Fig. 1.1). Using the name of the Roman goddess of love and fertility is obviously an anachronism. Roman civilization developed nearly 25,000 years after the creation of this work, and the beliefs attached to “Venus” as a Roman deity were surely vastly different from concepts of female divinity in these Paleolithic societies. The sculpture is characteristic of this group of Paleolithic figures in its treatment of female anatomy. The image is a nude human identifiable as a woman by the enlarged breasts, FIGURE 1 1 Nude Woman (Venus of Willendorf) ca 28,000–25,000 BCE Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. stomach, buttocks, and thighs. Like the other sculptures in this group, the figure is face- less and lacks feet. Tiny arms are incised across her massive abdomen. In formulating an interpretation of these objects, it is important to pay attention to the evidence of arche- ological excavations. Most such figurines have been found in houses or home sites. They are usually excavated as single objects, along with flint tools and other debris. Based on the known archeological record, Margaret Ehrenberg argues against the assumption that these figures provide evidence of a universal religion based on a unified concept of a female goddess. 2 The societies in which these carved sculptures were created were small in population; they survived by gathering or foraging plant foods, whenever possible, and hunting animals. These men and women lived in very cold climates, on the edges of glacial ice sheets where foraging would have been difficult, and meat would have been the mainstay of the diet. Religions based on personified deities are very unusual in such societies, which have been studied in recent times. Ehrenberg argues that these images served as aids in sympathetic magic to promote fertility among women of the community. She cites examples among North American Indian tribes such as the Zuni or West African tribes in which a model of the hoped- for child is carried until the woman gives birth. After the pregnancy or successful birth of the child, the figure could be discarded or retained and used as a doll. Clearly the fact that the “Venus of Willendorf” is only 4.5 inches tall confirms its portability. However, many archeologists are skeptical of this interpretation of the figure. That there are biological differences between men and women is clear and undeniable. But biology alone does not determine the gender roles, gender-defined tasks, and status differences between men and women in any given culture. Although every society has some gendered division of labor for men and women, the assignment of any particular task to one sex or the other varies enormously from culture to culture. Biologically determinist theories or the arguments for the widespread worship of a Mother Goddess are inadequate explanations for the success of male dominance in early civilizations. However, it is not necessary to commit to a single unifying explana- tion for all the figures. Since they have been excavated over such a broad geographical area, there were, quite possibly, a wide range of purposes for these fascinating objects. It does not seem possible to prove that such a unified Mother Goddess, similar to the patriarchal deity of monotheistic religions, existed based on the surviving evidence, but it is undeniable that coping with issues of fertility, dangers of childbirth, and high mater- nal and infant mortality rates were concerns central to the survival of the community. However, to move from these concerns to assert the existence of “matriarchies,” that is, societies in which women were more FIGURE 1 2 Early Bronze Age, statue from the Cyclades, ca 2700–2500 BCE. Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. important than men, is a big leap of faith. Part of the ongoing fascination with prehistory for today’s feminists certainly reflects the need for alternative models for gender relationships in contemporary society. THE BRONZE AGE: THE CYCLADES Most of the surviving sculptures of the Bronze Age may be dated to a much more recent historical epoch, stretching from 5,500 to 2,500 BCE. Small-scale sculptures depicting women have been located throughout Europe and in southwest Asia. They are especially numerous in the Mediterranean islands from the Cyclades and Cyprus in the east to Majorca in the west. Early Bronze Age figures from the Cyclades, known as idols , have been found, num- bering in the thousands. 3 They have been excavated mainly in or on graves, rather than in settlements, as with the Paleolithic figures. Figure 1.2 shows a characteristic example of a female sculpture from the Cyclades, carved in marble. It is much larger in scale than the Paleolithic statues. Like the Willendorf statue, these female figures do not display portrait features. Their anatomy is idealized and conforms to a regularized canon of proportions. Compared with the earlier statuettes, the differences are quite distinct. The Cycladic figures have all their body parts, from head to feet. They are relatively flat, and arms are incised across the stomach. The enlargement of breasts, stomach, and buttocks visible in the Wil- lendorf figure is no longer apparent. Instead, a highly simplified conceptual treatment of anatomy is used, one that provided inspiration to early twentieth-century sculptors such as Brancusi (1876–1957). Only a slightly bulging stomach and breasts could be said to relate to the older statues and connote female fertility. The figures were meant to lie flat in or on graves, given the position of the feet. On some examples (but not the one in Fig. 1.2) traces of paint survive that indicate that the faces were covered with dots, the eyes were outlined, and some even had painted necklaces. Jenifer Neils suggests that similar facial paint was used on corpses and may have mirrored cosmetic effects applied for special events, such as weddings. 4 Like the older examples, such as the statue from Willendorf (Fig. 1.1), a range of inter- pretations have been proposed to explain the significance of these statues. One important difference is the nature of the societies in which these images were made. By the time these works were created, agriculture was well established throughout the Mediterranean world. Our knowledge of contemporary communities in which agriculture is practiced reveals a number of consistent factors. When the plough is employed, and animals are domesticated, the agricultural work is done mainly by men. In horticultural societies in which other tools, such as hoes or digging sticks are used, women are mainly responsible for agricultural production. Ehrenberg believes that women can be credited with the discovery of agriculture. Because women were most probably responsible for gathering plant foods, they would have developed specialized knowledge about the growth of plants. Eventually, the conscious planting and cultivation of grains would have led to two important consequences: (1) a change from a nomadic to a sedentary living situation and (2) an increase in population due to improved Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. and more dependable food sources. If women were cultivating the crops, it is possible that they would likely have been responsible for inventing the necessary tools. Heavier, more solid containers, probably made from pottery, would have been desirable to store the increased food supply. The oldest examples of pottery have been found at sites in the same regions in which agriculture first appeared in southwestern Asia. With this sedentary lifestyle and food supplies such as cereals appropriate for young children to supplement breast milk, women could have given birth to more children, leading to population increases. In contemporary times, there is a significant correlation between non-plough agriculture, matrilineal and matrilocal systems, and an enhanced status for women. By the time records were kept, the shift had been made in Egypt and the ancient Near East to plough-based agriculture, patrilocal residence, patrilineal descent and land ownership, and the domestication of animals. Ehrenberg concludes that when men took over most of the agricultural work, the social status of women declined. 5 In the absence of concrete evidence, however, it is very difficult to determine the extent of women’s participation in craft activity. We simply do not know whether women were responsible for the creation of fertility figures , clay pots, or woven baskets. However, we can assume that women were responsible for the creation of cloth. Elizabeth Barber has accumulated a vast body of evidence documenting the production of textiles in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. 6 She concludes that nearly all textile workers during these epochs were women. Barber builds her case by associating the production of woven cloth for household use as a task consistent with child-rearing, and thus appropriate to women. This is an intriguing theory, but one not accepted by all archeologists. It is important to remember that the existence of these Cycladic sculptures does not necessarily tell us about the organization of society, the division of labor between the sexes, nor the relative status of women and men in communities of the prehistoric past. THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST By the third millennium BCE, the subordination of women in a patriarchal social structure was well under way in the region known as the ancient Near East. Clearly, women were half of the population, despite the fact that women are relatively invisible in Mesopotamian texts, both visual and written. 7 Recently, Marten Stol has written a detailed study that collects all the surviving evidence to present a comprehensive treatment of women in Mesopotamia and Babylonia. 8 In the culture of the Fertile Crescent, political power became centralized in the hands of male military leaders and hierarchical class stratification of the society developed. Women were excluded from decision making and became another form of private property. The marriage laws that controlled women’s lives to a great extent document this process. Parents arranged marriages, and the groom paid a “bride’s price” to the bride’s parents. Daughters from poor families were sold into marriage or slavery to improve the family’s financial situation. After marriage the husband became the undisputed head of the family. He could divorce his wife quite easily or sell or pawn her and his children to pay off his debts. While Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. husbands could maintain concubines, a wife’s adultery was a crime punishable by death. Children, like wives, were considered property of economic value. 9 Examinations of skele- tons show an average life expectancy of twenty-five to thirty-five years, with death due to childbearing accounting for the shortened life spans of women. There is no evidence for female infanticide in Mesopotamia, because the more chil- dren a man possessed, the greater his economic worth became. Abortion was considered a serious crime, and numerous births were encouraged. A woman who was a mother had higher status and better legal rights than a woman who did not have children. Because the main occupation of most women was the bearing and raising of children, the education of daughters focused on instruction in household tasks, which included weaving, needlework, and music making. However, women were not totally excluded from the economy. Women do seem to have had equal rights in some legal and financial transactions. Wives had the right to use their own dowry after their husband’s death. Therefore, some upper-class women were active in business affairs. Such women were literate and signed documents and contracts in their own names. They could buy and sell slaves and other forms of property. Women could act as witnesses in court. As we will discuss, a few elite women were priestesses living in convents and conducting a wide variety of business affairs independently of men. Lower-class women and female slaves were active in many types of jobs and contrib - uted to the economic development of their societies in the ancient Near East. Women were scribes, midwives, singers, tavern keepers, and even chemists (thirteenth century BCE). Records from as early as the third millennium BCE show that women were brewers, cooks, and agricultural workers, occupations associated with women into the eighteenth century CE. Women formed a large, if not majority, portion of the labor force that was involved in cooking, agricultural work, herding, and midwifery. 10 One significant occupation of women in Mesopotamia continued to be the making of textiles, a laborious and time-consuming activity that could be performed in the home and was therefore well suited to women. The fibers of flax, cotton, or wool first had to be cleaned and prepared and spun into thread. Then the thread was woven into cloth. Clothing was often decorated with embroidery. All of these tasks were the exclusive concern of women. Female slaves who were skilled weavers were highly valued and in great demand in the ancient Near East by members of the upper classes, who purchased fine garments, beauti- fully decorated. Such items were also economically valuable commodities for export. The professional activities of women in the ancient Near East were largely confined to women of the artisan and slave classes, who were forced to work for survival. In royal families, women practiced spinning and weaving, as well as embroidery and basket plaiting. But aristocratic women performed these tasks for the domestic needs of the household, not as professional skills (see Chapter 3). As in Crete, women made pottery. A cylinder seal from the early third millennium BCE shows women potters making vessels in what appears to be a workshop. 11 Basket plaiting was another craft practiced by women of all classes. In contrast with the contemporary surviving visual evidence from Egypt, the roles in which women appear in images known to us from the ancient Near East are relatively few. Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. Irene Winter notes the very limited number of public roles performed by women in Mes- opotamian art. She suggests that the “general invisibility” of women does indeed reflect greater distinctions between the public and private definitions of gender roles than, for example, in Imperial Roman art (see Chapter 2). 12 A few women held political offices of some importance, although not every wife of a king was given the title of “queen.” 13 Three ranks of women were active in temple activities. Women are shown as: (1) high- and middle- rank priestesses , (2) queens and princesses representing the ruling family, and (3) as offering-bearers in religious ceremonies. Enheduenna, High Priestess of Akkad A well-preserved relief has been used by scholars to document the participation of elite women as priestesses in the temple hierarchy. A famous example of a high priestess (en-priestess) was Enheduenna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad (ca 2332–2279 BCE). Sargon was the founder of a new political regime. He usurped the throne of Kish and then consolidated control over northern Mesopotamia. Like the Egyptian pharaoh Narmer, he unified the northern and southern regions under one ruler. Therefore, Enheduenna was appointed priestess of the moon god Nanna to reinforce the Akkadian dynasty’s connections with the older Sumerian rituals in Ur, an important religious and political site for the kingdom. 14 Alhena Gadotti sees this as a clear political ploy meant to legitimize Sargon’s power because the temple of Nanna was an important religious sanctuary in southern Sumer. Enheduenna “found herself at the FIGURE 1 3 Disk of Enheduenna, ca 2300–2250 BCE. Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. head of a powerful religious center because of her father’s political ambitions.” 15 Appointed by her father, she was installed at the sanctuary of the moon god Nanna, at Ur, and possibly also of the sky god An, at Uruk. 16 This would make her one of the most public women of the ruling elite. 17 This position had important political significance beyond the obvious religious signifi- cance. Sargon, king of Akkad, had conquered and imposed political control over Old Sumer. As daughter of Sargon, her Akkadian identity is important for the political consolidation of that dynasty. Her role as priestess, then, is a means of providing divine sanction for the legitimacy of the political rule of her family. This would be somewhat similar to dynastic marriages when a king would use the marriage of a daughter to consolidate political power, as seen in the Middle Ages (Chapter 3). Enheduenna’s appointment inaugurated a tradition of kings appointing daughters as high priestesses that would last for hundreds of years into the Old Babylonian period. 18 Convincing evidence suggests that the position of en-priestess remained important and that the selection of these women followed a regular process. However, little is known of the precise cultic responsibilities of this office. 19 Enheduenna was also a poet who wrote poems in praise of Inanna/Ištar. She is the ear- liest known author of a literary work that can be assigned to a specific individual. She is credited as author of numerous literary compositions, and a number of works that are pos- itively identified by her name still remain unedited and unpublished. 20 In invoking Ištar, goddess of Akkad, Enheduenna provided a religious rationale to the political dominance of the regime. 21 Although some scholars have questioned her authorship of these texts, it was believed that she wrote them in later Mesopotamian history, preserving her historical place in the memory of this society. 22 The circular, limestone relief (Fig. 1.3) has an inscription that identifies Enheduenna as priestess of Ur, the wife of the god Nanna, and the daughter of Sargon “king of the world.” 23 It was found in her convent at Gipar. This building, part of the sanctuary of Nanna, has been excavated. 24 Because it was part of a convent or residence, it was not accessible to the public for viewing. The central figure of a woman, seen in profile, is Enheduenna, who is facing the cultic activity to the left. Her upraised hand is a gesture of pious greeting. Her cap with a rolled brim is identified with the headgear of priestesses. She is wearing a tiered dress, typical of a high-ranking woman. Only her head touches the upper edge of the border. This slightly enlarged scale is a sign of her importance. As en-priestess, she does not pour offerings herself, but stands in worship while the male functionary on the left performs the ritual act. This has been interpreted in different ways by scholars. 25 Two bald figures on the right, possibly “servants,” complete the grouping. 26 From the inscription on the back of the disk, the altar on the left can be identified as dedicated to An, god of the sky. Although Enheduenna’s identity is secure, one should not assume that the image was a true portrait likeness, because this was not a customary component of Sumerian art conventions. Nevertheless, this is a remarkable representation from this early period, one that combines both visual and textual material. We can safely assume that Enheduenna was a prominent Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. figure in her time, as princess and en-priestess. Simply the existence of her image is evidence of her elite status. The survival of the disk has provided us with evidence “written in stone” of the first identifiable woman, active in a public role, who lived over 4,000 years ago. Newer scholarship has added to our knowledge of the lives of Mesopotamian and Baby- lonian women as well as a more complete comprehension of their “representations” in words and images. Careful study and analysis of this evidence by scholars has permitted a better understanding of the women of the ancient Near East to emerge. EGYPT Virtually all surviving images of women in Egyptian art occur in the context of temples, funerary monuments, and tomb paintings. As all Egyptian art depicts ideal figures, very few portrait likenesses or deviations in anatomy from the standard, perfected types exist. There are two basic types for men: (1) the slender youthful image, as seen in the statue of Menkaure and Queen Khamerernebty II (Fig. 1.4), and (2) an older, fuller male figure with enlarged breasts and abdomen. Gay Robins identifies the second type with the successful official whose sedentary lifestyle and access to ample food permitted a weight gain as a mark of status. Women had only the single, slender image with no indications of the physical changes of childbearing. 27 Skin color is a second convention that distin- guishes men from women. Women’s skin is usually a lighter yellowish-brown, whereas men’s skin is a darker reddish-brown. This convention may have been a symbol for the realities of some women’s lives. Since women’s occupations were more fre- quently performed indoors, their skin may have been less colored by exposure to the sun. Light-colored skin, then, may have conveyed upper-class status because women of wealthy families did not have to work outdoors at all. However, Robins warns that this is an artistic convention, and not a reliable indi- cator of actual skin colors, which would most likely have varied widely in reality. 28 In recent decades, Egyptologists have conducted a range of investigations that have used biomedi- cal, anthropological, and scientific techniques that have increased our knowledge of women’s real lives. 29 Egyptologists have looked beyond the more FIGURE 1 4 Pair statue of Menkaure and Queen Khamerernebty II, ca 2490–2472 BCE. Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. accessible evidence for queens and royal women to investigate the lives of ordinary village women; for example, those living in the worker’s town of Deir-El-Medina, home to the craftsmen who created the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. 30 However, for art his- tory, the most significant images are those of the queens, which survive in stone and have determined the image of Egyptian women in the modern world. Royal Women The main role of Egypt’s royal women was to complement the divine aspect of kingship through divine queenship . Both the “king’s mother” and the “king’s principal wife” played crucial roles in ritual. Based on analysis of headdresses and other insignia, Robins concludes that just as kingship was considered divine, a concept of “divine queenship” also spanned the entire history of Egyptian civilization. 31 Joyce Tyldesley has written an essay that sum- marizes current scholarship on the role of Egypt’s queens. She notes that the queen-consort was often the sister or the half-sister of the king in a manner imitating the divine couple of Isis and Osiris. 32 This practice was a way of mimicking the behavior of the gods. This distinguished the king from other mortal Egyptians, who did not marry their sisters. The statue in Figure 1.4 shows a remarkably equal and balanced image of the king and queen. It is obvious that the queen is very important. This sculpture also reveals two other consistent elements in the gendered conventions of Egyptian royal imagery. The proportions of the queen are more slender, the definition of her musculature is less developed, and her legs are longer compared with the male figure. Furthermore, her extremely form-fitting clothing reveals the body beneath. By contrast, Menkaure’s loincloth does conceal his FIGURE 1 5 Funerary temple of Hatshepsut at Dier el-Bahri, ca 1473–1458 BCE. Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. genitals. The female figure is so idealized that it is visually nearly identical to other statues of goddesses from this reign. Hatshepsut In many respects Hatshepsut (1504–1483 BCE) was an exceptional and unusual woman who, benefitting from specific circumstances in the dynastic succession, emerged as a powerful leader on her own. She was the daughter of Pharaoh Thutmose I. She apparently married her half-brother, Thutmose II, because she appears on a stele with the title of “principal wife” and “god’s wife” of Thutmose II. This is a case in which succession was contained within the royal family. The successor of Thutmose II was Thutmose III, who must have been just a boy upon his ascension to the throne, since his reign is recorded as lasting fifty-four years. Records also indicate that Thutmose III was not Hatshepsut’s son. For the first years of Thutmose III’s reign, Hatshepsut served as regent , but when Thut- mose III grew old enough to assume the rule independently, Hatshepsut did not relinquish power and step down but, using the precedent of a coregency, reigned as “king” jointly with Thutmose III. This joint “kingship” lasted from year 7 to year 22 in the reign of Thutmose III. At the beginning of the regency, Hatshepsut used the titles and insignia of “king’s principal wife,” although she preferred the title of “god’s wife.” After year 7 in Thutmose’s reign, she abandoned all references to her role as queen and adopted the full range of titles and insignia of a king, even appearing on monuments in the body type and costume of the king. Hatshepsut was portrayed on temple walls and columns wearing a false beard, kilt, and crown, the attributes of a male Pharaoh. Kasia Szpakowska relates this to female bar- risters in the United Kingdom who wear the same powdered wigs and robes as their male colleagues to signify their professional roles. 33 Hatshepsut had one daughter, Neferura, who is most frequently recorded as “god’s wife.” The exceptional prominence of a daughter may be due to the unusual circumstances of her mother’s rule. Hatshepsut needed her daughter to fulfill the ritual role normally played by a king’s mother or king’s principal wife. Hatshepsut, who defied tradition, is clearly excep- tional; no other woman in the span of 3,000 years of Egyptian history assumed such power and for such a long period of time. In fact, only 4 of the 200 to 300 Egyptian rulers were female, including the famous Cleopatra (69–30 BCE). One measure of the success of Hatshepsut’s reign is her building activities. She super- vised construction of the temple to Amun at Karnak. She ordered a pair of obelisks for this temple, an act that was strictly the prerogative of the king, and had herself depicted pre- senting offerings directly to the gods. Most important, she had the impressive mortuary temple at Dier el-Bahri constructed. In this temple, designed for her funerary cult rituals, reliefs illustrate the achievements of her reign. Prominently featured is the successful trading mission to the land of Punt in East Africa, which was a source of incense and other valuable goods. This temple is the only example of a large-scale stone architectural monument built by a woman ruler. It is tangible evidence of the political power wielded by Hatshepsut as “king” or “pharaoh” of Egypt. Today, even in its present condition, it overwhelms the visitor Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. with its scale, sweeping ramps, and looming rocky backdrop. Building in stone on this mon- umental scale, Hatshepsut created a monument for her immortal fame, a worthy rival of the Great Pyramids of her Old Kingdom predecessors. Nefertiti Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to “Akhenaten,” ruled from 1353 to 1336 BCE. His reign is well known for a major shift from the polytheism of Egyptian religion to a mono- theism centered on the worship of a single god, Aten, symbolized by the sun disk. His “principal wife” Nefertiti was extremely important in his reign, given that “no other queen was ever shown so frequently on the monuments, in temples, tombs and statuary.” 34 In the four temples built in Karnak, Nefertiti is actually depicted more often than Akhenaten. She is also named frequently in texts on stelae that encircled the boundaries of the new capital at Amarna. Her importance in the Aten religion is documented by her appearance in the temple at Karnak, presenting offerings directly to the god Aten. 35 Other textual evidence shows that Nefertiti functioned as an intercessor , much like the Virgin Mary, between common people and the new monotheistic male god, bridging the gap left by the abandonment of the traditional pantheon of goddesses. The sunken relief shown in Figure 1.6 was part of a household altar in the palace at Amarna. Nefertiti is depicted in the same scale and as an equal partner with Akhenaten. Notably she is depicted with her children. Stephanie Budin, author of a comprehensive study of the mother-and-child image in antiquity, informs us that this was actually a rare FIGURE 1 6 Stele, altar from Amarna Akhenaton, Nefertiti, and three daughters, Eighteenth Dynasty, ca 1353–1335 BCE. Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. iconographic motif prior to Amarna. In this image, three daughters are depicted, creating “an image of a loving, close-knit family under the blessing of the divinity.” 36 Narrow torsos, elongated proportions, and curving contours increase the sense of naturalism in this image. The tall blue crown in the famous bust of Nefertiti (now in Berlin) was a unique royal insignia. It was found in the workshop of the artist Thutmose. 37 Early in her reign, Nefertiti wore insignia commonly associated with queens. However, later on, she was sometimes depicted wear- ing crowns identical to that of the king and in poses and situations borrowed, like Hatshepsut, from the king’s iconography. The status of the queen in the Amarna era seems to be consistent with the tradition of royal women in the late Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Dynasties which granted them exceptional power and autonomy, especially in the absence of the king. 38 New Kingdom Tomb Paintings Egyptologists have sought to achieve appropriate interpretations of tomb paintings. Most tombs comprised an underground area reserved for the dead and the gods and an upper chapel where the living could visit. 39 One important function of tomb paintings was to provide a setting for the rebirth of the tomb owner in the next world. Representations of women in tomb paintings should be interpreted in this context. The scene shown in Figure 1.7, common in tomb paintings from the Old Kingdom through the Eighteenth Dynasty, combines two motifs. The tomb owner hunts birds with a throwstick and spears two fish. The marsh setting carries associations with Hathor, the cow goddess, and the primordial swamp from which it was believed the mound of creation arose. The lotus, present here in abundance, was a common symbol of rebirth. Hunting the wild fowl symbolizes the ability of the tomb owner to establish order from the chaos of FIGURE 1 7 Scene from tomb of Menna, hunting scene. Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright © 2019. Cognella, Inc.. All rights reserved. natural forces. Fowling was an activity associated with the god Osiris, who was resurrected by his sister, the goddess Isis. Isis would conceive a son with Osiris, the falcon god Horus. She gave birth to Horus in the marsh of Khemmis, where wild fowl abound. The fish, the tilapia, was also a symbol of rebirth, associated with Hathor. It was believed to accompany and protect the sun god in his journey and is invoked in the text of The Book of the Dead Female members of the family appear prominently in these representations, although they are smaller in scale and placed behind the male figures. Their presence may be interpreted not merely as a genre element but as crucial to the successful rebirth of the tomb owner and here function as representative(s) of the female ability to create new life. 40 The symbols of fertility in this world are linked in both tomb paintings and funerary art to the desired rebirth in the next world. Banquet scenes, which depict the deceased tomb owner and guests participating in a ritual meal, were common tomb decorations in the Eighteenth Dynasty (Fig. 1.8). As discussed in relation to the sculpture of Menkaure and Khamerernebty II (Fig. 1.4), the costumes of men and women were clearly differentiated in Egyptian artistic conventions. In the New King- dom, during the Eighteenth Dynasty, the visual representations of female costumes began to change to pleated, looser-fitting drapery, which reflects the styles in actual dresses that have survived from this epoch. Linen cloth, worn loosely, would tend to conceal the body. Robins relates the banquet scene of this image to the ritual meal eaten at the tomb at the time of burial and then annually following the tomb owner’s death. There are two registers in this image. The upper register shows the banquet guests, which include both FIGURE 1 8 Tomb of Nebamun, banquet scene. Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present, Cognella, Inc., 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=6417475. Created from utd on 2022-01-18 18:26:06. Copyright ©