Daughters of Isis(3)

Most Dynastic men of substance chose to be preserved for posterity with stylized rolls of unhealthy-looking fat sagging around their not-insubstantial waists. This less than subtle convention was employed as a means of stressing the wealth of the subject; clearly only the richest Egyptians could afford to consume large amounts of food without needing to burn off calories during hard manual labour. Fat became firmly equated with power, a message which is made very clear in tomb scenes where skinny workmen and those of low rank are shown working beside their overweight masters. In at least a few cases the conventional upper-class paunch may have had some basis in reality. Wealthy Egyptians were inordinately fond of eating and drinking, and the mummified bodies of several New Kingdom pharaohs, including Tuthmosis II and Ramesses II, showed large folds of flabby skin over the abdominal region, indicative of a life-long weight problem.5

In contrast, fat Egyptian females were very rare indeed, and the assorted wives, daughters and sisters who accompanied the tomb owner always maintained an acceptably svelte appearance which was highlighted by their fashionably tight clothing. The obese and possibly steatopygic Queen of Punt and her fat daughter must have been regarded as both unnatural and unwomanly by the workmen who had the duty of recording their images on the walls of Queen Hatchepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri. Whether this female thinness was simply an artistic convention, or whether it should be interpreted as a deliberate comment on women’s less powerful relationship with men, is not clear. In any case, the fact that artists chose to depict all women as slender certainly does not mean that they actually were all slim.

The more minor female figures included in the painted scenes did not need to conform to a stereotyped image of slender feminine passiveness. As these non-central characters formed a relatively small and unimportant part of the total picture the artists felt free to take liberties with their appearance, rejecting the rather stilted formal poses appropriate to the tomb owner and his wife and adopting instead a more naturalistic and lighthearted style. Ugly, old, badly dressed and fat women all appear to enliven the backgrounds of more formal scenes, and it is these more relaxed figures shown working, resting and going about their business, who provide us with a lively and far more typical view of many aspects of everyday Dynastic life. Nubile young girls dance, play their musical instruments and perform impressive gyrations for the entertainment of their patrons, while sedate maids grind endless bushels of corn to make bread and elderly peasant women toil in the fields pulling flax and gleaning grain.

Egyptian sculpture was every bit as practical in its conception as Egyptian painting. All statues were automatically invested with magic or religious powers and could be used to represent or replace real people as necessary. Abstract or ‘unnecessary’ sculpture was therefore unknown in Egypt, and craftsmen confined themselves to depictions of gods, kings and wealthy individuals. All these works were ultimately intended to serve as a substitute person or god in either the temple or the tomb.

During the Old Kingdom the vast majority of private statues were carved for inclusion in the tomb. These figures provided a convenient base for the soul of the departed to receive offerings and, like the two-dimensional images, could serve as a replacement home for the spirit should the original body decay. By the Middle Kingdom, however, most private statues were commissioned so that they could be placed in the courtyards of the great temples where they would serve as an acceptable substitute for the absent devotee and could absorb and transmit any benefits received from their proximity to the god. This tradition continued throughout the New Kingdom, to the extent that most major temples developed associated stoneworking industries. Therefore the pious pilgrim who had been unable to transport a statue from home was able to buy a custom-made figure – ranging from a few inches high to lifesize – to which his or her own name could be added. These proxy worshippers were placed in silent staring ranks facing the sanctuary; when the courtyard became too crowded they were simply removed and buried in a large pit within the sacred temple precincts.

An Egyptian had to be either rich or influential to be able to afford a substantial hard-stone statue. It is not surprising that the recovered statues provide us with a fairly accurate reflection of the more high-ranking sections of society. Most statues represent relatively wealthy men, either single men or groups of related men who have contributed to the cost of a communal statue. Husband-and-wife statues and family groups including dependent children are not uncommon, and these almost always show the wife physically supporting her husband with her arm around his shoulder in a traditional wifely pose. Whether this should be interpreted as a subservient posture, or a sign of family solidarity, is not now clear. Statues of the king and queen invariably depict the wife on a much smaller scale than her husband. This is a true reflection of the relative importance of the couple, but reveals the difference between a god and a mortal rather than that between a husband and a wife; in other family groups the couple are shown more or less to scale, and in cases where a woman of normal height was married to a dwarf the husband is clearly shown to be shorter than his wife. The woman invariably wears formal clothes which allow the artist to emphasize her sexuality by stressing the outline of her breasts. Single female statues, women-only groups