Daughters of Isis(81)

The dangerous mysteries associated with the creation of a new life led to the development of a female-orientated domestic cult centred around fertility, pregnancy and, more specifically, childbirth. The whole process of delivery was not only physically hazardous for the mother and child, it also seemed to bring the participants, indeed, the whole household, into contact with forces of creation far outside human control. Medicine could be of very little help at such a time, so women naturally turned to the comfort of superstition and magic ritual to ward off evil and assist them through their labour. A small hoard of private votive material recently discovered in the cupboard of an abandoned Amarna house includes a stela showing a woman and a girl worshipping Taweret, two broken female figurines and two model beds; this poignant collection, symbolizing the hopes and fears of an unknown mother and her daughter, allows us a glimpse of the hidden rituals of childbirth. Three thousand years later the Egyptian village women were still treating their confinements as a matter for magic intervention rather than medical aid. As Miss Blackman dispassionately observed:

On many different occasions women have brought their babies to me with the request that I would spit into their mouths, in order to make them live long. Also I found that many of my old clothes that I had thrown away were torn up, and many small pieces of them given to various mothers in the village, who hung them on their babies as charms to prolong life. One expectant mother came and begged me to let her have one of my old frocks, in order that her child might be born on to it! She, poor thing, did not get her request granted, and I regret to say that her baby died very soon after the birth!



The most popular charms and amulets associated with childbirth were those of Taweret (‘The Great One’), the hippopotamus goddess who was always depicted standing upright to display her large and presumably pregnant belly, and who protected women throughout their pregnancy and labour. Although a kindly goddess, Taweret’s power should not be underestimated; the hippopotamus is a large and dangerous animal and even today more Africans are killed each year by hippos than by lions. Charms portraying Hekat, the frog-headed goddess, and Bes, the ugly dwarf god, were also associated with the mysteries of birth; indeed, both Taweret and Bes were occasionally painted on to the inner walls of the village houses to provide a degree of extra protection for the whole family.

All the items associated with childbirth developed a special ritual significance and became invested with particular magical powers, so that even the birthing-stool or birthing-bricks became personified in the form of the goddess Meskhenet, an idiosyncratic-looking lady occasionally illustrated as a tile or brick with a human head but more often shown as a woman sporting a cow’s uterus as her divine headgear.4 Meskhenet was entrusted with the task of protecting the new-born infant, and it is perhaps significant that the determinative sign of a snake was often written at the end of her name. Special care was taken to guard the birthing-bricks themselves, as these would later be used as tablets by the god Thoth when he wrote the future of the new-born child. During the Middle Kingdom magical boomerang-shaped batons or wands played an important but unfortunately obscure role during the delivery. Over one hundred of these batons have been recovered, and almost all are carved from hippopotamus teeth, stressing the link with Taweret. Many carry engraved images of the protective spirits, Taweret and Bes, while some even have inscriptions ‘we have come to give protection to this child’ and the name of the baby or the mother. These items were first identified as magical knives, although as they are all blunt it seems more likely that they had some other less obvious function. The most credible suggestion which has been made as to their use is that they were used to draw a magic circle around the bed to protect the mother and child, somewhat as modern witches are popularly supposed to draw and then step inside a magic pentagon while performing their nefarious deeds.



Fig. 46 The two forms of Meskhenet

It was not only the items associated with childbirth which developed a symbolic or ritual meaning beyond their obvious functional role. Religion, or superstition, had become so much an integral part of everyday life that almost every item used by the Egyptians carried some underlying magical message or had some associated superstitious ritual. Even the days were graded according to magical portents into good, bad and indifferent, and nervous businessmen could consult the official calendar before deciding whether or not to take momentous actions. Similarly, dreams became the subject of intense study as a means of divining the future; the Dream Book gave a long list of common dreams and their interpretations: ‘If a man dreams that he is drinking warm beer, this is bad and suffering will come to him.’ The beneficial effects of wearing specific charms or even specific colours have already been discussed in Chapter 5. Less apparent to modern eyes, but clearly important to the Egyptians, were the advantages of displaying certain decorative devices. For example, a blue faience bowl decorated with a lotus-blossom pattern may have been a beautiful object to have in the house or the tomb, but it also had a symbolic meaning to its owner. The lotus motif, representing the blue lotus flower which opens its petals at daybreak and closes them at night, was closely associated with the daily rebirth of the sun god, and by extension became symbolic of rebirth after death. Similarly, a cosmetic dish or spoon in the shape of a fish would not only be an amusing and practical trinket, it too would represent rebirth and fertility to its owner.