Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt

(Hardback)

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Description

The fragmentary evidence allows us only tantalising glimpses of the sophisticated and complex society of the ancient Egyptians, but the Greek historian Herodotus believed that the Egyptians had 'reversed the ordinary practices of mankind' in treating their women better than any of the other civilizations of the ancient world. Carolyn Graves-Brown draws on funerary remains, tomb paintings, architecture and textual evidence to exploreall aspects of women in Egypt from goddesses and queens to women as the 'vessels of creation'. Perhaps surprisingly the most common career for women, after housewife and mother, was the priesthood, where women serveddeities, notably Hathor, with music and dance. Many would come to the temples of Hathor to have their dreams interpreted, or to seek divine inspiration. This is a wide ranging and revealing accounttold with authority and verve.

Reviews

Title mention in Times Higher Education.
'She writes with an obvious enthusiasm for her subject and the anthropological approach that she applies to the women of prehistoric and predynastic Egypt is most welcome... Her stated aim is to write a book that will 'encourage debate' and I have no doubt that she has achieved this ambition.' -- History Today

Author Bio

Carolyn Graves-Brown is curator at the Egypt Centre, University of Wales Swansea. She also teaches for the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Swansea.