Although ancient Egyptian women and their social and political positions have received public recognition since the 1800s (p. xvi), female authority, especially early queenship (Sabbahy, Reference Sabbahy1982; Troy, Reference Troy1986) has often been dismissed. This dismissal has been attributed to several variables including a scarcity of sources, but also a gender bias characterized by a failure to review evidence which considers the presence and contribution of women, especially in a non-royal context (Kelly, Reference Kelly2019; Ayad, Reference Ayad and Ayad2022; Engel, Reference Engel and Ayad2022: 27). Jánosi’s (Reference Jánosi1992) assessment of queens from the Old Kingdom identified an overgeneralization of female royal and social power whereby the queen consort was seen as a counterpart to the king without comparable power (Reference Jánosi1992: 51). Further, Early Dynastic women were approached as objects of desire, which reduced the significance of the titles and their power (Engel, Reference Engel and Ayad2022: 28, 34). Kelly’s monograph, in her own words, seeks ‘to gain a fundamental understanding of women’s activities in key structures of Egyptian society’ an area that ‘remains underrepresented in modern scholarship’ (p. xvii). This fundamental understanding goes beyond just the private sector and the royal context and looks to identify the active engagement of non-royal women who worked in vital industries and performed roles that served the Egyptian state. There is a gender gap in the examination of ancient Egyptian women, which Kelly’s work aims to fill by looking at some of the earliest dynastic evidence of female social power.
Unveiling Female Social Power in Early Egypt (c. 3080-2180 bce) contains forty-eight figures and twenty tables, with a preface, and six chapters. The first chapter introduces Kelly’s research approach and methodology. Chapters 2–4 have a similar layout, focusing on the presentation and analysis of data, and the final chapter establishes the author’s conclusions. Occasional sidebars present additional material for the reader to consider and offer further critical discussion points. There are also two comprehensive appendices, two indices, and a well referenced bibliography.
This anticipated monograph, which is largely derived from Kelly’s (Reference Kelly2021) PhD thesis, provides an historical introduction recognizing the current state of research surrounding non-royal women of the third millennium bce (Engel, Reference Engel and Ayad2022) and expresses the need to carefully consider and re-examine evidence for the presence of women, their roles, and function in Egyptian society. In the first chapter, the author looks ‘Beneath the Veil’, heralding the removal of an androcentric lens that has dominated historical narratives on ancient Egyptian women. Kelly’s interdisciplinary approach applies sociological theory in an ancient context and establishes a socioeconomic model, which acts as a key organizing feature for women’s titles into economic, ideological, and political social domains. These categories are established through the framework of social complexity and based on Mann’s (Reference Mann2012: 2) fundamental principle of resource access and power, which considers the ideological, economic, military, and political contexts (p. 4). The categories of women’s titles in the social domain are defined by three criteria: action (function of a woman’s role), responsibility (the industry for which the role was conducted), and resource access (economic or symbolic resources women accessed or controlled in connection to their occupation). The author’s engagement with social theory demonstrates the useful partnering of sociology with social concepts surrounding women’s involvement in economic structures, power, and the function of the state within the Egyptian context.
This study draws its dataset of 1,442 female names and accompanied titles from Dynasties I–VI by examining extensive primary and secondary sources, including Jones’ (Reference Jones2000) index of titles and epithets, inspecting mortuary contexts, rock inscriptions, and papyri (p. 5). Titles are organized either according to engagement, which designates a title connected to action or activities, or by affiliation, a title with non-active engagement (p. 5). Though an explanation is offered, the exacting variables that the author associates with her study are unclear but not problematic. The representative data set is significant nonetheless and establishes a strong reference point for the examination of women’s titles.
Collective prosopographical data relating to the women in this study are presented in the appendices and organized firstly by the names of women chronologically by dynasty (I–VI) (pp. 77–127, Appendix A, Women), and secondly by titles organized according to engagement or affiliation status and by their social domain category (pp. 129–36, Appendix B, Titles). Gathered data relating to women’s names are coded by a numbering system with a unique identifier provided for each woman appearing in the corpus. Index lists appear for the names of all identified women (pp. 137–50, Index A, Women) and for all titles from the study (pp. 151–54, Index B, Titles). The appendices and indices are useful additions to this study, acting as invaluable sources for examining the names and titles belonging to Early Dynastic non-royal women.
The author instructs caution regarding the chronology and dating of the evidence and considers this an uncontrolled variable that constrains the research study (pp. 11–12). With regard to largely inscriptional data, the author recognizes the limitations of her evidence and the difficulties of applying definitive dating to organize material into its respective periods. Attempts to overcome dating problems in part consist of examining evidence in connection to status or social differentiation when applied to material culture. The observance of burial practices, presence of grave goods, manufacturing, and trade could all aid in dating proximations. This is not an uncommon problem in Egyptological research and the author admits that there is often not enough evidence to firmly establish absolute dating as applied to evidence in her study (pp. 2–4).
The use of an operational socioeconomic model is a key organizing feature of this study and its categorization of women’s titles (p. 8, figs 1.4–1.5). The development of this model sees socioeconomic roles as influenced by a core ideology disseminated through the authority of divine kingship. The author establishes her model in part by reflecting on the kingship duties outlined in a New Kingdom Sun Hymn. Distant in terms of chronological relevance, the hymn identifies the duties of a king and is used as an enduring attestation to the authoritative cultural position of divine kingship and its ideology (p. 7). The author’s model depicts the relationship between cultural ideology and its two-way interaction or influence between kingship/rulership broken down into different social domains: the political, ideological, and economic domains are represented as active engagement domains, while an affiliation category recognizes status and connection as established through social power relationships (pp. 7–8). The incorporation of the socioeconomic model and accompanying figures are useful visual models that add consistent value throughout the study and are adapted for each social domain or social relationship category.
Chapters 2–5 assess the status of female titles based on their social domain categorization, examining the three domains in terms of engagement (Ch. 2–4), and evaluating social power relationships with titles of affiliation (Chapter 5). Chapter 2 introduces us to the economic social domain with which almost one third of all female titles are associated (p. 11). Each domain is often subdivided into further subcategories or sectors to add greater context to their examination. For example, within the five economic categories associated with female titles, just over forty from the 400 women studied were associated with sectors such as personal care services and the textile industry (p. 12, fig 2.1). The quantification of titles set out in this way is impactful and shows the immediate value of Kelly’s research. The contextualization of titles and provenance of material evidence and associated dynastic dating in this chapter demonstrate some geographical and chronological patterns within the distribution of services. The holders of titles associated with domestic service, for example, have the highest number of attestations in Giza, which correlates to Dynasties V–VI, whereas Qubbet el-Hawa bears fewer attestations, with the majority dated to Dynasty III (p. 14, fig 2.2). Over half of the economic titles belonging to females are associated with managerial roles, including authoritative positions overseeing men; this challenges previous perspectives, including Ward’s (Reference Ward and Lesko1989) (pp. 12, 23–24). Female titles associated with the economic domain attest to roles that were attributed to women where ‘economic opportunities opened up in both civic and civil service for both genders’ (p. 12). The author presents data where many further outlets of research could be carried out and could potentially include a comparative examination of titles based on gender and their geographical distribution. The author’s findings on the economic domain steadily advance the importance that non-royal women title holders held in Early Dynastic Egypt.
Chapter 3 explores the ideological domain examining services to cultic and ritual practices. The titles of women within a religious context represent nearly one quarter of women in the dataset. There are five cultic sectors within this domain, which includes roles associated with cults of the living and goddesses and titles belonging to priestesses, among other ritual involvement. Here, the author offers interesting insights into the rendering of titles and their transliterations while also presenting alternative readings regarding the ritual and cultic positions of women weighing against many honorific applications of their titles. This chapter reveals both common-sense translations and untangles previous complex explanations that belied the involvement of women and their roles in the ideological domain.
Chapter 4 examines the position of female sovereignty, political agency, and engagement using a case study of three royal women: Neithhotep, Meretneith, and Neitikrety. Here, the author assesses two potential serekhs (an early symbol of royal authority) and a cartouche bearing connection to the women’s names and roles as queen regents. Kelly recognizes that key literature has often excluded the examination of female serekhs (p. 53), and further challenges assumed masculine connotations with kingship titulary, suggesting instead a gender-neutral interpretation (pp. 51–52). Though only three women represent the dataset for the political domain, the author’s analysis does well to demonstrate that women likely held greater authority than previously suggested within the function of the Egyptian state.
Chapter 5 addresses a category outside the key domains of the study and examines referential social power relationships and titles that indicate a direct connection with the king. There were two categories of titles examined: affiliation titles, received through family affiliate connections (e.g. royal women); and association titles, received through a non-relational connection to the king (e.g. non-royal women) (p. 69). Titles that fall into the category of social power relationships were in the minority of Kelly’s research dataset across the economic, ideological, and political domains (pp. 73, 75).
The author’s conclusions in Chapter 6 (pp. 75–76) recognize the contribution made by women whose titles reveal the roles they held in many industries vital for the functioning of the Egyptian state. This study’s interdisciplinary approach offers a way to re-examine evidence and situate it within a theoretical discourse in an ancient context (pp. 75–76). Non-royal women are being brought to the fore, which underscores their contribution within the economic, ideological, and political domains by holding titles that relate to roles with active engagement and with affiliation through established social power relationships. The author’s examination of 1,442 women’s names and titles achieves the aims of the study. Kelly’s forthcoming and future efforts will expand upon this work and will inevitably affect our perceptions of past scholarly perspectives and influence current and future approaches.
Unveiling Female Social Power in Early Egypt (c. 3080–2180 BCE) is both timely and welcome in Egyptology. This monograph is an insightful study that addresses the titles held by both royal and largely non-royal women and engages with social models applied within an ancient Egyptian context. Kelly’s engagement with material culture through an interdisciplinary approach demonstrates how considerations of social theory and models can benefit the organization of Egyptological evidence. The author’s presentation of data and discussion is impactful and addresses the enduring gender gap present in Egyptology between the examination of male and female social roles and positions, particularly in the role of power and authority. Kelly successfully bridges this gap through the re-examination of evidence and by looking beyond gender bias to reconsider the presence of women and their roles in the Egyptian state’s wider socioeconomic function. Women’s titles in a non-royal context have been given little attention, and this publication adds to what promises to be a burgeoning topic of research on women and the early Egyptian state, which will further inspire wider research.
