January 15, 2010

Review: God’s Wife, God’s Servant

Posted in Books, Reviews: Nonfiction at 8:08 am by Shefyt

God’s Wife, God’s Servant: The God’s Wife of Amun
By Mariam F. Ayad. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Hardcover, 216 pages, 51 b/w and color photos.

I pulled this from the library shelves because I was interested in the subject of women in priestly or priestlike roles in ancient Egypt. After a general historical overview of the title “God’s Wife of Amun,” the book focuses on five women from the Third Intermediate and Late Periods who held that position: Shepenwepet I, Amenirdis I, Shepenwepet II, Nitocris, and Ankhnesneferibre. For the most part, it concentrates on analyzing the iconography of depictions of the God’s Wives, and how they were shown in activities and contexts that had previously been the exclusive domain of the King — for instance, taking part in the sed festival, offering ma’at to the Gods, or being suckled by a Goddess. In exploring the evolution of the position and its associations with divine and royal authority, the book also refutes the view that the God’s Wife’s primary role was to sexually please the Gods.

For me, the most interesting part of the book was the section describing the various rites and rituals celebrated by the God’s Wife. For example, a scene from the Edifice of Taharqo by the Sacred Lake shows the God’s Wife aiming a bow and the King hitting balls with his mace. The two of them, here depicted as equals, are performing a rite of protecting the tomb of Wesir from the enemies of the four directions. (The hieroglyphic caption by the God’s Wife reads: “The God’s Wife has grasped the bow against the South and the North, the West and the East in return for what he has given her.”) I think this could be translated into a extremely fun group ritual, by the way; it’s on my list of projects. Other rites include burning fans bearing images of Kemet’s enemies, elevating the Gods, and driving four calves.

The text can get a little repetitive at times as the author describes the elements of the various represenations, many of which repeat from image to image: the costuming, the gestures, the relative positionings. Also, the proofreading is rather sketchy. (You know it’s bad when “Nitocris” is spelled three different ways — on the same page.) There’s a lot of intriguing info here, though, as well as photographs and line drawings of many obscure scenes, mostly from funerary and cultic chapels at Medinet Habu and Karnak. I don’t think it’s quite worth paying the book’s hardcover price (about $100US on Amazon at the time of this review) unless you have an extremely intense interest in the subject, but it’s definitely worth checking out of the library (or possibly getting on Kindle, where it’s only $28.76US).

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