Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt [Hardcover]

Carolyn Graves-Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 2010

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 explore all 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 served deities, 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 account told with authority and verve.

Editorial Reviews

Review

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 )

'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.'

(, )

About the Author

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.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (July 7, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847250548
• ISBN-13: 978-1847250544
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #642,685 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating overview of women in Ancient Egypt, September 18, 2011

By 

Sophie Falco "viemagique" (Montreal, QC, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt (Hardcover)

This is a valuable book for many reasons - it summarizes many areas of scholarship and interest that touches upon women in Ancient Egypt and their place in Egyptian society. Although a theocratic society dominated by a male pharaoh (with few exceptions), it was also a society that gave a great place to women, both publicly and in the private sphere. Religiously, women were vital - as dancers, as priestesses (full time or part-time) and as seers. In Egyptian cosmology, it is the feminine that empowers and energises the masculine, which gives life its form. The goddess Hwt-Hwr (Hathor in Greek) is the epitome of that approach to the feminine in Egyptian thought - her role in empowering the Pharaoh and in bringing life to the Kingdom through her erotic and nurturing power cannot be underestimated. Her priestesses were at the same time dancers and embodiments of the goddess, and indeed, we know of a number of royal wives who were priestesses of Hathor.

Unlike the previous reviewer, who seems to bear a grudge against feminism that quite blinds him to the book's qualities, I don't see this as a feminist tract so much as a needed light cast on Ancient Egypt. Its conclusion draws a contrast - unflattering for the latter - with the overwhelmingly anti-women habits of most large Christian denomination, even to this day (the Coptic and Orthodox Churches are among the most patriarchal institutions in the world), but this contrast does not dominate the book, it is merely an interesting and instructive way to compare our world with theirs. We have documents and art to depend upon to form a view of how women lived and were considered in Ancient Egypt. Much remains unknown about the land of Kemet, and as the author writes herself, we are offered tantalizing glimpses across the centuries of what life was like. But the strong importance of women and eroticism cannot be overstated, nor their equality with me in several areas of life and their central role in Egyptian cosmology and religious thinking. Egypt appears to have been a land of joy - a land where one of the highest expressions of religion was dancing for the goddess of love. At the same time, the anger and passion of the goddess - and through her, of women - was understood.

1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Feminist Tract, September 15, 2011

By 

Sam Makkosta (Maine) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt (Hardcover)

Any scholarship that might be here is subsumed under an avalanche of feminist ideology. The book is disappointing since, because of that, it is difficult to believe the author's conclusion.