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REVIEW BY HILARY WILSON
Amandine Marshall’s book, originally published in French in 2015, is a companion to her Childhood in Ancient Egypt (AUC, 2022). In the foreword to this English-language edition, Salima Ikram suggests that, despite limited source material, Marshall’s work fills significant gaps in our knowledge regarding pregnancy, birth, and infancy. Although the author cites evidence from the Predynastic Period to Roman times, she warns that the unevenness of source material could lead to inappropriate generalisations, a point emphasised by the predominance of New Kingdom documents in her list of referenced texts.
Religious, medical, and literary papyri are used to explore how the Egyptians understood fertility and procreation. Difficulties in conception were generally ascribed to the woman, and miscarriage could be blamed on the malign influence of ghosts – the connection between life and death, the living and the dead, being an important theme of this book. The ‘Opening of the Mouth’ ritual possibly represented the clearing of mucus from the newborn’s mouth to enable breathing. The naming of a child confirmed their existence as an individual, just as the name was essential to the eternal existence of the deceased.
In assessing the contribution of medical papyri to a study of obstetric care, Marshall observes that texts containing the accumulated knowledge of several practitioners may include diametrically opposed diagnoses of similar symptoms. This is illustrated in an appraisal of the efficacy of ancient pregnancy and gender prediction tests. No medical treatment was suggested to prevent miscarriage or to ease a difficult birth, but spells and invocations to various deities provided protection for both mother and foetus. Birth was a moment of extreme vulnerability, surrounded by ritual and magical practices. Wands of hippopotamus ivory, decorated with apotropaic symbols, clearly played an important part in this magical protection, but Marshall admits that we know ‘absolutely nothing about how they were used’.
By comparing how the Egyptians viewed the moment of coming into existence with the manner of their leaving it, this book seeks to redress the imbalance in Egyptological literature on the subject.
MOTHERHOOD AND EARLY CHILDHOOD IN ANCIENT EGYPT: CULTURE, RELIGION, AND MEDICINE
by Amandine Marshall
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO PRESS, 2024
ISBN 978-1-649-03090-0
HARDBACK, £60
