FOREWORD Véronique Dasen, Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Fribourg he past ten years have witnessed a growth in research into the history Te Childhood in antiquity, and this has revealed the wealth and com- ity ofa time oflife that had been incorrectly considered marginal and of little importance. Toda recognized as a subject worthy of study in and of itself, and one that requires competence in a ler to grasp all its facets. ‘The methodological difficulties are numé lenge for the historian, On the one hand, something obvious and unchany s a cultural construct. De and duration va ym one society to the next and ts of view. On the other, not only wer their childhoods (or lives) ‘were also multiple, with very differem depending on social sta~ tus, gender, and urban or rural environment. Poverty, ill treatment, and malnutrition were a constant part of an everyday world that knew nothing of the “rights of the child.” Moreover, childhood does not constitute one illdefined phase but is divided distinct age groups of variable rts of transition often marked by rituals that are part in access to the everyday life of the youngest members y will be tricky in that the written and iconographic Sources give us mere glimpses oftheir lives that have been filtered through adult eyes. Only archacological documents provide access to their mate tial culture, such as their clothes and their toys, the identification of which is however not always certain, while the examination of funerary treatment allows us to grasp the actions and rituals absent from the texts, The shortcomings of the sources can be misleading. If taken at face value,dicontinses and dpe may potently ead one to sea change medium or varia ber and varity of medico-magical prophylactcs that surrounded them, ‘contrast, there is also much evidence of the very young working alongs Ip provide for the family, or laboring in workshops produ ing objects that have preserved the marks oftheir tiny fingerprints education and violence cross paths, as in the Lat ‘th Dynasty), revealing the distance that separates us yet exotic world of ancient Egypt: “As a child, I grew up at tie You oe phe lt ee abi wcrc tay waly Foreword PREFACE y PhD research into the and how they were perceived by adults resulted is ing more than 6,600 documents on the subject. I studied 1,560 figurative representations of children on various iconographic media, some 4,470 child burials, almost $00 artifacts touching upon the world of children (lothes, sandals, toys, and games), and eighty oF so texts or pas to the youngest Egyptians. Nevertheless, given the chronological period ‘under consideration—from the Predynastic to the end of the New King- dom, or roughly 3,500 years—the amassed documentation is rather slight. Phe abundance of sources that made up my corpus is in effect coun- lanced by very large gaps in certain periods of history and in certain ins. There are major documentary ‘especially as regards the publication of child tombs (which can provide data regarding daily life), problems in identifying the real nature of many artifacts, and concerns about the treatment and thus the exploitation of ancient sources that have 1es been poorly published or interpreted. Future discoveries might perhaps confirm some of the hypotheses that I have put forward; however, in several instances, the theories that I propose or support can never be ition to the problems already mentioned, the major constraint ‘work on the basis of sources that In fact, wh gal testimony) oF jographic, they reflect almost exclusive int of men toward hood and children, and thus the viewpoint of individuals who have the same connection as women, who bore the children and who then spent a large part of their days looking after them, at least until they hadacquired a certain degree of independence. As a result, I was only able gather and study documentation that covers a particular perception of ich happens to be skewed in that it lacks the mother’s vision. Words marked with an asterisk *) will be found in the glossary, wl have provided for the non-specialist reader. evi Preface ACKNOWLEDGMENTS y thanks go in the very first place to my parents, Marie-Fran- M ise and Antonio Da Costa, as well as to my friends and who have encouraged me ism, advice, and remarks ofall sorts hav "Hauwer, Annie Schweitzer, Omaima El- sninique Farout, Nicoud, Bernal, Hanane Gaber, Nathalie Gassiolle- Christiane Hachet, good friend and director of the Charm tion, who believed in me and this book from the first years of my doctoral arch. This work s testimony to my profound gratitude and the pleasure that I have had collaborating with her on this publication. | mustalso express my gratitude to Dr. Christian Leblane, Prof. Gihane Zaki, and Dr. Pierre Tallet for the advice they gave me during the defense of my thesis in order to improve the publication of my doctoral work, as well as to Prof. Véronique Dasen for her confidence and interest in my work and for the enlightening discussion we enjoyed about a theme that is close to out hearts. I wish to sincerely thank the curator warians, and assistants in the{would abo ik to thank the many Fgypiclogits excavating diferent Egyptian sites access to their docue cd objets and to data that I was lackit e ial gratitude to Dr. ‘Maarten Raven (Saqqara), Dr. Nicole Alexanian (Dahshur), Prof. Stan Flen- Ikab), Dr. Kamil Kuraszkiewiez (Saqqara), Dr. Josefine Kuckertz Farkha), Prof. Naguib s well rel and Magdalena Stoof (for generously sharing some iany, Friederike Seyfried and Anke Weber (Agyptisches Museum, ike Seybold (Uberseemuseum, Bremen), and Frankenhat im Main); in Austria, Regina rorisches Museum, Vi Belgium, Camille Van Wit ime (Musées Royaux d’Art et d'Histoire, Bruss Roberta Shaw and Steven Shubert (Royal Ontaric Nicolas Christensen (Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen), and C Brons (Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhager Abdel-Razik, and Yasmin Fl (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) Cherpion, Nevine Kamal, and Delphine Driaux (IFA, Car johnson, Marie F. Bryan, and juseu Biblioteca Victor Balaguer, Barcel the United States, Regina Schulz (Walters Art Gallery, Bal Gloor (Denver Art Museum, Denver), Diana Craig Patch and C: H, Rochrig (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Edward Bleil and Kathy Zurek (Brooklyn Museum, New York), Michael Padgett ‘Are Museum, Princeton), Sandra E. Knudsen (Museum of , and James Krakker (Smithsonian Institution, Washington) Stefa (Civico Museo Archeologico, Bergamo), Dani My thanks also go to Dr. Christian Leblanc (Ramesseum), who kindly granted permission to reproduce the photographs of school ostraca from the House of Life of the Ramesseum. My thanks are also due to Dr. Thi- Dr. Roger Lichtenberg, lacke, radiologist and pediatri- along with the very many speci cians, rheumati iatologists, midwives, radiologists, and other practitioners—who willingly answered my sometimes and who generously provided assistance, My gratitude goes also to Thierry De Putter, geologist and Egyptian specialist, for his detailed explanations about the market value of ancient stones. ‘Warmest thanks to Dominique Farout, Annie and André Schweitzer, Jacques Poirson, an ‘translating Egyptian texts and Get And last but not least I thank my friends and acquaintances ofthe Asso- ciation de Sauvegarde du Ramesseum, the Association Papyrus, the Forum DDChampo, and of the valuable website Osiisnet.net, who came to my aid notably regarding museums that was unable to visitand who gave me access to many photographs: Anne D’Hauwer, Ywes Bauche, Frangois and Yvonne Switzerland, Jean-Luc Chappar. (Musées d’Are et d'Histoire, Gene in the United Kingdom, Christina Donald ( fuseum and Art ambridge), (Cambridge), Helen Armstrong (Uni Manley (Royal Scottish Museum, Alison Hobby, and Elizabeth Fleming (Griffith Instrate, Oxford), Li McNamara (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), and Jeremy Coote (Pitt Ri Museum, Oxford); and in Czechia, Pavel Onderka (Naprstek Asian, African and American Cultures, Prague). >owili Acknowledgments Acknowledgments xxixINTRODUCTION Given the variety of the documentatio early n to begin my research in the Predynastic Period and to limit it to the end of the New Kingdom. In effect, the Third Intermediate Period is, not just a historical turning point, with the coming to power of the priests of Amun, but it also marks two clean breaks, in the iconography and in certain funerary practices regarding children. m of the work was to attempt to reconstruct the everyday life ancient Egypt and to see how they were perceived by a ly be achieved through a multi scientific fields. The sources, whether iconographic, epigraphic, archaeological, or anthropological, each provided a mass of information in their respective domains. This data was sometimes com- plementary and sometimes contradictory. The intent of the research was ;pare and contrast all of the sources and to endeavor to extract the closest possible vision of ancient reality My thesis builds upon research initiated by the Egyptologists Mag- ena Stoof' and Erika Feucht,! as well as Rosalind and Jac J. Janssen. 1e same, the Egyptian child will remain the object and not the subject of my study since the enseml scientific data collected, with very rare exceptions, comes fr the children elves. Within Egyptian iconography we have the image and the perception of the youngest members of the community as they were by their elders. Moreover, their representation is subjected to a jons, and symbols, which rei Crs “gprs the fruit of ong but exciting work toward ‘comprises artifacts linked to children and their world: whether clothes,footwear, jewelry, toys, or games, most of it was designed by adults f the young. ‘Thus, to write about children’ lives in ancient Egypt is a tou job since the majority of the source material portrays the way in whi adults thought about and perceived children the concept of chil given the data ie fact that children are greatly underrepresented in funerary ct texts, that they have left very few traces of their world, and that their da is never explicitly mentioned in the texts, partially explains the lack: interest in their study expressed by the academic world until now. TI marked indifference has resulted in large gaps in the documentation, ly in excavation reports where child burials feature as periph funerary contexts. The efforts that have been made in recent decades demonstrate that the world of children is a major subject for study have managed to make up for the gaps and irreversible losses of informati nor have they entirely convinced all archaeologists to publish, in fall in detail, their finds that are linked to children and their world, As are work and analysis based upon material that is fragmentary, incomplete, at the same time biased has been one of the major difficulties encounter seen as child ldren,” “childhood” a ‘whose meaning varies from one society to another. ‘Three criteria define a child as a young individual: morphology, and social status. In anthropology a child is qual mature, since: bone formation is far from complete and it must reach the age renty years before being completely formed from iterion is always the same from one society to another, although f childho basis of three consi to procreate, and, 2 Introduction that ofan adult. As for the social status of the child, it can be extremely vati~ able from one community to another, and can even be subject to changes within the same society. In ancient Egypt, what was the age or the period of transition that allowed the young to be considered as adults? A particular idea is often conveyed in Egyptological literature wherein ancient Egyptians moved .00d to adulthood without any transition. However, @ transi- Egypt. For ‘we know nothing about the length of time this covered. The texts are rarely explicit on this subject and certain figurative examples must often be deduced from the general context. ‘valuable indications from the New Kingdom note the upper to which we can add two later sources, have “adolescence, js age as the point where the period of childhood terminates, it would have been accepted back then even if, in actual fact, the realty ‘must have been considerably more flexible since very few people will have present day may be unsure of their age.* ‘This study is divided into four chapters. The fist will look atthe image of the child and the perception of childhood in the iconography and then in hieroglyphic writing through very varied terms. The notion of art for arts sake did not exist in ancient were were no artists in the modern sense of the ssions. ‘The majority of iconographic media featuring c served precise objectives, just as the images of young Egyptians appeared for a specific reason. What codes and stylistic conventions reflected the being a child? The representation of the very young allowed for a visualization of the concepts of childhood that were specific to their era, but not only that. This part of the book will examine the categories of children represented. Who were they? What was the purpose of their representa- san we deduce from the way in which the ancient Egyptians the care expended on its being. Was it considered as a separa and if so, was it treated as distinct from adults? Was the chi reflected in its clothing, its hairstyle, or even in the weating of certain clty? Did children wear the same accessories as adults? Or, on the other hand, were the very nature, decoration, and even material of such adorn ments a distinguishing feature of childhood? Introduction — 3cover the main activity blocks that gover lectual, manual, and physical learni CHRONOLOGY tective measures to safegua We will finish the book: by Predynastic Period (circa 4500-2900 sc) ir youth? Did they receive any pref or even demonstrations of hostility? Could a heir of his or her father, or did the status of bei ‘Thinite Period (circa 2900-2850 ne) (circa 2900-2600 nc) Second Dynasty (circa 2850-2600 ne) First Dynasty ‘Third Dynasty (irca 2600-2545 nc) Fourth Dynasty Old Kingdom (circa 2545-2435 ne) (circa 2600-2200 wc) Fifth Dynasty (circa 2435-2305 ne) Sixth Dynasty (ica 2305-2120 ne) Seventh Dynasty (irea 2200 -? nc) (The historic reality of this dynasty is contested.) Eighth Dynasty @) (The king list for this dynasty stil very ‘uncertain and its duration is unknown.) Ninth Dynasty (circa 2160-2040 ne) First Intermediate Period (irea 2200-2010 nc) 4 Introduction 56 First Intermediate Period (€irea 2200-2010 ne) renth Dynasty 2080-2010 nc) Second Intermediate Period (circa 1760-1540 ne) (More than 70 king names listed, some of which are fictional) (@-1540 ne) ‘Third Intermediate Period (Circa 1075-740 nc) Chronology rea 1075-945 nc) fwenty-second Dynasty ‘rea 945-745 nc) yy-third Dynast (circa 845-7 ‘Twenty-fourth Dynasty (circa 735-723 2) (Circa 664-525 a th Dynasty Late Period (circa 740-332 ne) ‘Macedonian Period 32-310 ne) Ptolemaic Period (310-30 nc) Roman Period (30 nc-ap 476) Chronology 7PRINCIPAL TEXTUAL SOURCES ‘Medical and/or Magic Texts Ramesseum III and IV Papyri_ Middle Kingdom bers Papyrus ‘Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom Berlin 3027 Papyrus New Kingdom Berlin 3038 Papyrus New Kingdom Deir el-Medina 36 Papyrus New Kingdom Funerary Texts Pyramid Texts Old Kingdom (Coffin Tets Middle Kingdom Tales Truth and Falsebood New Kingdom ‘Maxims, Instructions, Miscellanies, and Administrative Documents The Teaching for Merikare First Intermediate Period Brooklyn Papyrus Middle Kingdom The Maxims of Prabbotep Middle Kingdom The Instruction of Ani ‘Middle Kingdom ‘Toe Instruction of Kbeti or Satire Middle Kingdom sf the TradesThe Instructions of Amenembat I Middle Kingdom ‘Teaching of a Man for His Son ‘Middle Kingdom Kemie iddle Kingdom ‘Middle Kingdom Anastasi I, IM, IV,andV Papyri_ New Kingdom Hymn tothe Nile New Kingdom New Kingdom New Kingdom ‘The Nauti Decree New Kingdom Autobiographies and Correspondence Autobiography of Kheti 1 First Intermediate Period Autobiography of Mentubatep Middle Kingdom Autobiography of Bakenkhonsu New Kingdom Autobiography of Anburmes New Kingdom Papyrus Louvre F. 320 ‘New Kingdom Papyrus Leiden 370 New Kingdom Classical Authors Herodotus, Late Period Diodorus of Sicily Ptolemaic Period “Theophrastus Ptolemaic Period Varro Ptolemaic Period Strabo Ptolemaic and Roman Periods Ovid Roman Period Plutarch Roman Period 10 Principal Textual Sources 1 THE IMAGE OF THE CHILD AND THE PERCEPTION OF CHILDHOOD gyptian iconography is above all an expression of propaganda. It a large number of codes and conventions igion, and the funerary preoccupations of the ancient Egyptians. study of representations of children should be set within this ideo~ itive signs that character- images of children before moving on to look at the motives that led the representation of areal child and | or even to choose to depict an adult the guise of "The third section will tackle the concepts, ideas, and messages that the image of the Egyptian child conveyed depending on the type of representa- ion, From iconography, we will move on to writing in order to specify the way in which the child was perceived by adults and in what terms its state ressed. By looking atthe hieroglyph for the child and the terms that youngest members of society, we will be able to see if child- Egypt was broken down into several stages, in the same way tions, or whether it was considered as single period of life. The Distinguishing Signs of the Image of the Child In Egyptian ar history, a certain number of codes have more readily been associated with the image of children than of adults: small size, hand or Finger placed near the mouth, a sidelock of hair, nudity, and even the fact, that che very young rarely wear any accessories. Often established in the ‘Thinite Period, some of these features would gradually become emblem- atic of the image of childhood.