Who was the Greatest Egyptian Woman ever to have lived? (Valentines Special)

Now I thought, with valentines day coming up, and me being pretty useless at anything that isn't to do with history, I would have to do a valentines-related hub, and as I PLAN... to do a hub every fortnight now, this is the closest date before valentines day to do one. So here you go girls, who was the Greatest Egyptian Woman ever to have lived?? Well I will try to answer that for you and try my very best not to be sexist in any way what so ever, if it comes across that I am being sexist, well, the Egyptians were, I am not!

First we have to consider your average Egyptian Woman. Now we don't have much evidence for domestic Egypt, most of the evidence we do have comes from especially created, planned, villages and towns out in the desert for the tomb builders. These tomb builders’ towns, the best surviving one being Deir el-Medina, built in the 18th Dynasty, gives us most of our evidence for the life of a woman. These houses are all roughly the same size, with some variation, and a similar plan inside the house for each one too, but again, with variation. The first room you walk into has been called the room for the woman. This is because of a 'birthing brick' found in each one, yes girls, we're you an Egyptian, you would be giving birth crouched over a brick. This highlights the importance of birth and as we see in religion, rebirth, as the birthing bricks wouldn't have been constantly used, yet they are always there. The second thing found in this female area is an endless amount of pottery for coking with. Now don't shout at me for being sexist, I'm really not, but the evidence points to the woman doing most of the cooking, if she was lucky she may have a servant to grind the grain for her, but that was it. On the up hand there are some things that show Egyptians weren’t too sexist. We find hundreds of little Ostrica (writing on pot sherds) at Deir el-Medina, and one tells us of how one day, when her husband was ill, his wife took his role to give out grain, and she completed the job with no problem, now in ancient Egypt this was a big deal, as the workers were likely paid in grain. However, despite this, they were still generally cooking, and in some cases weaving, but that was it for the everyday woman.

We must now take 1 more step up the ladder and look at Priestesses. Now there are very few priestesses, or at least little records of them. And when we do find them, they are not usually holding the roles of High Priest or even Sem and Lector Priests. Most female priests seemed to either be Wab Priestesses, who are associated with purification and is the lowest rank of priest, or they were temple dancers, singers and musicians. There are certain times, when they advanced up the ranks though. The Priestesses of Hathor were such dancers and musicians, but Hathor was the Goddess of Dance, Music, Love, Joy and all things happy, so they actually played a vital role in the cult at Dendera, more so than their fellow priests. They all wore special amulet which they wore on their chest, with counterweights over their back, called a Menat. This amulet often showed depictions of Goddesses associated with Hathor being brought offerings by male gods and pharaohs which shows us that some places, such as Dendera, were a haven for women who wanted to advance through the priestly ranks. However, these few havens were exactly that, few, and on the whole priestesses held the lower ranks and looked up to their male counterparts.

We do however; have one main example of a female High Priest. Although she wouldn't have been caught dead as a High Priestess. King Hatshepsut. We know the 'King' was actually a woman, and the King of Egypt was the leading High Priest as well as ruler of all the land. So for a brief period of 15 years a Woman was THE strongest person in all of Egypt. And although we find her name scratched from many temple walls and replaced normally with the name of "Ramesses II" we know, when she was ruling, that no one would have said no to her command. We know this thanks to a particular addition she made to KarnakTemple. She donated an obelisk, as many other pharaohs had done before her, but what was special about this obelisk, was its sheer size. It was so colossal that even Ramesses the Great couldn't take it down or even reach the top to take her name off it. To make such a huge obelisk, she would have needed the undisputed control of every Egyptian, as not only would she have needed stone masons and scribes, but she would have needed the whole country to provide food for them as they worked, and it is because of this, that we can be sure, that she commanded the people of Egypt with no question, and perhaps she was even less challenged than some of her male ancestors. However, Hatshepsut wasn't really scoring any points for the women in general as she, as all her male ancestors, tried to portray herself as the perfect King, so she wore the false beard, and in most depictions of her we see her as a man.

Nefertiti is my next choice. Wife of the 'Heretic King' Akhenaten. She is what I would call the "Tutankhamun of Egyptian Women", as everyone knows about her; she is probably the most famous of all Egyptian women, yet possibly not the greatest. However, unlike the previous queens of past pharaohs, she wasn't just a background figure. In depictions of royal couples the king always tends to be a huge figure, and even his wife is small compared to him, however, Nefertiti was shown as a similar size to her husband, showing she did command some sort of power, equal to that of a pharaoh perhaps? This is reinforced by depictions of her doing very 'Kingly' things such as smiting enemies of Egypt or riding in a chariot. However, there are also scenes of the royal couple kissing and embracing their daughters, and the art style itself was entirely different, so all of these theories that so far are based solely on art can just be swept aside by claiming it was just part of the new cult of the Aten or 'Sun Disk' God who replaced all other Egyptian Gods in Akhenaten's reign. So ignoring all of the artwork the only things we have to go on are a couple of statues, one of which is still intact, but this doesn't display too much power as it was nowhere near the size of Hatshepsut's building and even some male priests and nobles had statues such as these. So again, I refer to my first point in that I see her as the "Tutankhamun of Egyptian Women", she is famous, but only because so much of her existence remains.

Finally we come onto the Goddesses; I have already spoken of one, Hathor, so let’s start with her. She had her own cult at Dendera, and she was the Goddess of all things Happy. There weren’t any major festivals that we know of that were held in her honour, but there is some evidence on the Narmer pallet for her early existence, this evidence being two cows heads, the animal that was Hathor's head. For anyone that doesn't know, Narmer was the FIRST king of Egypt, and this Pallet shows the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, so it is as early in Pharonic Egypt History as physically possible, yet here we have Hathor, already, was she that great a deity that she was worshiped from day one? The next main female goddess would be Ma'at, goddess of balance. She is depicted everywhere, and the Pharaoh is constantly trying to show himself (Or Herself if you're Hatshepsut) maintaining Ma'at, by giving offerings of bread, beer, jewels, clothing, dancers etc to Ma'at herself, or by giving a statuette of Maat to another God as we see Seti I doing in some depictions. Even the 'Greatest Pharaoh', Ramesses II, shows himself being supported by Horus and Seth, Protector and Chaos, Good and Evil, a perfect Balance. There are many other Goddesses though. Nut, Goddess of the sky and prominent in nearly every creation myth. Isis and Nepthys, sisters of Osiris who also both bore sons with him, Isis bore Horus and Nepthys bore Anubis. Bastet, a lioness headed goddess of war, physically the most powerful goddess, but was she the greatest woman?

Personally I would give it to Hatshepsut, she may have pretended to be a man, but it’s quite obvious that many people knew she was a woman, yet she still managed to build the almighty obelisk we can still see today which even defeated Ramesses the Great. Not only that but she was the Pharaoh who we think made the first move to the valley of the kings for burial, and in order to make such a huge religious move such as that... You would have to have complete undisputed power over everyone in your land.

So, now it is up to you my viewers to decide, in this pre-Valentines time, who really was the Greatest Egyptian Woman ever to have lived? You have some good choices this time, and due to... certain... complaints... last time, I will make sure I put enough Goddesses and the Ptolemaic Pharaoh Cleopatra (but she was Greek NOT Egyptian technically! Despite what others will tell you) so have fun voting! Also please comment about what you think and click the little feedback buttons if you think any apply, probably don't, but oh well :) Also, if you want to suggest a title for my next hub, please go ahead and comment or mail me, my email address should be listed on my profile -->

Thanks for reading folks :)