Month: April 2010

Seti I: Warrior Pharaoh

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Although the Egyptian empire did not completely crumble under the leadership of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs, the Amarna period beginning with the pharaoh Akhenaten (ca. 1353-1335 BC) was nevertheless characterized by a combination of diplomacy and neglect towards its neighboring territories.  As a consequence, Egypt’s influence in the more remote regions it owned declined. Seti I (ca. 1306-1290 BC), however, introduced a new style of foreign relations during his reign in the early Nineteenth Dynasty. For example, battles were fought to extend Egypt’s sphere of influence in Syria. Seti wanted the people in his territories to see the might of the pharaoh rather than simply telling them to behave through letters as some of his predecessors had done. Seti’s campaigns were designed to reassert Egypt’s control over her empire and to retake areas that Egypt had lost to her enemies.      

Shortly after his second year as pharaoh, he accomplished something his more famous son, Ramesses II, could not. During the reign of the pharaoh Tutankhamen, the city of Kadesh was lost to the people of Hatti, known as the Hittites. Seti, seen at Karnak in his role as an archer, successfully defeated the enemy at Kadesh. The Hittites did not mount a good offense to the attack on Kadesh, most likely because a major part of the Hittite army at the time was involved in a border dispute with the Assyrians to the east. In fact, the king of the Hittites does not appear in the battle scenes which show Seti regaining Kadesh. Instead, an ultimately ineffective combination of Syrian and Hittite soldiers was sent to meet the pharaoh’s challenge. Nevertheless, the Hittites did try to put up a fight after their losses. The scene on the battle relief at Karnak is described as “the vile land of the Hittites, among whom His Majesty…made a great heap of corpses.” In battle Seti is “a mighty bull, with sharp horns, stout-hearted, who smashes the Asiatics and tramples the Hittites; who slays their chiefs as they lie prostrate in their blood; who enters into them like a blast of fire.” The next scene illustrates the return march to Egypt with prisoners from the campaign.        

Kadesh remained under Egyptian control for a short time; however, it eventually reverted to the Hittites without any military challenge from Egypt. Seti had the same problem with Syria as his predecessors—Syria was too far away from Egypt for him to maintain consistent control over the area. As the Hittites regained control over much of Syria, the stage was set for a future confrontation between Seti’s son, Ramesses II and Hatti’s new king. In the meantime, the Hittites and the Egyptians entered into a period of cold war, mainly because of Seti’s pride. Egypt did not actually need Kadesh—it had no supplies or overland trade routes that were vital to the country’s survival–but the king viewed retaining Kadesh as a matter of honor. As a result, although he would later reopen trade with other former foes, Seti refused to trade with the Hittites.

Although it is somewhat understandable that historians have devoted much attention to the achievements of Seti’s extremely long-lived son Ramesses II, Seti I deserves more than a just few paragraphs in the history books.       

Mercy Otis Warren: America’s First Female Political Author

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Mercy Otis Warren was one of the few women who expressed her political views in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Her first play, The Adulateur, used fictional characters to criticize Boston’s royal governor Thomas Hutchinson. She wrote that he would stop at nothing to destroy the colonists “boasted rights, and mark them as slaves.” Although Mercy was bold to publish her writings at a time when a woman’s involvement in politics was considered scandalous, she was conscious of society’s opinions. She published her early works anonymously, knowing that a female writer might not be taken seriously.  At this point in her career she accepted society’s belief that men should take an active role in politics, while women were “confined to the narrow circle of domestic cares.”

Mercy was a gifted political writer, but she was only able to achieve this because of the men in her life. Her father and brother supported her classical, unconventional education, providing her with the skills she needed for a writing career. Her husband supported her talent when she doubted herself, and John Adams became her mentor. As she said in a letter to Adams, “Your Criticism, or Countenance, your Approbation or censure…may in some particulars serve to regulate my future conduct.”  As Adams gained political prominence in early America, he often helped Mercy’s work gain an audience.

Later in her career, Mercy asserted that women had the right to understand political matters, and she stopped publishing her works anonymously. Consequently, male reviewers dismissed her History of the American Revolution because it was written by a woman. She gained respect from the men around her for her talent, but her career remained dependent on male opinions of her work.

 

How English Colonists Treated Native Americans

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The Spanish conquistadors were unquestionably cruel to Native Americans. England’s colonists, however, were equally hostile toward the natives they encountered. The success of England’s colonies depended on the exploitation of Native Americans who were forced off their lands. Religion was often used to justify the poor treatment of the natives. Both England’s economic system and religion led to Native American oppression.

John Rolfe introduced tobacco to the colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1612. Jamestown’s tobacco growers made a lot of money by trading tobacco with the Europeans. Tobacco, however, tears up the land where it is planted so the colonists began to covet Native American lands. The Powhatan tribe tried to repel the land-grabbing English in 1622 and succeeded in killing a third of the settlement’s inhabitants. The colonists, however, successfully put down Native American uprisings throughout the decade. The Native Americans were forced to give up their lands so the colonists could grow even more tobacco.

In addition to their desire for land, the English also used religion to justify bloodshed. In 1637, New England Puritans exterminated thousands of Pequot Indians, including women and children. Captain John Underhill led the attack. He stated that the Pequot “broke forth into a most doleful cry, so as if God had not fitted the hearts of men for the service, it would have bred in them a commiseration towards them. But every man being bereaved of pity fell upon the work without compassion, considering the blood they had shed of our native Countrymen.” The Pequot had previously killed several English captains so the Puritans claimed God supported their extermination of the Pequot for the killing of Englishmen. Since they were Christians and the Pequot were seen as heathens, the Puritans felt justified in their actions.    

 

 

 

Women’s Roles in Ancient Egyptian Religion

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The religious titles and duties held by ancient Egyptian women seemed to give them status in their society. Yet many religious duties were closed to women. Except in extreme cases of emergency and one takeover by female pharaoh Hatchepsut, pharaohs were always male; this had important consequences for religious Egyptian women. The pharaoh stood atop the Egyptian hierarchy in government as well as religion. Since the pharaoh was considered half god and half man, he functioned as an intermediary between the gods and the people and he was also the only official priest of all the gods. Women could never aspire to the rank of chief priest, but they held other respected positions such as priestess. Although large numbers of women in the Old and Middle Kingdoms served as priestesses of the goddess Hathor, their role remained limited. For example, priestesses carried out rituals and feasts, but unlike male priests, did not hold administrative positions. The priestesses were the wives of important officials—mayors, senior civil servants—positions only held by men.  Ultimately, priestesses owed their position not to their abilities or religious faith, but to their husbands.    

 

Another title women held in ancient Egyptian religion was God’s Wife of Amen, the main god of the ancient Egyptians. New Kingdom queens did not tend to serve as priestesses but they often held the title of God’s Wife of Amen. By the beginning of the New Kingdom, the title was handed down to kings’ daughters.  In contrast to the priestesses of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, the God’s Wife of Amen wielded considerable power. On the one hand, she occupied a respected religious position. Her power is described from a scene in one of Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s chapels:  “She [the God’s Wife of Amun] is shown leading a group of male priests to the sacred lake of the temple for the ritual purification before entering the temple courts. They then proceeded to the sanctuary of the god where Hatshepsut as king performed the ceremonies in front of Amun with the god’s wife of Amun in attendance.” The God’s Wife of Amun was clearly the most powerful female religious figure at that time, since it was very unusual for a woman to lead male priests in their rituals and even more unusual for a woman to enter the inner sanctuary of a god. On the other hand, the God’s Wife of Amen also occupied an administrative position. For example, she controlled acres of land. Despite her privileges, the role of God’s Wife of Amen was limited—women could only acquire it by being a king’s daughter.

 

In addition to the titles of priestess and God’s Wife of Amen, ancient Egyptian women also became professional mourners and songstresses. The profession of mourner was open only to women. They were hired to express grief at funerals by beating their breasts, tearing at their hair and wailing. The fact that this position was reserved for women suggests that only women were capable of this kind of excessive grief which would be incompatible with the man’s role in Egyptian society.  

 

Women of high birth had another option in religious life of the New Kingdom—they could become songstresses. This office gave considerable respect to its bearer. The title shemayet or chantress was the most common one for elite women in the New Kingdom. For example, every woman of status at Thebes was a “chantress of Amen.” This was not a position that any woman could acquire without a wealthy husband. The job of the songstresses was to please the gods and goddesses and to communicate with them but not much is known about their duties. Considering the positions of priestess, God’s Wife of Amen, and professional mourners, the temple songstresses probably had no more authority in this male-dominated society than they did.

 

Recommended books: Daughters of Isis by Joyce Tyldesley and Silent Images by Zahi Hawass