Among burials provided with an unusual range of plant and animal material, the most extraordinary collection accompanied an elderly man and woman laid to rest in a southwestern cemetery of Waset, modern Deir al-Madina (Bruyere 1937, 150-157). The man laid in an undecorated coffin. He wore six scarab rings inscribed in hieroglyphs, one of them with the title and name First Cod's Servant of Amun Hapuseneb; this inscription dates the group to no earlier than 1500 BC, because this official is known to have served Hatshepsut. As Hapuseneb had his own burial monument and as the man was buried in a relatively modest, undecorated coffin, the name on the ring does not identify the wearer in this instance or even reveal what relation he might have had to Hapuseneb - a reminder of the limitations to written evidence. A lyre had been placed over the legs of the man, possibly for the reviving force of music into eternity. Alongside, the woman rested in a brightly painted and decorated coffin, inscribed in hieroglyphs, from which we know her name, Madja. The hieroglyphic-inscribed rings and the fine coffin of Madja place these individuals broadly among the middling wealthier in society (Figure 6.2).
Around the two coffins, the excavators found filled baskets and pottery vessels, most closer to Madja; one basket with fine balance set for measuring was beside the coffin of the man. Fruits, bread, and fat are within the range of food supplies known from many other tombs of the period. Yet some items were in tiny packets, not regularly reported for burials of the period, and some materials are treated differently, or rare finds in themselves. A circular basket contained round fruits, one painted blue, with needles and a wood hone; a cattle horn containing fat; and a small ivory-inlaid wood box in which laid little green and pink stones. Three packets were inside a sealed vase, nested inside another sealed vase; one packet contained five smaller packets of grains, the others had miniature clay coffins with winged insects (the excavation diary is not more specific) and one with a double-string necklace of white and blue beads. The small packets and unusual materials have given rise to suggestions that the two individuals, and Madja, in particular, might have been involved in healing (see especially Meskell 1999, 180-181, 193-195).
Figure 6.2 The burials of a woman named Madja and an unnamed man. Drawing © Wolfram Grajetzki after the online archives of Bernard Bruyere at Http://www. ifao. egnet. Net/bases/archives/bruyere/about.
Madja as healing/knowing woman?
Two hundred years later, in the same corner of Waset, we read of a knowing or wise woman (Egyptian rekhet) from a handful of writings (Toivari-Viitala 2001, 228-231). In the most poignant, a man called Qenherkhepshef asks a woman Inherwau why she did not “go to the rekhet about the two babies who died in your charge? Enquire of the rekhet about the deaths of the two babies, whether it was their fate, their des-tiny—and you must enquire about them for me and obtain a picture of my own life and the life of their mother.” Despite the 200-year gap, could Madja be a rekhet, specialized in birth trauma and equipped with an array of special items with medicinal properties? Or is this an imposition from European concepts of white witch, or witchcraft in general, onto the African setting? Anthropologists might provide a range of possible parallels for healers of both sexes. The gender associations are highly uncertain in the burial of Madja; either one or the other or both the man and Madja might have been the receiver/user of these baskets and jars of more and less edible items. Nevertheless, the later references to a wise woman loosely support that interpretation for the find. Contemporary images of a woman with child include some with an animal horn on her lap, and the fat might be oils for birth or infant health. A set of miniature bed, stool, and headrest lay on the coffin of the elderly man; again, they recall images of a woman and child on beds, the dominant form of imagery for safe maternity at this period. An elderly pair might bring experience of the substances and unwritten strategies for easing birth against the high risk of death for the infant and mother, the greatest concern of society. Yet Deborah Sweeney recalls the lack of any ancient written evidence for the age of the rekhet, inviting caution over assuming that this must necessarily be an elderly woman (Sweeney 2006, 146-147).
World History
