Priestesses

Although ancient Egypt is well known for its gender equality, women did not play as active a role as did men in temple establishments. Women generally held higher positions in the religious hierarchy during the Old Kingdom than they did in later times. In the Old Kingdom, there were female hem netcher known as hemet netcher, who served the goddesses Hathor and Neith. In the Middle Kingdom, a few women served as hemet netcher of the gods Amun, Ptah, and Min and as wabets (female wab). Priestesses were divided into hierarchies similar to the men's. Ahmose Nofertari, the wife of Ahmose, held the title Second Priest in the early Eighteenth Dynasty. It was not until the Twenty-sixth Dynasty that a woman, Nitocris, held the title First Priest of Amun.

Female priestly roles were downgraded in the New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period. During those periods, women were almost exclusively singers (shamyet or heset) in divine choirs that accompanied priests in processions around and through the temple,- the higher ranks apparently followed the priests into the area near the sanctuary. In Plate III, a woman is shown carrying a sistrum, the rattle whose tinkling sound was associated with Hathor, and a menat, a beaded necklace with an elaborate key-shaped counterpoise that produces a sound when shaken. Women bore titles such as "Singer in the Temple of Amun," or the more prestigious "Singer in the Interior [of the Temple of] Amun. " They were under the supervision of a male or female "Overseer of the Singers." Other women appear as singers

Priestesses

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Of Osiris, or dancers of the "Foremost of the Westerners" (i. e., Osiris) or Min. The erosion of female sacral titles is obvious in the Third Intermediate Period, an era in which many monuments were commissioned by women, or at least commemorated women. Among a group of forty-nine stelae dating to this period, only eleven lists a woman who bears a priestly title; most of the women listed either have no title or are simply referred to as "Mistress of the House."

The title God's Wife (also hemet netcher, but a different word than for the priestess's title mentioned earlier), which denoted a priestess of Amun in the Third Intermediate Period, is first attested several times in the Middle Kingdom. ft appears more consistently in the early New Kingdom, when it is associated with queens and other royal women. fn this early period, it may have been more closely related to succession than to any sacred function, but by the Third Intermediate Period, the post took on a new meaning and the God's Wife was charged with supervising the holdings of Amun in Thebes. fn this era, the God's Wife became immensely wealthy and influential. As a part of her cultic role, she was thought to stimulate and please Amun, thereby evoking the concept of rejuvenation and rebirth (Fig. 11).

Although still debated, there is no direct evidence to suggest that priestesses of any rank were celibate. Many genealogies refer to mothers who held religious titles, and there is no reason to assume that even the God's Wives of the Third Intermediate Period were unmarried.