Children in Antiquity

Perspectives and Experiences of Childhood in the Ancient Mediterranean

Lesley A. Beaumont, Matthew Dillon, Nicola Harrington, Lesley A. Beaumont, Matthew Dillon, Nicola Harrington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781134870752
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

This collection employs a multi-disciplinary approach treating ancient childhood in a holistic manner according to diachronic, regional and thematic perspectives. This multi-disciplinary approach encompasses classical studies, Egyptology, ancient history and the broad spectrum of archaeology, including iconography and bioarchaeology.

With a chronological range of the Bronze Age to Byzantium and regional coverage of Egypt, Greece, and Italy this is the largest survey of childhood yet undertaken for the ancient world. Within this chronological and regional framework both the social construction of childhood and the child's life experience are explored through the key topics of the definition of childhood, daily life, religion and ritual, death, and the information provided by bioarchaeology. No other volume to date provides such a comprehensive, systematic and cross-cultural study of childhood in the ancient Mediterranean world. In particular, its focus on the identification of society-specific definitions of childhood and the incorporation of the bioarchaeological perspective makes this work a unique and innovative study.

Children in Antiquity provides an invaluable and unrivalled resource for anyone working on all aspects of the lives and deaths of children in the ancient Mediterranean world.

PART I

What is a child?

1

The ancient Egyptian conception of children and childhood

Nicola Harrington

Historical and anthropological sources indicate that childhood is a sociological phenomenon and not simply “the time between birth and puberty” as defined by the OED. The concept of “childhood” as a cultural construction (as opposed to just biological immaturity) has been highlighted by Prout and James, who note that it is neither a natural nor universal feature of all societies, but rather a specific structural and cultural component of many of them (Prout and James 1990:8). Halcrow and Tayles draw attention to the need to consider different age types, specifically: physiological or biological age (based on biological changes in the body), chronological age (time since birth), and social age. The latter they define as the “culturally constructed norms of appropriate behavior and status of individuals within society for a given age” (Halcrow and Tayles 2011: 335). These norms are apparent in Egyptian society; for example men could be ostracised for inebriation that resulted in crawling on the floor like “a little child” (Lichtheim 1976: 137).

In this chapter I will draw together sources from the dynastic period of Egyptian history (c. 2575–332 BC) to present a broad overview of the perception of children from infancy to puberty. The data is limited: we know little about how male childhood was defined, less about that of females, and almost nothing about the attitudes of the non-elite to their children. Burials and epitaphs indicate that children were loved and wanted, though in art their often unrealistically diminutive size compared with elite adults suggests an inferior status equal to that of servants (cf. ancient Greece: Beaumont 1995: 358). Iconographically, general physical stages of growth and development are indicated by clothing, gestures, anatomy, hairstyles, and markers such as tattoos, while the large number of written terms for children, specific protective spells and magico-medical texts, along with the existence of child deities is suggestive of an interest in and concern for the young.

Terminology

Ancient Egyptians had a range of terms for non-adults, most of which cannot be accurately attributed to a given age (e.g. Gardiner 1957; Faulkner 1962; MacDonald 1994: 56–7; Feucht 1995: 518–520; Toivari-Viitala 2001: 197–201; Marshall 2013: 70, table 9; Eyre 2014: 295). Examples are shown in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 List of terms for child/children in ancient Egyptian texts

Transliteration	Translation
nxn(t)	Newborn, young, youth, childhood (placenta hieroglyph)
xt, xii	Young child (placenta hieroglyph)
x	(To be a) child (placenta hieroglyph)
aai	Very young, unweaned child; “wailing one”? (Ben Hinson, pers. comm. 2015)
wDH	Weaned child/to wean
tA	Figurative for infant, child: literally “fledgling”
HsAw, HaA	Children, child, infant, boy
Xnw	Child
sDty	Child, possibly from root sDn “to carry a child”
xrd	Child/to be a child (generic)
Xpry	Children (generic); literally “ones (who) come into being”
Mswt, ms, mswtt	Children, child, girl; from msi, “to give birth to”
sA, sAt	Son, daughter. sA is also used for “pupil” in the context of teachers and their students
Sri, Srit	Boy, young son/daughter; from Srr, (to be) small, short, junior, younger, meagre
ktt, sAt ktt	Girl, small daughter (also small in sense of “insignificant”)
rnp	Young man, from rnp(y), young/be young
Hwn(t)	Young man/woman, child (in age or behaviour)
id(w), idiit	Youth, adolescent
mnH	Youth, adolescent; literally “stripling”

There are also special terms for royal and divine children (Marshall 2013: 70, table 9), and additional terms expressing filiation. In contrast to the diversity of words related to “child” and “childhood”, kinship terms are limited, suggesting that the Egyptians placed considerable importance on the young and their general developmental stages. Most terms are followed by the “child” determinative (ideogram), a figure with the index finger of one hand to its mouth (or “in his mouth” according to some translations of the Pyramid Texts), seated on an invisible lap (Gardiner 1957: 443, A17). This generic posture was established by the Old Kingdom (2575–2134 BC), and continued to be characteristic of the sun god in the form of Horus-the-Child despite its decline in the depiction of mortal children from the Middle Kingdom (2040–1640 BC) onwards (Marshall 2013: 32). The finger-to-mouth gesture, perhaps the equivalent of self-pacifying by thumb-sucking, along with reaching out for and turning towards adults, is suggestive of uncertainty as well as the vulnerability of children that is reflected in the multitude of medico-magical texts designed to keep them from harm (Luiselli 2015: 647; Szpakowska, this volume). This defencelessness is also expressed in the use of bird-related terms (“in the egg” [in-utero], “in the nest”, “fledgling”, e.g. Leitz 1999: 72), which probably derive from a symbolic association with Horus in infantile form (Hr-pA-xrd, later Harpocrates; see also the Great Hymn to the Aten: Murnane 1995: 114). In addition, the egg hieroglyph was used from the Middle Kingdom to express filiation (Gardiner 1957: 474, H8), and birds held by or nestled in the hands of children seem to be a visual indicator of youth that was later adopted by the ancient Greeks (Beaumont 2012: 190–191). The god Amun appeared at the dawn of time as a goose and Re/Horus as a falcon, reinforcing this avian connection with youth and new life (cf. Classical Greece: Beaumont 1995: 354). Dorothea Arnold (1996a and b: 56, 108) has even suggested that the bald elongated heads of royal children in Amarna Period art (c. 1353–1335 BC) are meant to be “egg-shaped” because the princesses are embodiments of divine creation. Child gods are universally boys, perhaps because according to myth the earliest gods were male, and many child deities were linked with them in some way: Horus to Re, Ihy to Horus or Re, Nefertum to Re and Horus, and Shed to Horus. The only child demon, Shaqeq (or Sehaqeq), is also male and wandered the earth inflicting headaches. His foreign name and those of his parents link them to the disordered world beyond Egypt’s borders (Edwards 1968: 158; Lucarelli 2010: 3; Vandier d’Abbadie 1959, pl. cxxxvii, no. 2950; Szpakowska, this volume).

Few texts, literary or documentary, deal specifically with childhood. One didactic text (P Insinger) divides an individual’s lifetime into four decades from childhood to old age, while another (P. Sallier I) apportions the same number of partitions (though not necessarily years) to the life of a soldier: infant, child (Sri), stripling (mnH; used as skirmishers in battle) and adult (rmT: Toivari Viitala 2001: 191). A number of tomb autobiographies provide an idea of life stages too, at least in elite contexts. For example, the High Priest of Onuris, Anhurmose at El-Mashayikh claimed that he was “excellent as a weanling, clever as a child, discerning as a boy, intelligent as a humble youth” (Frood 2007: 109). On his statues at Karnak, the high priest of Amun Bakenkhonsu stated that he spent four years as an “excellent youngster” and eleven as a “youth” and trainee stable-master for the king before entering into the priesthood (Frood 2007: 41). Texts such as these suggest that at least four or five age categories pertaining to childhood were noted in some way – baby, weanling, child, boy, youth – after which point individuals moved into the realm of adulthood and the roles and responsibilities that accompanied it. Bakenkhonsu also claims to have been a follower of the god Amun in Karnak Temple as a weanling (Luiselli 2015: 645). The existence of a specific word for “weaned child” (wDH) indicates its importance to the Egyptians as a stage of childhood development.

In the autobiography in his tomb at Zawyet Sultan, the high steward Nefersekheru describes his life from birth to puberty (Frood 2007: 144–5):

I have been a silent one since I descended from the womb,

One who came as a child of perfect form.

I [spent my youth of] ten years

As a child upon the arm of my father,

And I was taught to write.

After this because of my wisdom,

I was (so) skilled that [I]‌ went forth [from school] to the Mansion of Life.

I purified myself there in order to serve His Person [the king].

If Nefersekheru’s education began once he was able to begin to read, around the age of four, he would have entered the priesthood when he was pubescent, which accords with Bakenkhonsu’s account of his early life.

Characteristics of children and childhood

The characteristics attributed to children in extant textual sources are mostly negative, but the corpus is limited and the same source may provide ambivalent messages. For example, the Saite funerary stele of Isenkhebe (Leiden V 55: Lichtheim 1980: 58) describes the young girl as faultless and happy (“one who loved gaiety”), while simultaneously afraid of the dark and dependent (“too young to be alone”). In the tomb chapel of Petosiris at Hermopolis (c. 4th century BC), his son Thothrekh says that he was a “small child snatched by force” and that no one could protect him (Lichtheim 1980: 53). This epitaph was clearly written by adults, and thus represents the helplessness of both the child and his family. Those who died young were said to be denied peace in the afterlife, compounding the sense of injustice and highlighting the cruelty that could be inflicted by the gods (Lichtheim 1980: 59). Children are considered to be impressionable, learning by observing others, and potentially disrespectful to their parents, elders and teachers (Lichtheim 1976: 161, 168; 1973: 191). The burden of responsibility for good behaviour seems to fall on the child rather than the parent, as exemplified in the Old Kingdom Instruction of Ptahhotep (Lichtheim 1973: 66):

If you are a man of worth

And produce a son by the grace of god,

If he is straight, takes after you,

Takes good care of your possessions,

Do for him all that is good,

He is your son, your ka [spirit] begot him,

Don’t withdraw your heart from him.

But an offspring can make trouble:

If he strays, neglects your counsel,

Disobeys all that is said,

His mouth spouting evil speech,

Punish him for all his talk!

Some texts indicate that an individual may be fated before birth, for example with guilt, wisdom or leadership qualities (see Lichtheim 1973: 67, 124, 116, 226), but this is probably more of a narrative device than evidence for a strong belief in predestination (Baines 1994: 48). The inability of non-adults to regulate their emotions is suggested in certain nicknames, such as Inherkhau’s grandson Inherkhau “the violent”, who is depicted in Theban Tomb 359 with his arms raised apparently in the act of slapping his grandmother’s knees (Mekhitarian 1980: 68). A tendency towards impatience is hinted at in a market scene in the 4th Dynasty tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep (Moussa and Altenmüller 1977: pl. 24), in which a prepubescent girl asks her younger sister if she would like to go home, perhaps suggesting that the child is showing signs of boredom. To be childlike was to be inexperienced and afraid of strangers (Wente 1990: 196), mentally and physically weak and vulnerable to dangers. In this sense, the attitudes of Egyptian officials may be compared with those of Plato and Aristotle who considered children younger than seven to be “irrational, excitable, difficult to deal with, physically weak and intellectually limited” (Rousselle 2005: 63). The physical weakness of children is noted disparagingly in didactic texts (e.g. P. Lansing: Lichtheim 1976: 171), and in an 18th Dynasty ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsement
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: Investigating the ancient Mediterranean ‘childscape’
• Part I What is a child?
• Part II Daily life
• Part III Religion and ritual
• Part IV Death
• Part V Bioarchaeology
• Index