Egypt Exploration Society

A Bronze Mirror with the Titles rt-nsw m(t)-nr wt-r

Author(s): Caroline Ellis
Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 70 (1984), pp. 139-140
Published by: Egypt Exploration Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3821585 .
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 BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS 139
French excavations of First Intermediate Period burials at Asyut1 yielded 'several' identical
garments, the only salvageable example, deriving from Tomb 13, now being in the Louvre
(E 12026).2 The excavations of Said Bey Khachaba at Meir in I9I23 yielded the two dresses
now in Cairo (JE 43684 and one other). Of the nine long-sleeved but unpleated dresses found
by Petrie in Tomb I48b at Deshasheh in I897,4 two now reside in the Petrie Museum of
Egyptian Archaeology, University College London (UC 3 1i82; UC 3 1 83),5 and the others
are lost.
The excavation records relating to these garments show that, where known, namely at
Naga ed-Der and Deshasheh, these garments all derive from female burials. There seems no
reason to doubt that they, and also the pleated dresses froemAsyi, Meir, and ebelein, were
clothing worn in life solely by women. This is reinforced by the fact that they seem to
represent a logical development from the Old Kingdom shift with shoulder-straps.6 The
topographical distribution of the garments is also significant, as, apart from our Gebelein
dress, they clearly derive from provincial cemeteries confined to a narrow area of the Fay um
and the northern part of Upper Egypt. They may thus appear to be indicative of a purely
local fashion dictated by the adverse cold of the winters in these regions. The need for
warmer clothing is illustrated by the long robes, kilts, and stoles depicted in the Meir tomb
reliefs.7 They would also have provided protection for the wearer engaged in agricultural
labour.8 The Gebelein dress presents an exception to the rule, as it was found in the very
centre of Upper Egypt and, therefore, in a region with a warm climate all the year round.
It seems that the dresses enjoyed only a brief and limited vogue, perhaps because they
proved impractical, for the pleats would sag from the weight of the linen, or because they
were aesthetically unappealing, as the y are both clumsy and ugly. However, they deserve a
place in the history of dress as evidence of early extant garments. The actual objects and texts
are at all times more reliable than the tomb reliefs and sculpture,9 which are essentially both
idealized and conservative in nature and fail to mirror contemporary fashions in Ancient
Egyptian dress. ROSALINDHALL and LIDIA PEDRINI

A bronze mirror with the titles rht-nsw hm(t)-ntr Hwt-hr

MAIDSTONE Museum and Art Gallery in Kent has two Egyptian mirrors in its collections.
One is a plain copper example, while the other is of silvered bronze and bears the inscription:
rht-nsw hm(t)-ntr Hwt-hr Mrtw, 'King's/Royal acquaintance, Prophet/Priestess of Hathor,
Mrtw'. There are only eight other examples of mirrors with these titles listed in Christine
Lilyquist's Ancient Egyptian Mirrors from the Earliest Times through the Middle Kingdom
1 E. Chassinat and C.
Palanque, 'Une campagne de fouilles dans la necropole d'Assiout', MIFAO 24 (19I I),
162-4, and pi. 33.
2
Recently on display in the IFAO Centenary Exhibition in Paris, Un siecle de fouilles francaises en Egypte
i88o0-I98 (Paris, i98i), I35, Cat. No. I34.
3 M. A. B. Kamal, 'Rapport sur les fouilles de Said Bey Khachaba au Delr-El-Gabraoui', ASAE 13 (19I4),
171-2, fig. 21; W. Spiegelberg, 'Altaegyptische gefaltelte (plissierte) Leinwandstoffe', ibid. 27 (1927), 154-6.
4 W. M. F. Petrie, Deshasheh (London, i898), i6, 31-2, and pl. xxxv.
5 Illustrated in Hall, op. cit., pls. xix, xx; id., Textile History I3, I (I982), 27-45 and figs. 5-9.
6 E. Staehelin, op. cit. I66-70, and Taf. iii, Abb. 4, xi, Abb. I7.
7 A. M.
Blackman, The Rock Tombs of Meir, inI (London, I915), pi. xiv (Tomb B4); id., op. cit. v (London,
1953), pls. xiv, xvi (Tombs Ai and A2).
8 I am grateful to Miss Nora Scott, Curator Emeritus of the Department of Egyptian Art, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, for the observation that sickle flints, polished by the grain, would have been very
hard on the skin of the agricultural labourer.
9 As noted by J. J. Janssen, Commodity Prices from the Ramessid Period (Leiden, 1975), 249-50.

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I40 BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS
(Miinchner Agyptologische Studien, Heft 27, 1979): three are in Cairo, two in the Louvre,
and one each in Liverpool University's School of Archaeology and Oriental Studies, the
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh (Lilyquist,
figs. 10-17 and p. 89). Only one, the Ash-
,/~^^ ^^^ ~r molean example, has a definite provenance,
being from A. H. Sayce's excavations at El-
Kab (Sayce, ASAE 5 (1905), 241), and for
this reason Lilyquist refers to this type as
El-Kab discs. They are dated from the late
Old Kingdom to the First Intermediate
Period. Unfortunately, the Maidstone ex-
ample is unprovenanced and its donation is
uncertain. It is probably the entry in
the museum's accession books 'Portion of
bronze mirror (Egyptian?)' listed among a
large collection of ethnography and anti-
quities donated by W. T. Fremlin of the
\ O r^PF-r
A local brewing family in I925.
SA^Ii^lt
^/1/1'
dY S3The dimensions of the disc are: height,
II.5 cm; width, 12.6 cm; length of tang,
2.4 cm; thickness of tang, o.z5 cm. The disc
increases marginally in thickness as it
approaches the tang, which flattens out
~FIG. I ~slightly
at the base, particularly on the
reverse. The tang has a dull patina from its
being previously covered by a handle. It
has the appearance of having been made in one piece with the disc, rather than riveted on.
The mirror is in good condition, with no pitting and little surface discoloration. The
inscription is clearly incised, though the Hr-bird and ntr sign are slightly worn. The hwt sign
has no small square within it as some examples with this title have. Hathor was especially
associated with mirrors in the Old and Middle Kingdoms and most of her ordinary cult
servants were women. The mirrors are almost certainly votive, and a number belonging to
priestesses of Hathor have been found at such sites as Giza, Saqqara, Dendera, and Hu.
CAROLINE ELLIS

Spinning-rings from Qoseir el-Qadim

DURING the recent excavations at Qoseir el-Qadim' several light-weight wooden and bone
rings were discovered. They have an outside diameter of between 4 and 9 cm and are i to
1.5 cm thick (fig. i). In each ring there are two small holes set about 2 cm apart which have
been drilled from the side. Evidence of wear is present along the opposite inside edge. This
type of ring was found in both the Roman and the Mamluk levels. The Roman levels were
pure while the Mamluk levels appear to have been mixed. The rings are probably of Roman
origin rather than Islamic. They were originally believed to be for use in ships or with fishing
nets,2 but they have now been identified as spinning-rings.3
1 The excavations were directed by Donald Whitcomb and Janet Johnson of the Oriental Institute, the
University of Chicago. Funded by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic.
2 D. Whitcomb and
J. Johnson, 'Quseir al-Qadim 1978 Preliminary Report', ARCE (I979) 203-5.
3 My thanks to Madame
Jacquet for suggesting that these rings were used in the production of textiles.

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