HUMAN REPRODUCTION AND DIVINE HELP IN ANCIENT EGYPT.

Some pieces of the Egyptian collection of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro1

Ana Montes Giménez

Antonio Brancaglion Jr. - National Museum-Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
(UFRJ)

Summary

Human reproduction, like the one in animals and plants, was very important in ancient
Egypt. And as well as it happened with the last ones, people tried to act on it with
elements and techniques within their reach, trying to guarantee the continuous running
of a machinery that not only was inscribed in the framework of Biology or the social
structure but also was necessary to secure the survival of the individual in the afterlife.
The Egyptian collection of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro has some
representations of divinities that in the popular belief are shown as directly implied in
the essential and often committed reproductive task of human beings.

The importance of human fertility in ancient Egypt

Due to high mortality rate, not only among children, and to a low life expectancy,2 the
Egyptians had numerous offspring, knowing only a few would reach middle-age and
would make it possible the continuity of the family group.3
Although the case of elites may have been different, most of the Egyptian population of
the Pharaonic times would suffer a life where survival was difficult, as a result of the
hard work, poor diet, unhealthy living conditions, and low resistance to diseases, among
other things. In this context, the family group gains a vital importance, working as a unit
that may help its members both economically and given them assistance if required.

1
This article is the result of a research we’ve been working on since August 2011 in the Department of
Anthropology, section of Archaeology, of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro-UFRJ thanks to a
scholarship of a junior post-doctorate given by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e
Tecnológico (CNPq).
2
It’s believed that in Roman Egypt the life expectancy was lower than 20 years; Baines, J., “Society,
morality, and religious practice”, in: Schafer, B. E. (ed.), Religion in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths and
Personal Practice, London, 1991, p. 133 (hereinafter Baines, Society). Although these are not data
related to Pharaonic Egypt, this number gives us an idea of the difficulty of survival in this country in
previous times.
3
Regarding the estimated size of the family units in ancient Egypt cf. Szpakowska, K., Daily Life in
Ancient Egypt. Recreating Lahun, Oxford, 2008, pp. 37-38 (hereinafter Szpakowska, Daily); cf. also
Davies, B. G., Who’s who at Deir el Medina; A prosopographic study of the royal workmen’s community,
Leiden, 1999.
However, in Egypt not only is the survival in this world the matter of concern, but also
important, if not more, is the survival in the afterlife, the continuity of the individual
once surpassed the threshold of earthly life. This continuity requires the existence of
human beings that would care for the memory of the deceased, which was mostly a task
to be done by the descendants.4 Consequently, children, and children’s children, were
rather than necessary, essential.

The importance given to the women’s fertility not only in the working classes, but also
in the upper classes, remains reflected in the medico-magical papyrus.5 According to
Clement of Alexandria (2nd-3rd centuries AD), the Egyptian priestly knowledge might
be collected in forty-two books “indispensably necessary”; six of them would deal
about medical issues, among which, one would focus on specific women matters.6 If
these books existed, they have not reached us, but there is information to believe that
the concern of the possible difficulty for women to get pregnant7 (specified on questions
that nowadays we would call them “obstretical” or “gynaecological”) filled an
important part of the medico-magical papyrus. The most remarkable example is the
Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus (Dynasties XII-XIII), in which seven of the thirty-four
preserved cases are meant to find out whether a woman could conceive a child or not;
the heading of these seven tests or spells (mainly based in the theory of the duct, that is
to say, in the idea that the uterus was directly connected to the rest of the body and

4
They are the ones to preserve the name; cf., e.g., The Great Dedication Inscription of Abydos, ll. 18-20
and 42-43, translation Gauthier, H., “La Grande Inscription dédicatoire d’Abydos”, ZÄS 48 (1910), pp.
54 and 56-57 respectively; Vernus, P., “Name”, in: Helck, W. - Otto, E. - Westendorf, W. (eds.), Lexikon
der Ägyptologie, Vol. IV, Wiesbaden, 1982, col. 321.
5
We will not describe here how the Egyptian magic works. Neither will we enter into the discussion –
sterile in any case- about if the procedures used by people to act on the events that mostly get out of their
control -as in the case of most of the illnesses or problems that might arise during pregnancy or during the
birth- should be considered as “magical”, “medical”, “religious”, or the three things together. There is
quite a lot of literature about it; cf., among others, Ritner, R. K., The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian
Magical Practice, Chicago, 20084, esp. pp 1-3, 54, 235-249 (hereinafter Ritner, Mechanics); Pinch, G.,
Magic in Ancient Egypt, Austin, 20093, esp. ch. 10 (hereinafter Pinch, Magic); Borghouts, J. F., “Magie”,
in: Helck, W. - Otto, E. -Westendorf, W. (eds.), Lexikon der Ägyptologie, Vol. III, Wiesbaden, 1980, cols.
1137-1151.
6
Genoude, M. de, “Clément d’Alexandrie, Stromates. Livre VI”, Les Pères de l’Église, T. Vè., Paris,
1839, p. 488.
7
Despite the knowledge of the fertilization process and the importance given to the masculine sperm in
this process in the creational myths, from the medico-magical papyrus we would gather the idea that only
the woman was considered responsible for the inability of conceiving, because in those documents there
are virtually no ways to “amend ” the masculine impotence or other problems of this kind whatsoever.
There are some exceptions: cf. Baines, Society, p. 183, n. 160.
therefore to all its holes) makes it clear: “Determining a woman who will conceive from
one who will not.”8

Risks of the reproductive process

Once conception was achieved, it was important to guarantee the conclusion of the
gestation process, always threatened by the possibility of an unfortunate interruption.9
And as for delivery, it is the most important moment of transition, and also the most
dangerous for the woman in labour as well as for the child. The child could be stillborn
or die right after birth. Furthermore, it’s been proved from an archaeological point of
view that many women died giving birth.10

According to the medico-magical papyrus, the risks of the reproductive human process
come from four kinds of causes:11
Firstly, natural causes, that means, anything that could not be attributed to a
supernatural being or a force. Most of the reproductive problems whose origins are this
kind of causes are, on the one hand, the difficulty or impossibility to get pregnant, and,
on the other hand, the difficult deliveries.
Secondly, deities and demons.12 Among the deities that could cause the
problems, we have Seth, often associated to the spontaneous abortion.13 As for demons,
they were considered dangerous for pregnant women or children: the demon could
kidnap the child or kiss him or her, which meant death.14

8
Col. 3, 12-25 = cases 26-32; Collier, M. - Quirke, S. (eds.), The UCL Lahun Papyri: Religious, Literary,
Legal, Mathematical and Medical, Oxford, 2004, pp. 63-64.
9
“Nowadays, we tend to think of infertility in terms of failure to conceive, or to carry a child to term. In
ancient times, death in childbirth and infant mortality were even greater threats to fertility. Human
fertility encompassed the successful conception, birth and rearing of children”; Pinch, Magic, p. 122.
10
Leclant, J., “Fouilles et travaux en Égypte et au Soudan, 1976-1977”, Orientalia 47/2 (1978), p. 271.
Regarding the risks that threatened the health and survival of the new born, as well as the difficulty of
establishing numbers to the mother/child mortality in ancient Egypt, cf. Szakowska, Daily, pp. 31-33; cf.
also Robins, G., “Women and Children in Peril: Pregnancy, Birth and Infant Mortality in Ancient Egypt”,
KMT 5/4 (1994-1995), pp. 27-28.
11
Pinch, Magic, pp. 122-123.
12
Cf. Lucarelli, R., 2010, “Demons (benevolent and malevolent)”, in: Dieleman, J. - Wendrich, W. (eds.),
UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles, 2010, esp. p. 2.
http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz0025fks3 (hereinafter Lucarelli, Demons).
13
Cf. Te Velde, H., Seth, God of confusion. A study of his role in Egyptian mythology and religion,
Leiden, 19772, pp. 28-29.
14
Cf., e.g., Berlin Papyrus 3027, 2, 4-6, translation Borghouts, J. F., Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts,
Leiden, 1978, pp. 41-42 (hereinafter AEMT).
 Thirdly, the dead.15 Among the dead, specially feminine phantoms were feared
as it might happen that a woman dead during the labour or dead without having had
children would feel jealous of the successful births and so she could wish to act against
them.
Finally, malicious people, both men and women, some of whom would really be
demons that might have taken human appearance.16

Sometimes the content of the spells is confused. This is why it is hard to know
accurately the nature of danger they refer to, that is to say, if we are talking about
demons, or of the ghosts of dead people, or ordinary people who, by perversity, could
attack the mother or the baby.

Divinities associated to gestation, to labour and to early childhood: some pieces of

the Egyptian collection of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro

Seeing the poor or non-existent control of the situation, people seek all help they may
have. Divinities appear as a quite reliable resource, overcoming the merely technical or
material human ones.

The collection of Egyptian antiques of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro includes
some representations of those supernatural beings to whom people would go for
assistance in case of complications during the reproductive process stages -people
would also rely on those beings to propitiate this process, although they were not
impelled by an adverse situation. They are mostly statues of small dimension belonging
to different stages of Egyptian history; as the most part of the collection, they all come
from unknown origin.17

15
Cf., e.g., The Instruction of Any, 5.1, translation Lichtheim, M., Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. II:
The New Kingdom, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, 1976, p. 138 (hereinafter AEL); London Medical
Papyrus (= British Museum Papyrus 10059), 42, translation Kousoulis, P. I. M., “Death Entities in Living
Bodies. The Demonic Influence of the Dead in the Medical Texts”, in: Goyon, J. C. - Gardin, C. (eds.),
Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Egyptologists – Actes du Neuvième Congrès
International des Égyptologues, Lovaina, 2007, p. 1045.
16
Cf. Lucarelli, Demons, p. 7.
17
The Egyptian collection of the National Museum consists of around 700 pieces, mainly acquired in
1826 by the Emperor of Brazil Dom Pedro I who bought them from an Italian trader. It seems that the
trader had got them from Belzoni, who between 1816 and 1819 had made works “of excavation” in
several places in Egypt. At the time they were acquired, the pieces were thought to be from Theban
origin, but it is clearly false, as some funerary Abydene stelae conserved in the Museum prove; Kitchen,
Isis and Horus
The divine couple Isis-Horus, mostly represented in the act of lactation,18 works as an
archetype of mother-child. The iconographic representations are related to the Osirian
myth:19 Osiris, king of the Egyptians, is murdered by his own brother Seth. Seth chops
his body and spreads the pieces all over the country. Isis, the wife and sister of Osiris,
finds all the pieces of her husband’s body, except for the phallus. The versions of the
story are several and they differ from this moment on. Plutarch states that Isis buried
piece after piece as she found them.20 In other places the goddess, with Anubis and
Nephthys’ help, rebuilds the body with the pieces she has and, using her magical
powers, makes a copy of the phallus to complete it. 21 According to the Great Hymn to
Osiris, from the Dynasty XVIII, Isis turns into a kite and by shaking her wings on her
mummified husband’s body she becomes pregnant.22 Isis gives birth and raises the child
in the marshes, in Chemmis, where mother and son would live until he was strong
enough to claim the royalty that Seth had taken from his father and which belongs to
him as the king’s firstborn.23 In the meantime, Isis and Horus will face a series of
problems that would threaten the child’s life but he will get over them by using his
mother’s magic skills. 24

K. A., Catálogo da Coleção do Egito Antigo existente no Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Warminster,
1990, vol. I, pp. 6-7.
18
For iconography of Isis breastfeeding Horus cf. Leclant, J., “Le rôle du lait et de l’allaitement d’après
les Textes des Pyramides”, JNES 10 (1951), p. 123, n. 12.
19
The written stories of the myth in a nearly “complete” and “coherent” way don’t appear until the
writings of the Greek Diodorus of Sicily (1st century BC) and Plutarch (1st -2nd centuries AD), but the
references to it have existed earlier in time, at least since the end of the Dynasty V (c. 2200 BC), in the
Pyramid Texts. Between the two chronological points, we find a series of “mythical expressions” like
historiolae included in the medico-magical spells (cf. Frankfurter, D., “Narrating Power: The Theory and
Practice of the Magical Historiola in Ritual Spells”, in Meyer, M. - Mirecki, P. (eds.), Ancient Magic and
Ritual Power, Leiden-New York-Cologne, 1995, pp. 457-476 (hereinafter Frankfurter). For the Greek
texts cf. Diodorus of Sicily in twelve volumes. I. Books I and II, 1-34, with an English translation by C. H.
Oldfather, Cambridge-London, 1968, pp. 65 ff., and Plutarch’s de Iside et Osiride. Edited with an
introduction, translation and commentary by J. Gwyn Griffiths, Cambridge, 1970, pp. 119-249
(hereinafter Plutarch); for the Pyramid Texts cf. Faulkner, R. O., The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts,
Oxford, 1969 (hereinafter Pyr.). You may note that there are relevant differences between the Egyptian
references and the later Greek versions.
20
Plutarch, p. 145, 18, 358A .
21
Cf. Moret, A., “La légende d'Osiris à l'époque thébaine d'après l'hymne à Osiris du Louvre”, BIFAO 30
(1931), p. 740, n. 52 (hereinafter, Moret, Légende).
22
The Stela of Amenmose (Louvre C 286), translation Moret, Légende, p. 743 and n. 63, and AEL, p. 83.
23
Moret, Légende, pp. 743-745, nn. 64, 65, 68; Pyr. §§ 1214-1215, 1703, 1877, 2190.
24
The Metternich Stela (Dynasty XXX) relates part of these mishaps; cf. Moret, A., “Horus Saveur”,
RHistRel 72 (1915), pp. 213-287.
According to some versions, Horus the child is a being “prematurely delivered and
weak in his lower limbs”,25 or, as other versions say, he was a later born child.26
However, as the cippi point out, Horus will become the model of the recovered sufferer
(not just child), seeing that he gets to overcome the diseases and all kind of
difficulties.27
In the statues that show them together, Horus appears as a baby being breastfed on his
mother’s lap, who often offers him her breast. This canonical way of representation (Isis
lactans) reminds us of the dependence attached to the relationship between mother and
son: Isis is not only the nourishing mother, but also, as derived from the myth,
protective and healing, becoming the ideal prototype of the human mother.
In the National Museum six examples in bronze of this figurative group are preserved,
which are very similar. The one presented here (inv. 30) (Fig. 1) can be dated back to
the Late Period (the other ones between the Late Period and the Ptolemaic Period). This
is a seated Isis of 21 cm height, holding the child with one of her hands, and with the
other one she holds one of her breasts. She wears the hathoric headdress, as usual in the
depictions of the goddess since the Dynasty XVIII.28

Bes
Perhaps because of the liminal nature of birth, some of the deities related to this event
are entities of a particularly anomalous appearance. This is the case of Bes:29 a
bowlegged dwarf whose face looks like a mask, snub-nosed, with feline ears and a
beard; generally showing his teeth and sticking his tongue out. He is sometimes
depicted equipped with knives or other weapons, which adds a menacing look to his
already grotesque figure, turning him into a distinctly apotropaic deity. Because of this

25
Plutarch, p. 147, 19, 358D.
26
Borghouts, J. F., The Magical Texts of Papyrus Leiden I 348, Leiden, 1971, p. 31 (hereinafter Leiden).
27
Ritner, R. K., “Horus on the Crocodiles: A Juncture of Religion and Magic”, in: Simpson, W. K. (ed.),
Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt, New Haven, 1989, p. 105 (hereinafter Ritner, Horus).
28
In fact, Hathor is another of the deities closely associated with human reproduction; since the
Predynastic, first cow-goddess Bat and later Hathor herself, they somehow represent a mother-goddess
with generical nature. Moreover, Hathor shares with Isis the function of mother of the king, so eventually
both goddesses end up exchanging some iconographic attributes; cf. Hassan, F. A., “Primeval Goddess to
Divine King. The Mythogenesis of Power in the Early Egyptian State”, in: Friedman, R. - Adams, B.
(eds.), The Followers of Horus. Studies dedicated to Michael Allen Hoffman, Oxford, 1992, p. 315;
Hornblower, J. D., “Predynastic figures of women and their succesors”, JEA 15 (1929), pp. 38-40.
29
Other deities sharing with him this characteristic are the hippopotamus goddesses, as Ipy and Taweret;
cf., e.g., Hart, G., A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, London-New York, 19883, pp. 100,
211-212.
ability to scare away demons and other evil beings he is perceived as an excellent resort
during the reproductive process, from pregnancy to child upbringing.
We cannot consider that there is a canonical image of Bes as the god appears depicted in
different ways and some of his attributes also vary over time.30 The collection of the
National Museum includes several figures from different periods and, therefore, very
different from each other.
The oldest pieces can be dated back to the second half of the New Kingdom. They are
three examples of small size, made of green faience, which seem to have been virtually
identical, although in one of them (inv. 61) only the superior part remains. The piece
kept in the best condition (Fig. 2) is 7.5 cm height. The god appears in a characteristic
position in some representations of this period:31 the body -naked and in a semiprofile-
is moving, like in a dancing attitude, which would be corroborated by the presence of a
tabor that he holds over his left shoulder.
The next image of Bes in chronological order (Fig. 3) is a piece of stone, 16 cm height,
dating back to the Dynasty XXX. The figure shows what will be one of the typical
iconographies of the god in the Late Period: ahead and slightly crouched, hands resting
on thighs and tongue stuck out; his back is covered with a leopard skin whose head and
front legs fall on the god’s chest.32
The image of the most recent date is a terracotta statuette of 17.5 cm height (Fig. 4), an
example of the “Bes warrior” type abundant in the late Ptolemaic Period and at the
beginning of the Roman Period.33 In this piece Bes appears naked (in other cases he
wears a roman military uniform)34, and although the superior part is missing, he seems

30
Actually the figure we know as Bes (even with multiple iconographical variants) is only documented
since the New Kingdom. Previously, since the end of the Eleventh Dynasty and until the end of the
Second Intermediate Period, other “deities” have been considered as its predecessors: a manly shape,
called Aha, another feminine, no known name. As Bes will do later, these entities will also exert an
apotropaic function in the reproductive environment. For a typology of Bes cf., amongst others, Romano,
J. F., “The Bes-Image in Ancient Egypt”, BACE 9 (1998), pp. 89-105. For the precedents of the god since
the Middle Kingdom cf. Altenmüller, H., Die Apotropaia und die Götter Mittelägyptens: Eine
typologische und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung der sogenannten “Zaubermesser” des Mittleren
Reichs, vol. I, Munich, 1965, pp. 36-39.
31
For an almost identical image, though of minor dimensions, cf., e.g., piece no. 16.426 from the
Brooklyn Museum, apparently an Amarnian amulet; Dasen, V., Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt and Greece,
Oxford, 19932, pl. 4, fig. 1. Cf. also Petrie, W. M. F., Tell el Amarna, London, 1894, pl.17, nos. 286-288;
Peet, E. - Woolley, L., The city of Akhenaten, London, 1923, pp. 169-170.
32
It is the same iconography shown by the images of Bes at the mammisi of Nectanebo I, in Dendera -
contemporary with our piece- which will remain in later mammisi; cf. Daumas, F., Les Mammisis de
Dendera, Cairo, 1959.
33
Cf. Török, L., Hellenistic and Roman terracottas from Egypt, Roma, 1995, pp. 34-37, nos. 14-18, pls.
XIX, XX.
34
Cf., e.g., ibid., p. 35, no. 15, pl. XIX.
to be wearing the ostrich feathers headdress, typical of this iconographical genre. With
his right hand he holds a short sword and a shield with his left one, characteristic
elements of this type of figures.

How does divine help work?

Some prescriptions gathered in the medico-magical papyrus help to infer how these
deities are called upon to intervene in the reproductive process of humans. The Leiden
Papyrus I 348 (probably from the Dynasty XIX) is particularly useful in this regard,
because it contains a set of spells specifically designed to accelerate the labour process.
Other papyrus, such as the Ebers (Dynasty XVIII) or the Ramesseum III and IV
(Dynasty XIII), have preserved spells aimed to cure ailments that could affect the
mother breasts. In all cases the spells usually refer to mythical events that, somehow,
reenact at the moment the human mother is giving birth, or while breastfeeding period,
in case any disease may affect either the mother or the baby. This kind of texts, made up
of short stories of mythical nature (historiolae), function as an “instrumental praxis”:
placing human events in the context of mythical events, and through active analogy
between the former and the latter, divine power to overcome setbacks is transferred to
the human sphere, expecting to solve, automatically and by the own force of the word,
any difficulties that in this area may turn up.35 In extreme cases the textual content goes
even beyond the mere analogy, establishing a true identification between humans and
gods, so that oral expression ends up turning into a real performative utterance.36
From these texts we can see that to turn to divine help in times of crisis is managed in
different ways, so in some cases divinity representations are somehow required, as a
materialization thereof, while in other cases the intermediary object is unnecessary.

a) With regard to the statuettes representing a deity, undoubtedly the function that most
clearly appears is, precisely, to act as a support of the divine presence. Just like the

35
Cf. Frankfurter, passim; Versnel, H. S., “The Poetics of the Magical Charm. An Essay in the Power of
Words”, in: Mirecki, P. – Meyer, M. (ed.), Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World, Leiden-Boston-
Cologne, 2002, pp. 105-158.
36
Cf., e.g., Tambiah, S. J., “The Magical Power of Words”, Man 3/2 (1968), pp. 175-208; “A
Performative Approach to Ritual”, PBA 65 (1979), pp. 113-169. About performative properties of ritual
acts in the specific case of ancient Egypt cf. Derchain, Ph., “A propos de performativité. Pensers anciens
et articles récents”, GM 110 (1989), pp. 13-18; Sauneron, S., Les prêtes de l’ancienne Egypte, Paris,
1957, pp. 123-127.
statues used in the official worship,37 the statuette could go through a more or less
elaborate process of animation prior to its use38 or, in other cases, perhaps the simple
recitation of the spell would be enough to automatically guarantee the identity between
subject (god/goddess) and object (figure). Invoked or referred to by the verbal spell,39
the deity would come to the aid of the claimant, being the only evidence of its
manifestation, precisely, the successful result of the venture.
Some spells from the Leiden Papyrus I 348 exemplify this “support” or “on-site”
function of the statuette. For example, one of them (vs 12, 2-12, 6) summons the “dwarf
god”, that is, Bes, to the place of birth, while the instructions completing this spell point
out that “should be recited four times over a clay dwarf placed on the forehead of a
woman who is giving birth in pain.”40 Though more damaged in the final statement,
another spell of this group (vs 12, 6-12, 9) clearly points to the same direction; 41 in this
case it is specified that the image of the dwarf can be achieved with Hathor, Lady of
Dendera, i.e., at the temple of the goddess.42 As Frankfurter remarks, “in these cases it
is the instrumental presence of the images in the rituals that «situates» the mythical
dimension within the performative setting”.43 Thus, we can deduce that figures of Bes
made of clay or another material would be used by parturients in order to guarantee the
presence (and therefore, the aid) of the god at the crucial moment of the delivery.
Another spell of the same papyrus (vs 12, 11-11, 2) summons Hathor to help ease the
process,44 but here there is no mention of the goddess figure, which does not exclude
her existence, though.45 It is also possible that, as it happens in countless occasions,46
the figures are used previously or after the delivery, i.e., as offerings to the deity.

37
Cf., e.g., Derchain, Ph., “Le rôle du roi d’Égypte dans le maintien de l’ordre cosmique”, in: AA. VV.,
Le Pouvoir et le sacré, Brusselss, 1962, pp. 61-73; Moret, A., Le rituel du culte divin journalier en
Egypte d’après les papyrus de Berlin et les textes du temple de Séti Ier à Abydos, Paris, 1902.
38
For the preparation of a cippus cf. AEMT, pp. 83-84, no. 123.
39
In Egypt the word is performative and its verbalization is what triggers the divine power of the object;
cf. above, n. 36. However, as pointed out by Ritner (Horus, p. 106), given the illiteracy of the vast
majority of the Egyptian population, the direct reading of the spells would not be the main way of use; for
alternative forms cf. Ritner, Horus, pp. 106-108, and Ritner, Mechanics, ch. 3. We can suppose that,
besides priests and doctors (who are believed to be learned), the spells used assisting labours or healing
were transmitted orally, at least among people specialized in the subject (midwives, quacks, curers of all
kinds), and would be recited by heart at the right time; cf., e.g., Meyer-Dietrich, E., “Recitation, Speech
Acts, and Declamation”, in: Wendrich, W. (ed.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles,
2010,http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz00252xth, esp. pp. 5-6.
40
Leiden, p. 29, no. 30.
41
Ibíd., no. 31.
42
As Pinch suggests, it is very likely that the amulets symbolizing Bes were made at the Hathor Temple
in Dendera, as many votive objects came from that temple workshops; Pinch, Magic, pp. 129-130.
43
Frankfurter, p. 471.
44
Leiden, p. 30, no. 33.
45
Cf. Frankfurter, p. 471.
b) A different way of using the divinity appears in the same generative context,
although in this case it seems that it was not necessary to resort to the material support
of the figure. It is about identifying both the mother and those who assist her with a
deity;47 the woman is assimilated to Hathor or Isis, while the assistants often play the
role of Horus (as in two of the spells above, vs 12, 2-12, 6 and 12, 6-12, 9
respectively);48 in fact, in the exercise of reciting the spell the assistant acts as an
intermediary between the parturient and the divine forces invoked through the word
and, just like a doctor acting in front of a patient, by his/her identification with a divine
being the assistant contributes to build a scenario propitious for his/her purposes.49 This
penetration of the ritualistic in the narration causes the effect of “a collapsing of
boundaries between the human situation and the mythical dimension; the historiola
(then) is effective not by analogy or precedent but by becoming dinamically real within
the ritual context.”50
In another of the spells in the Leiden Papyrus I 348 (rt 13, 9-13, 11)51 the assistant
identifies him or herself with a god (we do not know in this case what god it is) that
assists Hathor in the delivery. In another spell (vs 11, 2-11, 8)52, it is Isis with whom the
parturient is identified. According to some mythical references, Isis had an unusually
long pregnancy,53 and from the spell itself contained in the Leiden Papyrus it is inferred
that it would only end when the gods would attend her request to give birth, after having
been threatened by the goddess to unleash a catastrophe of cosmic magnitudes. The
spell enumerates the whole list of disasters that will take place if the gods do not allow
Isis, and therefore the human mother identified with her in this situation, to give birth.
In fact the spell concludes insisting on this assimilation: “Be careful with the birthgiving

46
Cf. Pinch, G., Votive offerings to Hathor, Oxford, 1993; Pinch, G. - Waraksa, E. A., “Votive Practices”,
in: Dieleman, J. - Wendrich, W. (eds.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles, 2009.
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7kp4n7rk
47
This is a common procedure in the Egyptian healing; cf., amongst others, Ritner, Mechanics, p. 33;
Ritner, Horus, p. 105; Sauneron, S., “Le monde du magicien égyptien”, in: AA. VV., Le monde du
sorcier, Paris, 1966, p. 37.
48
According to Pinch, the identification with Horus does not necessarily mean that the person helping the
woman in labour is a man, as, if identifying with a person of the opposite sex is common in funerary
literature, it could also be in these cases; Pinch, Magic, p. 128.
49
The power of healing lies in the word, but in the god’s word, verbalized by the individual who operates
identified with him; cf. Ritner, Horus, pp. 108-109; Sauneron, S., “Représentation d'Horus-Ched à
Karnak”, BIFAO 53 (1953), p. 55.
50
Frankfurter, pp. 469-470. Parenthesis is ours.
51
Leiden, p. 28, no. 28.
52
Ibid., pp. 30-31, no. 34.
53
Goyon, J. C., Rituels funéraires de l’ancienne Egypte, Paris, 20042, p. 285, n. 2.
of NN, daughter of NN, in the same manner!”54 We clearly see here how the mechanism
of identification between human and divine actors works, and how the verbalized text
acts in favour of this identification by the use of the “mythologizing” resort, the
reenactment of the myth. As Aufrère points out “spells stealthily show subjects or more
often turn to stories (historiolae), whose principle resides on the analogy of the
situations, -human and divine. The state the patient is plunged into is transferred, by a
performative declaration and a game of mythological intertextuality, to a situation once
overcome by the Great Magician and his son Horus, main characters in these stories and
around which gravitated other gods whose presence is explained taking into account
their specialities.”55
The identification between Isis and the human mother is particularly insistent on the
spells relating to Senology: “This is the breast from which Isis suffered ...” (Ebers
Papyrus 811. 95, 7-14).56 Breastfeeding is vital for the survival of the baby, and in
ancient Egypt there is no substitute for mother’s milk, hence the concern about breast
health of mothers and wet nurses. Spells intending to prevent or cure breast pathologies
(such as infection or mastitis) refer to the mythological precedent of Isis and the
breastfed Horus when both were hiding in the marshes of Chemmis.
One of these pathologies, the so-called “baa pathology”,57 is the aim of several of these
spells, maybe because it is an illness that affects first of all not just the mother, but the
child, as it is directly passed on from one to another during breastfeeding and “can be a
vicious circle of mutual contaminations.”58 There are several texts where we can find
spells relating to this pathology,59 but where the symptomatology of the child affected
by the illness is more clearly described is in the Ramesseum Papyrus III. B, 23-34:
Horus has “a weakened heart, livid lips, strengthless knees...”60 Undoubtedly this state
of general atony would be the one presented by human babies suffering from this illness
and to cure them the spell prescribes the making of a protective amulet that should be

54
Leiden, p. 31.
55
Jean, R. A. - Loyrette, A. M., La mère, l’enfant et le lait en Égypte Ancienne. Traditions médico-
religieuses, Paris, 2010, p. 12 (hereinafter, Jean–Loyrette).
56
Ibid., p. 380.
57
We don’t really know what term of modern medicine would fit for this pathology. Jean and Loyrette
uphold that, more than a specific disease, baa would actually be a “group of diseases of the mother and
the child, named by the name of its baa agent, which gathers in one single pathology what we could call
«the baa attack from Isis breast that caused the baa disease of Horus in Chemmis». The germ responsible
for these disorders is one so-called Baa”; ibid., p. 419.
58
Ibid., p. 285.
59
Cf. ibid., p. 291, (f) and p. 317, box 7.
60
Ibid., p. 288.
placed in the child's neck,61 as well as a certain manipulation of a sample of the mother's
milk. But it certainly is in the mythological precedent, in the “story” that allows human
sufferers identify with the divines, where the symbolic effectiveness of the remedy lies.

Isis as healing mother is a recurring theme in the spells that try to attend the sick
children, and often the mythological event states that it is precisely her milk the element
used for the healing.62 This is the reason why the milk of women who have recently
given birth to a boy -and therefore can be identified with the goddess- is eventually
included in the composition of some remedies against burns, 63 colds,64 eye conditions,65
children’s colics,66 and even as a prediction, in tests intending to evaluate female
fertility.67 Regardless of the milk’s chemical compounds, or its medicinal properties, 68
the principle on which the spells are based, and where its symbolic effectiveness lies, is
just the same seen in the previous cases: if the milk of Isis is curative itself, so will be
the milk of the woman identified with her; if the spell worked on the mythological
scenario of the marshes of Chemmis, it will also work in the human scenario.
Homeopathic magic or placebo effect, it makes no difference because it is not
questioned; in fact, in Egypt, even the “materially” efficacious products have symbolic
properties.

61
Continuing with the analogies, the one who makes this object will be a woman who has just given birth,
that is, who has just passed a substantial test, which enables her to make that object; cf. ibid., pp. 289,
298. This is the same logic that underlies in the composition of some remedies, such as those including
milk from a woman who has given birth to a son (cf. below, n. 67).
62
Among others, London Medical Papyrus, 14, 8-13 [translation Desroches-Noblecourt, C., “Pots
anthropomorphes et recettes magico-médicales dans l'Égypte ancienne”, RdE 9 (1952), pp. 57-58].
Theological or mythological considerations aside, this belongs to the fact that all mother’s milk naturally
contains the corrective for many diseases and is a powerful immunizer for the child during the
breastfeeding period. Maybe because of this, to the nutritional value of this milk we may add in Egypt the
protective capacity: “Protection and nutrition, this is the double character that seems to be connected to
the root besa, which describes in the Pyramid Texts both nutrient liquid and wet nurse, Isis. (...)
Confirmed a root besa with a sense of «protect» since the Middle Kingdom, could we be tempted to
assume that mu besau, the milk (1873a) is the protective liquid and Isis, when described as besat (32b), is
considered, in her role of goddess, capable of passing on her almighty protection through her divine
milk?”; JNES 10, p. 127. Leclant’s numerical references correspond to the passages in the Pyramid Texts.
63
Ebers Papyrus, 69, 3-7 (translation RdE 9, p. 59); London Medical Papyrus, 14, 4-15, 4, apart from the
one quoted in the previous note (14, 8-13).
64
Ebers Papyrus, 90, 15–91, 1 (translation RdE 9, p. 60).
65
Ebers Papyrus, 60, 13-16 (translation RdE 9, p. 60).
66
Berlin Papyrus 3027, I, 7, 3-5 (translation RdE 9, p. 57).
67
E.g., Papyrus Berlin 3038, vs 1, 3-4, 5-6 (translation RdE 9, p. 60, and Jean–Loyrette, pp. 165-169). For
an extensive list of healing spells including in its ingredients milk of a woman who has given birth to a
boy cf. Jean-Loyrette, pp. 136-140; for those including mother’s milk, without specifying the sex of the
baby, cf. ibid. pp. 132-134. See also ibid. pp. 151-163.
68
About the advantages of mother’s milk as a nutrient and prophylactic for the child cf. Jean–Loyrette,
pp. 130-131
c) Less frequently a figure works as a receptor of the disease that a person is suffering,
acting the recitation of the spell as a transfer means between the sufferer and the object.
This would be the case of some images of Isis. E.g., in one of the spells included in the
Leiden Papyrus I 348 (rt 12, 2-12, 4), the mythological introduction places us in front of
Re, who suffers from stomach ache, and is apprised to seek out for help in the hereafter.
The spell concludes that all this mythological introduction is: “To be recited over a
woman’s statue of clay”, and specifies that healing will happen by placing a hand on the
patient’s stomach and transferring his pain to the figure of clay: “As for any suffering of
his in the belly, the affliction will be sent down from him into the Isis-statue, until he is
healthy.”69 This spell specifically refers to “stomach ache”, and the protagonist is a
man,70 but there is some data that let us think that maybe the procedure was also used to
relieve labour pains, for, as Pinch pointed out, “spells to alleviate stomach-ache and
spells to relieve labour pains are sometimes grouped together in medico-magical papyri.
The laying of a hand on the belly is recommended in both cases, so a type of object
related to childbirth might well appear in a spell for ordinary stomach-ache”,71 and vice
versa. In fact, in one of the spells of the Ramesseum Papyrus mentioned above
regarding the baa pathology (III B, 23-34), whose protagonists are the divine archetypes
Isis and Horus, it is prescribed to instill some milk of the affected woman into a
swallow’s beak, so that “her baa disease (is transferred) to swallow.”72 As it happened
with the representation of Isis used to heal stomach-ache, the swallow acts as a
substitute figure who burdens the pains of the mother and, consequently, those of the
child too. And, because of one of those webs of mythical-theological connections so
distinctive of the Egyptian thought, the bird can be seen as a manifestation of Isis
herself,73 so that, once more, it is the goddess to whom the curative effect should be
attributed. Both the figure and the swallow represent Isis, which gives them a power
capable of capturing the pain the patient is suffering and move it away from him or her.

69
Leiden, p. 25, no. 20 = AEMT, p. 32, no. 48.
70
In the Berlin Papyrus 190. 21, 8 Isis’ own hand calms Re down; Jean–Loyrette, p. 273. In many other
texts it is Horus who complains to Isis about stomach aches caused by different reasons: Athens Magical
Papyrus no. 1826 r X + 7, 7-8 (ibid., pp. 273, 393), Leiden Papyrus I 348, r 12, 1-13, 3 (Leiden, pp. 24-
26, no. 19-23).
71
Pinch, Magic, pp. 100-101.
72
Ramesseum Papyrus III. B, 33b (translation Jean–Loyrette, p. 289).
73
According to Plutarch, in her long journey to find Osiris’ body, Isis appears in Byblos, where, at one
particular moment, turns into a swallow; Plutarch, p. 143, 16, 357C. About the Isis-swallow association
cf. also Te Velde, H., “The Swallow as Herald of the Dawn in Ancient Egypt”, in: Bergman, J. - Drynjeff,
K. - Ringgren, H. (eds.), Ex Orbe Religionum: Studia Geo Widengren oblata, I, Leiden, 1972, p. 31.
Conclusion
Spells that have been preserved let us see to what extent our conceptions of “medicine”,
“magic” and “religion” are indiscernible in ancient Egypt, at least with regard to the
sphere of human reproduction. Propitiation, preservation and healing are shown in the
texts almost as an exercise of divine responsibility: it is the gods to whom to come to
ask for a child,74 to avoid losing it during pregnancy,75 to protect it and make it pull
through the early years of life.76 In the same way, we can say that there is a
“mythologizing” of the reproductive process, at least in the cases where this process is
threatened: the human parental core is reflected in the divine -and vice versa-, and
mother and son benefit from a border breaking intended to make it possible the
overcoming of the crisis.
Textual documentation sheds some light on the functionality of the artefacts related to
this question (votive figures, stelae, amulets... in short, any object provided with
propitiatory and/or prophylactic usefulness); images of deities, material reproductions,
appear then to us no totally lacking in meaning, and, even though in this case the
knowledge of the text does not guarantee the comprehension of the context, it does help
significantly to approach to a convincing picture of it.

74
Cf., e.g., the stelae of Pasherenptah and Taimhotep (both at the British Museum, EA 886 and 147
respectively) or the tale of Setne-Khaemwaset, Lichtheim, M., Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. III: The
Late Period, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, 1980, pp. 138-139.
75
London Medical Papyrus (= British Museum Papyrus 10059), 13, translation AEMT, p. 24.
76
Cf., e.g., the previous spells relating to Senology.
Fig. 1: Isis breastfeeding Horus. Late Period. Bronze. H.: 21 cm.
Fig. 2: Bes. New Kingdom. Faience.
Fig. 3: Bes. Late Period. Stone.
Fig. 4: Bes. Ptolemaic Period-Roman Period. Terracotta.