Priests and Priestesses in Ancient Egypt: A Case Study of Karomama and Takushit

The blog post for this week is written by Lore Anne McNicol, an American living in University Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington DC, with her husband (David) of 53 years, an economist. She has a PhD in Medical Sciences from the Boston University School of Medicine, with an emphasis on vaccine development, and did independent research on typhoid fever, cholera, malaria, and herpetic keratitis (a nasty eye infection; if you haven’t heard of it, keep it that way!). In retirement, Lore has followed her dream of the serious study of Egyptology. Along with her husband, she has been active in the Friends of Egyptian Art program at the Metropolitan Museum. After a prep year taking various MOOCs and Short Courses, Lore spent five years doing the online Certificate and Diploma courses at the University of Manchester. This year she completed the first of two years in the Manchester Masters of Egyptology program and is now writing a thesis entitled Ubiquitous Animal, Rare Artefact: the Howard Carter Pack Donkey.

The past week of the Egypt Religion course was devoted to Priests and Priestesses. Dr. Griffin treated the class to an energetic romp through this massive topic, vividly illustrated by texts and artefacts from the Egypt Centre collection and other museum holdings. The course was structured to present a look at how these individuals were chosen, how they were classified, and what they did. As always, he was comprehensive but never boring: who knew that the crew carrying a processional barque could be referred to as a sepa (for centipede)?

Compared with the typical introductory lecture to this topic, Dr. Griffin generously gave equal time to the women, going far beyond the typical gloss over of Amenirdis and Nitocris. This blogger would like to expand on one of his more intriguing inclusions: Karomama, the daughter of pharaoh Osorkon I. During the Twenty-second Dynasty, ~870 BC, she ruled in her own right as the Divine Adoratrice of Amun at Karnak, Daughter of Re, Mistress of Diadems, wearing royal insignia with her names in cartouches. Dr. Griffin shared her figurine of bronze and precious metal inlays (N 500) from the Louvre (fig. 1). It stands 59 cm (or 23 in) high and was assembled from separate elements cast from a variety of alloys using the lost-wax technology (imported to Egypt from Cyprus during the late New Kingdom to early Third Intermediate Period). The etched writing and other details were inlaid with precious metals using a technique termed “damascening”.

Fig. 1: Statue of Karomama (N 500)

The inscription tells us that this statue was commissioned by her chamberlain and Overseer of the Treasury, Ahentefnakht. The statuette is worn and missing many of its metal inlays, its nuanced patina, and other originally-colorful effects; but some of the gold leaf highlights are still present. She is shown as a queen with a severe expression, wearing a short wig and high crown, barefoot and striding forward, wearing a wide sleeved, close-fitting pleated dress giving her the appearance of being wrapped by wings. She appears to have been holding objects each hand, perhaps musical instruments such as the menit-necklace or the sistrum, or attributes of her office such as the flail, baton, or fly-whisk.

Fig. 2: Shabti of Karomama (BM EA 74324)

Karomama’s statue was discovered in Karnak and acquired by Champollion in 1829 before being presented to the Louvre. She is also known from an “unprovenanced” green faience shabti (fig. 2) in the British Museum (EA 74324) and a usurped statue of a priest holding a naos in the Berlin Museum (2278). The statue had been usurped in the Twenty-second Dynasty by a priest who altered the inscription to depict Karomama Meryetmut, who is shown shaking two sistra in front of a seated statue of Amen-Re (fig. 3). She wears a flowing dress, and the short Nubian wig crowned by a large modius of a vulture protecting a large uraeus. The inscription mentions that she is the daughter of the King’s Wife Nebettawy Henuttawy. Either her mother was named Henuttawy, titled as Lady of the Two Lands, or her unnamed mother carried the titles Lady of the Two Lands and Mistress of the Two Lands. In 2014, the tomb of Karomama was rediscovered underneath the temple of Tuya within the Ramessesum complex (Gautheir 2017; Lurson 2017; Lurson & Mourot 2018; Moje 2017).

Fig. 3: Karomama before Amun Re (Dods

Below are four views (figs 4–7) of a famous and fascinating statue, which is a “related object” to that of Karomama: the Princess and wab-Priestess Takushit, #110 in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. This piece was found in Lower Egypt in 1880, on the hill of Kom Toruga, near Chos village on Lake Mareotis, south of Alexandria. It was acquired and donated by Ioannis Dimitriou (1826–c.1900), who was a cotton and industrial merchant working in Egypt. He was a major donor of ancient Egyptian artifacts to the Athens Museum and he also excavated on his home island of Lemnos.

Fig. 4: Statue of Takushit (National Archaeological Museum, Athens 110)

This statue is larger than Karomama’s; at 69 cm (or 27 in), Takushit is just under half life-sized. It is a technological marvel, hollow-cast in separate large sections using the lost-wax technique, and then assembled using gold rivets. Takushit was cast using the black-bronze alloy process imported from the Middle East, which imparts a stunning shiny black patina to the finished product. Black-bronze is an alloy containing 8% gold and 8% silver added with the typical 12% tin to refined copper metal. This material was highly prized and the Egyptians identified it as a “precious metal” along with silver and gold. Karomama’s artisan employed black-bronze strips for some of the inlays in her statuette.

Fig. 5: Rear view of the statue of Takushit
(http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/4/eh431.jsp?obj_id=4510&mm_id=1908)

Takushit’s complete surface is covered with a luminous latticework of divine figures and imagery, inscriptions and floral decorations worked from narrow inlaid strips of electrum metal, in the damasking technique used for Karomama’s statue. The etchings were inlaid with precious metals and ivory inlays were employed for the eye sockets, eyebrows, and toenails. The original base is missing but the soles of each foot carried a metal tang for insertion into a base of some type.

Fig. 6: Close-up on Takushit's legs

Takushit is presented barefoot, with the forward left foot conveying a sense of movement in a walking stance, adding to the realistic appearance of this statue. She displays the symbols of her religious office and high social standing: the bent left arm would have held the fly-whisk scepter indicating her office, and the extended right a menit musical instrument used during temple ritual. She wears a protective wesekh-collar and two bracelets. Her voluptuous body is emphasized by a full-length, fitted dress that seems almost diaphanous. Lower bands carry offering formulae fitting the votive character of the piece: “hetep-di-nesut on behalf of the princess and wab-priestess Takushit, daughter of Akanosh II, great chief of the Ma [Libyans]”. Prayers are addressed to the deities depicted on offering tables: Onuris, Mehyt, Osiris-Anedjty, Isis, and Harendotes, all worshiped in Takushit’s northeastern Delta homeland. On her back is a large djed-pillar, the funerary symbol of “stability”, linked to inscriptions referring to her as a “justified Osiris”.

Fig. 7: Side view of Takushit's statue

Takushit lived approximately 200 years later than Karomama, during the Third Intermediate Period, late Twenty-fifth Dynasty (ca. 670 BC). Although Takushit’s family was Libyan, her name translates as “the Nubian”, perhaps through marriage to a member of the ruling Kushite dynasty. While she was alive, her statue was part of the permanent ceremonial equipment of the temple she served; during festival processions it would have been carried in the barque alongside the god’s cult image. After she died, it was buried within her sanctuary-precinct tomb, according to the custom of the time. As the statue embodied both votive and funerary functions, it was buried with her.

This blogger is sad to point out that next week ends our Short Course on religion. However, Dr. Griffin promises a stirring look at the Ancient Egyptians in full-throated religious party mode, as he takes on their Festivals and Processions. We can look forward to imaging the roles that Karomama and Takushit would have played on these stages!

Bibliography:

Ayad, Mariam F. 2009. God’s Wife, God’s Servant: the God’s Wife of Amun (ca.740–525 BC). London; New York: Routledge.

Delange, Élisabeth, Marie-Emmanuelle Meyohas, and Marc Aucouturier 2005. The statue of Karomama, a testimony of the skill of Egyptian metallurgists in polychrome bronze statuary. Journal of Cultural Heritage 6 (2), 99–113.

Gauthier, Nicolas 2017. De la mère du roi à l’épouse du dieu: première synthèse des résultats des fouilles du temple de Touy et de la tombe de Karomama / Von der Königsmutter zur Gottesgemahlin: erste Synthese der Ausgrabungsergebnisse des Tempels von Tuja und des Grabes von Karomama, 87–94. Bruxelles: Safran.

Jurman, Claus 2016. Karomama revisited. In Becker, Meike, Anke Ilona Blöbaum, and Angelika Lohwasser (eds), “Prayer and power”: proceedings of the conference on the God's Wives of Amun in Egypt during the First Millennium BC, 61–88. Münster: Ugarit.

Lurson, Benoît (ed.) 2017. De la mère du roi à l’épouse du dieu: première synthèse des résultats des fouilles du temple de Touy et de la tombe de Karomama / Von der Königsmutter zur Gottesgemahlin: erste Synthese der Ausgrabungsergebnisse des Tempels von Tuja und des Grabes von Karomama. Connaissance de l’Égypte ancienne 18. Bruxelles: Safran.

Lurson, Benoît and Franck Mourot 2018. From the foundations to the excavation: a stratigraphy-based history of the temple of Tuya. In Pischikova, Elena, Julia Budka, and Kenneth Griffin (eds), Thebes in the first millennium BC: art and archaeology of the Kushite period and beyond, 193–213. London: Golden House Publications.

Moje, Jan 2017. Die Uschebtis von Karomama Meritmut G: ein Überblick. In Lurson, Benoît (ed.), De la mère du roi à l’épouse du dieu: première synthèse des résultats des fouilles du temple de Touy et de la tombe de Karomama / Von der Königsmutter zur Gottesgemahlin: erste Synthese der Ausgrabungsergebnisse des Tempels von Tuja und des Grabes von Karomama, 103–112. Bruxelles: Safran.