A link between their fathers and husbands: strategic marriages within the Memphite elite society during the late Saite and at the very beginning of the Persian era (570-486 BCE)
Abstract
At present, the identity and social status of female members of the priestly elite of Memphis during the Twenty Sixth (Saite) and the Twenty Seventh (Persian) Dynasties respectively has never been a subject of systematic and comprehensive study. The corpus of Serapeum votive stelae, although only partly published for this epoch, permits us to trace dozens of women usually without known social background (as it is standard for several other types of preserved monuments, for example statues or sarcophagi, with notable exceptions), but on-going research discovered numerous women whose side of family is well-attested on the monuments of their husbands and sons, sometimes even several generations in the past: nearly half of the eighty-eight so far collected examples.
Since these women usually did not bear specific title of any type (except 'mistress of the house'), this paper aims to compare the social status of interconnected families according to the professional careers of their male members (as expressed by their titles) and to propose key role of women in establishing wider social networks and power groups mostly concentrated around the Ptah precinct at Memphis.