The Old Women of Deir el-Medina

Dedicated to Richard, Jessica, and Rosalind who sat in the audience

Abstract

Older women – those aged over thirty – constituted a distinct age group at the ‘middle class’ workmen’s village of Deir el-Medina. Drawing on the rich textual material from the site, and placing it alongside gerontological theory, will enable us to consider and evaluate such aspects as demography, transferable women’s pensions, disinheriting one’s ungrateful children, the Wise Woman, and the worship of female ancestors. Being a woman and old at New Kingdom Deir el-Medina implied considerable rights, freedom, and even an authoritative status. This picture is in remarkable contrast to the ‘double jeopardy’ which sociologists tell us older women – the over fifties – are facing in today’s society through sexism and ageism.