The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1872-03-22
Woman in Ancient Times.

Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage recently
lectured in Washington on the "WOmen
of Ancient Egypt" from n report of
which i'm the Chronicle of that city, we
CLEAN some interesting facts. Mrs.
Gage is evidently a woman of extensive
reading and unusual research in the lore
of recOndite ancient history. Her lee
ture was full of pith-of rare instruction.
We regret that we have room only for Il
meager synopsis.
At the marriage ceremony of the an
cient Egyptians the husband promised
to obey the wife in all things; vet no
wife put her husband to death, or shut
him into certain suite of apartments;
on the contrary husband and wife We're
always together in life, and in death
were deposited in one tomb.
The emplOyments of women were va
ried. They engaged in merchandise, in
marketing, in manufactures; and one
important branch of the medical profess
sion was entirely in the hands of wom-
en-. Women are depicted on the mOnu-
ments counting the threads of linen,
some of which was of the exquisite fine
ness of 80 threads to the square inch.
IL was known as the JUOUeH ,ci1,c}s, and
sought by the mightiest monarch.
But the cooking of the family was
done by men. Even the potent Pha-
rOah, with whose dream of the fat and
the lean kline we are all so familiar, even
he trusted not his kitchen in the hands
of woman.
Women attended social festivals and
private feasts in company with their
husbands. 1t was through the superior
power held by women that the daughter
of Pharoah was enabled to preserve the
life of Moses in defiance of her father,
and to bring him up rs her own son,
destined to succeed that very Pharoah
upon his throne. Women held high
rank IN the priesthood, two of the most
sacred offices belonging solely 10 them.
The oldest literature of the world was
the sacred songs of Isis, which Plato
deemed worthy of the Divinity. They
continued in use until the second CEN
tury after Christ. The oldest library
was the one at Thebes. Its presiding
/ geniuses were two, the Lord of the Lii
brary, and the Lady of Letters.
IL has been said women have written
no grand poems, yet some proof exists
that both the Iliad and the Odyssey We're
the work of n woman, Phemtaria, a
priestess of Phitha in Memphis. They
were deposited among the archives in
the temple from which they were stolen
/ by Homer.
The world best knows Egypt through
her architecture. Much of the glory of
Egyptian architecture was traeeable to
women. In each of the three great pc
riOds-the Pyramid, the Temple, and the
Obelisk periOd-her work is found.
Thet of the great pyramids, which
was more elaborate than the others, and
of greater scientific structure, was the
work of Queen Neitkari, known in his
tory as the "rosy-cheeeked and fair
haired queen of Egypt"
The two great Obelisks before the Tenn
pie of Karnak, the largest ever erected
of one stone, We're placed there by Queen
Amensis of the eighteenth dynasty.
Her reign of twenty-five years was the
period of Egypts greatest ARCHITECTURAL
glory. She was also a great warrior. 1t
is thought she drove the shepherd kings
out of Egypt. The monuments record
the events of her reign, and over the
whole of Egypt remains of her works are
still found. Egyptian queens are de-
picted upon the monuments wearing the
triple crown in sign of their ecclesiasti-
cal, civil and judicial power.
All great offices, priestly, legislative,
judicial, monarchial, were open to
women, and to this fact is due the per-
manence and long continuance of that
government, and from the same reason
arose heI fame for wisdom. WOman's
power in Egypt was not a surreptitiOus
and irrepressible one, arising from fer
vOr, but was recognized rs inhering in
her from birth, and consequent upon hel
being n component part of humanity.