page_title: Professional mourning
section_title: Egypt
hierarchical_section_title: Professional mourning / History / Egypt
caption_attribution_description: English: Egyptian professional mourners in a sorrowful gesture of mourning.
context_page_description: Professional mourning or paid mourning is an occupation that originates from Egyptian, Chinese, Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures. Professional mourners, also called moirologists and mutes, are compensated to lament or deliver a eulogy and help comfort and entertain the grieving family. Mentioned in the Bible and other religious texts, the occupation is widely invoked and explored in literature, from the Ugaritic epics of early centuries BC to modern poetry. Held in high esteem in some cultures and times, the practice was vilified in others, such as the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Female professional mourners also, called Rudaali, were common in many parts of India, especially in the Western Indian state of Rajasthan.
  Professional mourning is still practiced in China and other Asian countries. In fact, some cultures even think that the use of professional mourners brings a certain religious and historical application to funeral processions.
context_section_description: In ancient Egypt, the mourners would be "making an ostentatious display of grief which included loud wailing, beating exposed breasts, smearing the body with dirt and dishevelled hair; all signs of uncontrolled behavior, the disorder of sorrow" (Capel, 1996). There are many inscriptions on tombs and pyramids of crowds of people following a body throughout the funerary procession. However, the most important of the women were the two that impersonated the two gods Isis and Nephthys.
  Isis and Nephyts were both Egyptian gods that were believed to play a special role when someone died. They were to be impersonated as a mourning ritual by professional mourners. In most inscriptions seen, one of them is at either ends of the corpse. There are also rules for impersonation of these two gods, for example the portrayer's body had to be shaved completely, not have any children, and tattooed the names Isis or Nephyts on their shoulders for identification. Evidence of professional mourning is seen in Ancient Egypt through different pyramid and tomb inscriptions. Different inscriptions show women next to tombs holding their bodies in such ways that show sorrow, such as "hands holding their back of the neck, crossing their arms on their chests, kneeling and/or bending their bodies forwards" (Valdesago, 2014).
caption: Egyptian mourners inscribed on a tomb
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