Egypt

The work for Egypt that I have chosen is a poem from the New Kingdom. It is entitled "The Songs of the City of Memphis". This is a significant work because it actually consists of two poems, and the first one is recited by a woman. This shows the relative importance and significance of women in ancient Egypt. The poem also gives insight into the culture and values of ancient Egypt as the poetry centers around love, the human body, and pleasure.

The Songs of the City of Memphis

If I am not with you, where will you set your heart?

If you do not embrace me, where will you go?

If good fortune comes your way, you still cannot find happiness.

But if you try to touch my thighs and breasts,

Then you'll be satisfied.

Because you remember you are hungry

would you then leave?

Are you a man

thinking only of his stomach?

Would you walk off from me

concerned with your stylish clothes

and leave me the sheet?

Because of hunger

would you then leave me?

or because you are thirsty?

Take then my breast:

for you its gift overflows

Better indeed is one day in your arms...

than a hundred thousand anywhere on earth.

Distracting is the foliage of my pasture

the mouth of my girl is a lotus bud,

her breasts are mandrake apples,

her arms are vines,

her eyes are fixed like berries,

her brow a snare of willow,

and I the wild goose!

My beak snips her hair for bait,

as worms for bait in the trap.

Ancient Near East

The first piece of art to be examined is from the Paleolithic period, which was roughly 2,000,000 to 8,000 BCE. Pictured to the left is the Venus of Willendorf, one of the earliest sculptures in the world. The Venus is a sculpture of a woman, more specifically a very large, curvaceous woman with a large belly and breasts. She is disproportionate and does not look natural, with a featureless face and all the emphasis placed on her curves. This sculpture suggests the importance of the woman's role in the Paleolithic world. People in this time period viewed women as the source of birth and life, and the aspects of the Venus exhibit their preoccupation with this role. This also suggests their underlaying belief of a more feminine power or force, which is also known to have served as a central religious belief in later periods.

About

This is a journal project for Humanities 201. On this blog I will focus on the topic of women and their portrayal in art, text, and/or sculpture from the Ancient Near East up until the Renaissance era.