Mrs. Tsenhor: A Female Entrepreneur in Ancient Egypt - Softcover

Donker Van Heel, Koenraad

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9774166779 ISBN 13: 9789774166778

Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press, 2016

Synopsis

Tsenhor was born about 550 bce in the city of Thebes (Karnak). She died some sixty years later, having lived through the reigns of Amasis II, Psamtik III, Cambyses II, Darius I and perhaps even Psamtik IV. By carefully retracing the events of her life as they are recorded in papyri now kept in museums in London, Paris, Turin, and Vienna, the author creates the image of a proud and independent businesswoman who made her own decisions in life.
If Tsenhor were alive today she would be wearing jeans, drive a pick-up, and enjoy a beer with the boys. She clearly was her own boss, and one assumes that this happened with the full support of her second husband Psenese, who fathered two of her children. She married him when she was in her mid-thirties.
Like her father and husband, Tsenhor could be hired to bring offerings to the dead in the necropolis on the west bank of the Nile. For a fee of course, and that is how her family acquired high-quality farm land on more than one occasion. But Tsenhor also did other business on her own, such as buying a slave and co-financing the reconstruction of a house that she owned together with Psenese. She seems in many ways to have been a liberated woman, some 2,500 years before the concept was invented.
Embedded in the history of the first Persian occupation of Egypt, and using many sources dealing with ordinary women from the Old Kingdom up to and including the Coptic era, this book aims to forever change the general view on women in ancient Egypt, which is far too often based on the lives of Nefertiti, Hatshepsut, and Cleopatra.

About this title

About the Author:

Koenraad Donker van Heel is lecturer in Demotic at Leiden University. He is the author of Djekhy & Son: Doing Business in Ancient Egypt (AUC Press, 2012).

Review:

"Tsenhor's story is certainly proof that the study of 'ordinary' Egyptian women is as vital as the study of Hatshepsut and Cleopatra to our understanding of real life in ancient Egyp--and just as exciting and entertaining to read!"--Ancient Egypt

"Dr. Donker van Heel . . . has a great gift for making the very complex material he works on accessible to non-specialists. Furthermore, he generally manages to make his audience laugh while doing so. This book confirms these talents, and is highly recommended."--Chris Naunton, Egyptian Archaeology

"This book aims to forever change the general view on women in ancient Egypt, that is far too often based on the lives of Nefertiti, Hatshepsut and Cleopatra."--Amun-Ra Egyptology Blog

About this edition

• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 9774166779
• ISBN 13: 9789774166778
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256