UMR 7044

Women in Ancient Egypt were confronted daily to physical violence. However, it is difficult to say whether this violence was specific to them because of their womanly status, or whether it was the same as the one affecting their fellow men. This phenomenon is particularly interesting for the Greco-Roman period, due to the material diversity: for this epoch, we dispose of paleopathological evidences, some Demotic documents and a considerable Greek documentation.
This last one has been well studied by papyrologists. Even so, they did not compare this documentation with the Demotic one. Some Demotic texts – documentary and literary – bear witness to violence towards women. The type of violence, the vocabulary and the context, must be taken in account to determine the potential specificity of violence perpetrated upon women, by comparing these data with those related to men. These comparisons will be enhanced by the consideration of a paleopathological study of cranial trauma in the Bahariya Oasis during the Greco-Roman period.
The confrontation of the papyrologists studies results, the Demotic documents and the paleopathological evidences will enable to ascertain whether there was or not a gendered violence against women in the Greco-Roman Egypt.

Les graffiti érotiques de la tombe 504 (Deir el-Bahari) ont régulièrement été interprétés par les modernes comme une représentation de la reine Hatchepsout et du dignitaire Senenmout. Aucun élément iconographique ni critère de datation ne viennent pourtant étayer cette interprétation. La comparaison de ces dessins avec des figurines et graffiti similaires, et l’analyse de leur contexte de représentation, poussent l’auteure à suggérer l’hypothèse d’une fonction votive liée à la fertilité.


Scholars usually describe the erotic graffiti from tomb 504 at Deir el-Bahari as a representation of Queen Hatshepsut and the official Senenmut. However, there is no basis in the iconography, nor any dating criterion, to support such an interpretation. Through the comparison with similar representations and figurines, and the examination of their context, the author suggests that the graffiti may bear a votive function associated with fertility.

Among the legal material from Deir el-Medina, some ostraca and papyri bear witness to physical interpersonal violence, mainly from the 19th and 20th dynasties. This paper aims to enlighten our knowledge of the legal treatment of interpersonal violence in the village of the necropolis workmen.
The systematic study of these texts allows to highlight the settings of complaints against violence. Under which circumstances would the complaint be made to the local council of Deir el-Medina, or outside the village to the vizier? Desire for revenge and justice was not the only reason why the inhabitants of Deir el-Medina petitioned: when someone went to complain about violence, there was often an economic matter linked to it.
The legal documents bring evidence on the answer of legal authorities to violence: which were the punishments required or executed? A common chastisement is the threat of a corporal punishment; however hard labour is also encountered, and perhaps a forced unpaid leave. Other ways of regulating violent conflicts were used apart from the legal system, such as heading to the family.
The texts from Deir el-Medina will be compared with other documents from the New Kingdom – such as literary texts or royal edicts – for a better understanding of the ins and outs of this social phenomenon. This comparison will also enable to ascertain whether some characteristics are specific to Deir el-Medina, or whether they can be traced in other documents from the New Kingdom.

Des textes égyptiens du Nouvel Empire (XVIe – XIe s. av. n. ère) et d’époque hellénistique (332 – 30 av. n. ère), rapportent des actes de violence interpersonnelle intervenant dans le cadre d’une hiérarchie sociale et/ou professionnelle. Dans ces textes documentaires et littéraires qui nous intéresseront ici, la violence est dénoncée : des coups portés par un maître sur son serviteur, par un supérieur sur son subordonné ou par un homme aisé sur un indigent étaient-ils alors perçus négativement dans la société égyptienne ? La comparaison avec des textes littéraires des deux époques apporte pourtant une vision différente et complémentaire : la bastonnade du serviteur est ainsi mise en avant à plusieurs reprises dans cette catégorie. Une analyse plus poussée des textes qui dénoncent des agressions physiques dans le cadre d’une relation socio-professionnelle permettra de déterminer quel a été le réel moteur de la dénonciation dans ces occurrences spécifiques. Ces documents devront également être replacés dans leur contexte social particulier. Par ailleurs, la comparaison de deux époques chronologiquement éloignées permet de dénoter des caractéristiques communes dans un aspect social de la vie nilotique, en dépit des changements politiques et juridiques intervenus en Égypte.

The written material from Egypt bears witness to acts of interpersonal violence, i.e. violence occurring in the setting of social interactions. These documents, written on both ostraca and papyri, either denounce the aggression, or aim at the resolution of the conflict. These texts represent a very small part of the whole Egyptian written evidence documenting the daily life: there are 40 of them for the New Kingdom and Graeco-Roman era, while economic texts number in the thousands for these periods.
This paper will question the choice of writing a denunciation or judgement proceedings when a violent act occurred: was it the rule, and then, does the small amount of texts documenting violence reflect the place of this social phenomenon in the Egyptian society? Or was the use of papyri and ostraca the exception, which could imply that orality was the rule?
In order to bring answers to these questions, I will analyse the features of the resort to a written support to denounce and regulate violent conflicts.
Two specific corpora will be the focus of this discussion: first, the documents from Deir el-Medina, the village of the workmen of the Theban necropolis during the New Kingdom (14th – 10th c. B.C.); second, the Demotic texts from the Ptolemaic period (4th – 1st c. B.C.).
Through the study of these documents, this paper aims at enlightening the place of writing as a medium in violent conflicts regulation in New Kingdom and Graeco-Roman Egypt.

The study of interpersonal violence in ancient Egypt is documented by a limited amount of legal texts. For the Hellenistic period, the Demotic texts witnessing the regulation of violent conflicts through non-legal recourses are more numerous than those bearing witness to an involvement of legal instances.
This paper endeavours to study the cases where interpersonal violence was regulated outside of the legal field, and to underline the weight of non-judicial instances – and more specifically social structures – in its resolution. Several recourses are attested in the Demotic documents to regulate, denounce and resolve violent conflicts: kinship, divinities, associations or clerical hierarchy. For which reasons did people turn towards a specific non-legal authority? Were these instances strictly compartmentalised from the legal justice? Eventually, a scheme for the process of denunciation of interpersonal violence will be proposed.
The texts that will be analysed are mainly Demotic documentary texts from the Hellenistic period. Yet, P. Rylands 9 from Persian Egypt and a literary text from the Roman period also document the involvement of non-legal bodies in the resolution of violent conflicts, and will be integrated in this presentation.

The study of family in ancient Egypt has been mainly focused on the terminology of kinship relationships. The wider role of kinship in the Egyptian society has only been analysed for some specific texts or contexts, and for the Roman period based on the Greek documentation. 
In this paper, I want to present a study which is at its very beginning, on kinship in the society of New Kingdom and Graeco-Roman Egypt (16th – 10th c. BC/4th c. BC – 4th c. AD), particularly its place in networks of support and dispute resolution. This presentation will introduce the available source material on the subject, as well as the main lines of approach and the proposed methodology.
The intended comparison of documents from the New Kingdom and the Graeco-Roman period aims at underlining the characteristics of each period. It will be completed by the integration of relevant texts from the Third Intermediary Period and the Late Period, in order to stress the impact of the Graeco-Macedonian conquest on social practices, and to question the continuities of sociology over the fluctuations of politics. The interest of this approach will be illustrated with the example of the part of kinship in the regulation of interpersonal violence.

Violence is a well-documented phenomenon in the ancient Egyptian material. However, it is difficult to determine how far violence directed against women was different from violence against men. Evidence for physical violence against women can be easily found during the Graeco-Roman period (c. 4th century BC – 3rd century AD); for this epoch, there is great material diversity, including some Demotic documents and a considerable body of Greek texts. The Greek texts have been well studied by papyrologists. Yet, they have never been compared to the Demotic evidence. Some documentary and literary Demotic texts bear witness to violence against women. The type of violence, the vocabulary and the context must be taken into account to determine the potential specificity of violence against women, through the comparison of these data with those for men. The consideration of the Demotic documentation, too often neglected, and its comparison with the Greek evidence bring new insight on the use, the treatment, and the perception of interpersonal violence against women in Graeco-Roman Egypt.

Cet article analyse les mécanismes de traitement de la violence interpersonnelle exercée dans le cadre d’une hiérarchie sociale ou professionnelle, dans la documentation égyptienne du Nouvel Empire et d’époque hellénistique. L’auteure interroge la perception des violences infligées à un individu en position d’infériorité par son supérieur, et dénoncées dans la documentation : s’agit-il réellement d’actes de violence répréhensibles, ou ces violences sont-elles considérées comme légitimes par les auteurs des textes égyptiens ? L’étude de corpus documentaires de deux époques distantes permet en outre de souligner les convergences de ce phénomène social entre le Nouvel Empire et la période hellénistique.

Through the study of Egyptian documents from New Kingdom and Hellenistic Egypt, this article analyses the mechanisms of the treatment of interpersonal violence occurring in the framework of a social or professional hierarchy. The author questions the actual perception of violence inflicted by a superior to their inferior, and denounced in the texts: was this violence seen as reprehensible, or was it perceived as legitimate by the authors of the Egyptian texts? The study of bodies of documents from two separate periods enables highlighting the common patterns of this social phenomenon between the New Kingdom and the Hellenistic period.

The legal system of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt is a complex apparatus, which has been well studied over the last decades. Yet, an aspect that has never been specifically analysed is the part played by family in legal proceedings. Indeed, some Demotic documents from the Graeco-Roman period witness an involvement of kinship in dispute resolution: in several texts, family is involved in the legal procedure, either through a testimony, or through the representation of one of the parties by a family member. 
In this paper, I propose to study these occurrences, and to question their actual nature: are they anecdotical appearances of relatives, or must they be understood as the indication of an involvement of kinship in a specific and legally institutionalised framework?
To study this subject, I will present and analyse Demotic documents, with a focus on the temple oaths from the Ptolemaic period.