Why were 70 foreign women brought to Userkaf?
score:7
According to German Egyptologist Hartwig Altenmüller, it wasn't necessarily women. He also asserts that it may be about Asians.
"Abgaben" aus dem 2. Jahr des Userkaf. München 1995, p.46 Altenmüller on the hieroglyph in question
Quick translation:
"The determiner shows a single "foreigner". It shows a man, crouching on the floor, in the long dress, hair, and beard style of the northern countries. A similar but rare hieroglyph is the determiner of the word "Asian" in the annals of Amenemhets II."
As to why these 70 foreigners were brought from Asia, Altenmüller has a general and a more concrete answer. The general one is the reason why anyone brings tributes:
"Abgaben" aus dem 2. Jahr des Userkaf. München 1995, p.46
Altenmüller on the reason for the tribute
Quick translation:
"The purpose of the tribute should be the same as all such tributes from the Old, Middle and New Kingdom. The listen gifts are meant to document the devotion of the tribute givers and to invoke favour from the recipient of the tribute."
Helpfully, Altenmüller goes into more detail shortly thereafter. He determines that the 303 "sack carriers" who are presenting the tributes (the 70 foreigners) do so because they themselves have been outcast once.
"Abgaben" aus dem 2. Jahr des Userkaf. München 1995, p.47
Altenmüller on the nature of the people who brought the 70 foreigners
Quick translation:
"For both Userkaf and Amenemhet II., these tributes only make sense if there was some kind of distance that needed to be overcome or suppressed towards the ruler. This leads to the assumption that the tribute-giving Egyptian "sack carriers" had been in a foreign country and thus belonged to a group of outcasts, [same meaning as outcast] or emigrants."
So Altenmüller makes the assumption that 303 Egyptians had been some kind of exiled pariahs, and their tribute of 70 foreigners from the land they had been exiled to, was to appease the ruler and make them benevolent towards them and their former reputation.
More post
- 📝 Movie refers to "denouncing a neighbor"--as a Jew? or a Jewish sympathizer? or both?
- 📝 Did Henry V’s archers at Agincourt fight with no pants / breeches on because of dysentery?
- 📝 What portion of the finance industry was British prior to WWI?
- 📝 What does King Henry III have on his lap in this illustration from a Matthew Paris chronicle?
- 📝 Why was it tradition to offer 'half-baked cake' to departing students?
- 📝 What major historical event opened the door to the passage of a homesteading bill?
- 📝 How far were women able to advance in the Gestapo?
- 📝 Looking for a (preferably digital) collection of McCarthy speeches (transcripts)
- 📝 When was King Alfred first called 'Alfred the Great'?
- 📝 Was the "music man" on target with his claims of "pool" being trouble in 1912?
- 📝 What do the numbers on this 1960s anti-integration sign mean?
- 📝 Was Jerome K Jerome Vice President of the Oxford University Labour party?
- 📝 What did the Baltic Fleet do in Reval in 1904 and when was it there?
- 📝 Why does religion eventually disintegrate into sects?
- 📝 How long did it take to bind a book in 13th century England?
- 📝 Any evidence of woman named Claudia being a Welsh princess?
- 📝 Did Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigate the globe?
- 📝 Were there any successful revolutions that didn't end in a totalitarian regime?
- 📝 Did the leaflets from the US to Hiroshima/Nagasaki civilians on bombing cities reduce the civilian casualties of the two nuclear bombs in August 1945?
- 📝 What is the oldest building in the world still in use?
- 📝 What is the earliest map of Washington, D.C.?
- 📝 Why did Shostakovich not release his 4th, but did release his 5th symphony?
- 📝 Nationalisation during wartime in the West: With or without compensation?
- 📝 Machine gun specs in WW1
- 📝 Chiang's allies were "a kidnapper, a hooligan and a bully" but which was which?
- 📝 What was the ethno-linguistic makeup of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth?
- 📝 Why couldn't the Arabs invade Palestine before the end of the British Mandate?
- 📝 Alexander the Great and Religion
- 📝 Churchill: What brave men of Barcelona?
- 📝 When did migration and international travel become legally limited?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why were 70 foreign women brought to Userkaf?
- 📝 Why were so many more Jewish men than Jewish women killed during the Holocaust?
- 📝 Why were women targeted as witches?
- 📝 Why were women excluded from the succession line in the Meiji constitution?
- 📝 Why were women monarchs allowed to rule in patriarchal societies?
- 📝 If Rome's women were the cause of her downfall, why did the Romans not import women from abroad?
- 📝 Were there women who were against giving women the right to vote?
- 📝 Why were old fortifications shaped like stars and not like circles?
- 📝 Why were ships-of-the line not supposed to open fire on frigates during fleet actions?
- 📝 Why Were Madagascar and New Zealand Discovered So Late?
- 📝 Why were Navajo code talkers used during WW2?
- 📝 Why were the Romans unable to conquer Germania?
- 📝 Why were there no internment camps for German-American citizens in USA during WW2?
- 📝 Why were Spain and Portugal neutral / not invaded in WWII?
- 📝 Why were there no nuclear detonations in 1959?
- 📝 Why were the Allies so much better cryptanalysts?
- 📝 Why were there no religious wars in Poland?
- 📝 Why were helmets and other body armour not commonplace in the 1800s?
- 📝 ‘Avoid sleeping on your back’ & ‘breathe in toilet smells’ were seen as precautions against the Black Death. Why did doctors think these would work?
- 📝 Why did it take so long to abandon sail after steamships were demonstrated?
- 📝 Why were the West African islands uninhabited?
- 📝 Why were the drawings of Colossus burnt after WW2 and why was its very existence "of course" kept secret?
- 📝 Why were Albanians the only nation in the Balkans who converted to Islam during the Ottoman occupation?
- 📝 What disruptions were brought about by Islam that the Arabians saw so many victories?
- 📝 Why were British ships not of the same quality as French and Spanish ships until the latter part of the 18th century?
- 📝 Why did Roosevelt and Churchill use voice-based telecommunication, instead of simpler text-based options which were easier to encrypt?
- 📝 Why were nomadic tribes (like the Mongols) from the Eurasian steppes a much reduced threat from the 15th century onwards?
- 📝 Why did Switzerland not grant votes to women until 1971?
- 📝 Why were Civil War battle techniques so bloody, if the US had learned guerrilla fighting in the Revolutionary War?
- 📝 Why were there no agricultural, city-state forming civilizations in the Ice Age?