14. Female Figurine

This female figurine was carved from a single piece of wood. Her short wig with exposed ears resembles that worn by Tjetji (no. 13). She is fully nude, with emphasis placed on the hips, belly and pubic area. Such figurines have been traditionally interpreted as symbolic concubines accompanying male burials in the afterlife. In recent scholarship they are regarded as dancers connected to Hathor or as fecundity figures meant to heal and repel evil. Some scholars believe this female fertility figurine type to derive from earlier Nubian examples, pointing to the cropped hairstyle for example. However, the idea that the female body is connected to the spiritual world was widespread in both Egypt and Nubia from prehistory.