Figure 1: Birthing Brick from South Abydos
Birthing bricks served both functional and spiritual roles in Ancient Egyptian society. They were one of the many magical items used to protect the mom and the infant during childbirth while also acting as a physical support for a woman in labor. Birthing bricks often had images decorating its faces. On this particular brick, the scene painted depicts a mother, child, and two female attendants. It merges the two stages of the birthing process: the delivery itself (shown through the servants assisting the mother) and the successful birth (suggested by the child playing in the mom’s arms).
This birthing brick makes many allusions to the supposed divinity of the mortal mother. Firstly, the mother and child sit on a grand, divine throne rather than the customary four-legged chair. The mother’s hair is painted blue, which is a symbol of godliness in Egyptian art, and matches the blue hair of the Hathor figures surrounding her (Hathor is the goddess of fertility and birth). The baby boy the mother is holding is presented with black hair, indicating that he is a mere human. This presentation of the birth suggests that the artist thought the concepts of delivery and motherhood to be of a divine nature. It is especially telling that the mother’s and son’s hair colors differ, suggesting that the mother’s divinity is independent of the child’s status. The birthing brick indicates that Egyptians might have believed a pregnant woman to have intrinsic, almost magical, power.
While at face value this newfound power might seem beneficial to women, there is the possibility that ultimately, it isolates pregnant women from the rest of society and pronounces their otherness. The strong association between men and procreation made by the Egyptians renders anyone else involved, such as the women, a subordinate and executor of the man’s will. The divinity of the women portrayed in the South Abydos birthing brick could stem from the fact that she is the vessel of the godly man, or in other words, divine by proxy. In some sense, her emphasized transition from mortal to divine serves to reinforce what power she has lost because of the transition itself. While she is divine, her identity becomes reduced to child-bearer rather than the “storm”
[xvii] she once was.