play a large role in the public life. Women did not hold public office, but there are moments during the middle kingdom when there were women in positions of authority like treasurer, or in the position of an overseer. Women were able to find jobs in the fields of the priesthood, mid-wifery, as professional mourners, dancers and musicians and in goods manufacturing. Prostitution was not an occupation for working class women, it was not a practice common in ancient Egyptian society, and there has been no evidence of prostitutes found. In the priesthood, women achieved the highest status. Religion was a large part of life, and great religiosity was looked at as the sign of high standing. For the first two kingdoms, the priesthood was closed to any women not in the upper class, but by the new kingdom, married and unmarried women were free to work too. The job of priestess was prestigious; it was an indication of both social status, and respectability. As a priestess, a woman’s duties were diverse. The most important was that they were charged with the duty of impersonating a goddess during special ceremonies. They also took part in the cult of the dead, and were musicians and chantresses.Women in the priesthood were divided into four groups, each group for a month in a rotating four-month cycle. The leader of each group was a celebrated musician and the wife of an important man. As a priestess, women were not forced to follow strict routines of celibacy, as the men were, a link to the societal importance of child bearing. By the new kingdom, when jobs in the priesthood were open to all women, the position did not carry the ultra high status that it did earlier, due to the larger amounts of priestesses, but they still were revered.Many Egyptian women found employment as midwives. There were no schools to train the women; instead, they were trained on the job. Egyptian doctors were not concerned with obstetrics; they spent t...
