Thursday, June 12, 2025

Beatrice Teissier on The Ambiguity of the Gender of Female-Looking Figures in Egyptian Iconography

Beatrice Teissier wrote the following which might shed light on the interpretation of the female-looking figures who are identified as males in figures 2 and 4 of Facsimile 2: 


The Egyptian and Egyptianising females discussed below are identified as goddesses because of their iconographies and the contexts in which they appear. The only exception may be the wigged females whose context is sometimes ambivalent. (Beatrice Teissier, Egyptian Iconography on Syro-Palestinian Cylinder Seals of the Middle Bronze Age [Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Series Archaeologica 11; Fribourg, Switzerland: University Press Fribourg, 1996], 66, emphasis added)

 

The following images are from pp. 67-70 :

 

 










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