ABSTRACT
A literate people, the ancient Egyptians developed quickly into a bureaucratic society, leaving behind institutional records that we use to formulate an understanding of Egyptian society, culture and worldview. The preserved secular and religious records present a normative picture of society and gender roles, organized along fundamental, often dichotomous dualities. The most fundamental dichotomy presented was that of the masculine and the feminine. Egyptian language specifi ed only two genders, male and female. With very few exceptions, feminine nouns have suffi x “t”s added to masculine nouns to indicate gender (Allen 2001, 35); thus s was son, and s.t was daughter, sn (brother) to sn.t (sister), and nb (lord) to nb.t (lady). To offset ambiguity in meaning, Egyptians added to words determinatives, which are one or more signs drawn at the end of a word to indicate the general idea of the word (Allen 2001, 28-29). In the case of names, a picture of a seated man or woman follows the name in order to indicate the sex of the person.
