Hellooo, question: how would nubian or egyptian slaves/common women look like? I'm drawing Andromeda and one of her attendants and so far I have an idea for how I want the royal garments to look but I'm stuck for the common clothes. I'm thinking something like this:
But I still dk if that's a really common or more royal look?
Hi, thank you for your question!
I just saw your drawing, I'm a bit late in answering I guess haha Your drawing looks great, I love it :) I'm going to answer your question nonetheless, perhaps you'll get some more inspiration for later drawings, who knows ;)
This specific statue (ca. 2030–1981 B.C.) in the picture, according to the MET Museum, is probably an attendant of one of the Hathor priestesses and royal wives at the court of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II. But this look has been depicted in more art regarding Nubian women, so I think it would be a nice choice. Her jewelry, hair fillet and decorated skirt are what make her stand out as more wealthy.
We see a similar costume on the mural of the tomb of Huy (18th dynasty: 1550/1549 to 1292 BC), depicting the Nubian tribute to Tutankhamon.
The statuette is a lot older. She’s wearing a fillet on her head. The woman on the fresco has a typical Nubian hairstyle. Both women wear a long skirt, one a bit wider than the other and with different patterns.
The fillet might be of importance, because during excavations of a number of non-royal Nubian tombs in Sanam, it was revealed that adornment (for both royal and non-royal) Nubian women was very important. A similar cap has been found in one of these tombs (tomb 1516), made out of blue-glazed Eye of Horus beads. Alongside this archeologists also found bangles, necklaces, earrings with pendants. They even found some type of bronze headband with a flower attached to it, something that is also depicted in Egyptian art. From other burial sites we also know that leather caps adorned with mica were worn, as well as leather net coverings.
Another depiction of Nubian women is on the wall painting of the Temple of Beit el-Wali, from the 19th century. Here we see the topless skirt again, however these are undecorated.
We see it again in the Nubian women depicted in the Tomb of Rekhmire, TT 100 (18th dynasty):
These women (along with the woman depicted on the mural of the tomb of Huy) are thought to have been part of the tribute to the Egyptian rulers. These were sometimes common women, but sometimes also noblewomen and even children of royals.
On the throne of Queen Tiye we have a depiction of an imprisoned Nubian woman, again topless with a skirt:
The straight skirt is thought to have been made out of leather, with a side split, such items decorated with beads or pressed patterns have been found in tombs as well.
Here we have a rare depiction of village life is shown on a bowl from Karong:
On the left you can see 3 female figures. The seated one is thought to be a goddess of some sort (either local or an Egyptian one). The woman receiving the gifts wears a decorated skirt, much like the statuette from your question.
Another example of a Nubian woman being depicted is this statue (ca. 1250-1070 BCE, The Walters Art Museum):
Regretfully we can’t really see a lot of her clothing besides her wearing sandals and a skirt of dress, but I decided to add it anyway. The hairstyle she’s wearing is often shown on nude female figurines relating to the story of Bastet being angry with Re and leaving Egypt in favor of Nubia. They eventually get her back and Bes plays a big role in it, I don’t remember it that clearly to be honest, and actually the story specifically doesn’t matter that much. What does matter though is that those nude figurines often feature Nubian hairstyles. The most popular one is the typical one with the little braids reaching the shoulders or shorter, but this one shows up frequently as well, so it might represent another form of Nubian hairstyle.
Sometimes Egyptian women are depicted with Nubian wigs, but in general they are depicted in a way that we can still differentiate them from each other, especially if the art was made by Egyptians. An example of this is a stela from Abydos (Late Egyptian):
The two in the front are Nubian, they wear a short hairstyle and a long, baggy tunic dress with fringed edges. The Egyptian woman wears a Nubian hairstyle but wears a different garb.
Fringed edges on garments seem to have been associated with Nubian women, here’s another depiction of a woman named Qeqiry, a “follower of Mut”.
So in conclusion, in general topless with a long skirt would be a good option for common women. The more decorated the skirt and the more jewelry a woman wore, the higher her social status. An attendant of Andromeda would've probably been able to wear jewelry and such, so the statue you showed and your drawing are probably what someone like her would've looked like :)
The baggy tunic (with tassels) is also something that was associated with Nubian women, but probably for a later period and it seems to have some connection to a religious context, but I would need to dig a bit further into that to tell you that for sure tbh
As for slave women spcifically, we don't really know, they are rarely depicted. Personally I think there's 3 options: they either wore a similar skirt of lower quality, they were completely nude akin to what was costumary for children or they wore some type of small loincloth. I don't know tbh
I hope I didn't forget anything in this post, I might've been able to make a more coherent text, but this is the main problem I have with sending out posts or answers, like I keep editing them, so I hope it's not too incoherent haha
If you are interested in some further works on the topic:
Vittmann,Günter, “A Question of Names, Titles, and Iconography. Kushites in Priestly, Administrative and other Positions from Dynasties 25 to 26,” Mitteilungen der Sudanarchäologischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin 18 (2007), 139-161.
Haynes, Joyce and Mimi Santini-Ritt, “Women in ancient Nubia,” in Ancient Nubia: African Kingdoms on the Nile, eds. Marjorie M. Fisher, Peter Lacovara, Salima Ikram, Sue D’Auria, 170-85, (2012).
Markowitz, Yvonne, “Nubian adornment,” in Ancient Nubia: African Kingdoms on the Nile, eds. Marjorie M. Fisher, Peter Lacovara, Salima Ikram, Sue D’Auria, 186-99, (2012).
Ebied, Ahmad, “Non-royal Nubian clothing representations during the New Kindgom and the Kushites twenty-fifth dynasty,” International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Management Volume 1, No. 1 ( 2018), 56-76. (the two black and white drawings that I showed at the end are from this article)
Pemler, Doris, “Looking at Nubians in Egypt: Nubian Women in New Kingdom Tomb and Temple Scenes and the Case of TT 40 (Amenemhet Huy),” Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies, 5(1) (2018), 25-61.
