En praktisk aspekt av döden : Kvinnlig arvsrätt under Mellersta och Nya Riket

Sammanfattning: This essay is about female inheritance in ancient Egypt. Death had a very important part in the Egyptian culture. The goal in this essay is to put focus on an everyday aspect of death, which is often left out. That is, how the living was affected by the death of a close relative. Since women had a weaker economic position than men, they are likely to have been more affected. Hence, the essay will focus on women. Most of the existing research is based on primary sources from the Late and Ptolemaic Period. But since that is relatively late in the Egyptian history, it is important to see what female inheritance looked like earlier in history. It is also important to compare different periods in order to see if inheritance developed during time or stayed unchanged. The issues will be how the death of the husband and a family member affected the woman, and how her death affected other persons close to her. In order to answer this, primary sources consisting of texts from Lahun (the Middle Kingdom) and Deir el-Medina (the New Kingdom) will be analyzed in a comparative study. The most important results are that inheritance was based on the relationship between the individual rather than on gender and the death of the husband had the biggest influence on the woman’s life. How big the influence was depended on whether or not she inherited as a widow.