Women, Gender and Identity in Third Intermediate Period Egypt

Jean Li is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Ryerson University, Canada. Her research focuses on Egyptian art and archaeology in the first millennium BCE, and she is especially interested in using recent anthropological and archaeological theories to study ancient cultural products.

• IntroductionChapter One: Tradition, Innovation and a Search for Egyptian Identity in the Third Intermediate PeriodChapter Two: Rank, Status and Axes of IdentityChapter Three: Materiality, Memory and the Mortuary Landscape of ThebesChapter Four: The Symbolic Economy of Mortuary PracticesConclusion: Women, Gender and Status in Thebes of the 8th-6th Centuries BCE

Li states her research goals clearly and the methods she utilizes to reach those goals are direct. The author is succinct in her writing and provides enough detail for the reader to follow her thought process and argumentation. Her work provides an excellent framework for future studies concerning women and identity and also breaks new ground with its discussion of women as individuals, rather than as a monolithic group. Women, Gender and Identity in Third Intermediate Period Egypt would be a great asset to upper level undergraduates and graduate students studying issues of identity and gender within an ancient Egyptian context; for the latter group, it offers an instructive model for students conducting research on these issues.-Amanda Jane Shaffery, University of Memphis