Ancient Egyptians have been credited as the creators of ancient tampons, but what archaeological evidence do we actually have of Ancient Egyptians actually using tampons? In this post, you will find the YouTube video exploring the archaeology of ancient Egyptian period products and practices, and a full video transcript (with relevant references and links).
YouTube Video
YouTube Video Transcript
Here, you will find the complete transcript of the video in the previous section with hyperlinked references/citations.
Intro
In 1989, the German tampon company o.b. ran this ad in Germany’s Burda magazine. The title translates to, “This is what a 4,000-year-old invention looks like today.” The nod to ancient Egypt is indirectly made through the papyrus image; however, in another o.b. ad the connection to Ancient Egypt is more direct – with Nefertari, a royal wife, being led into the afterlife by the goddess Isis.
As we explored the interwebs, we found several websites and people crediting ancient Egyptians as the creators of ancient tampons, which made us curious.
Hi! I’m Dr. Smiti Nathan and I’m an archaeologist. In this video, we’re going to investigate whether ancient Egyptians actually used tampons. So let’s get into it.
Answering the Question
So did Ancient Egyptians use tampons? It’s complicated. Let’s start with something referenced in that o.b. ad – papyrus.
Now we didn’t find any evidence of ancient Egyptians using papyrus as tampons, but we did learn some things from investigating what ancient Egyptians wrote down on papyri. There are numerous ancient Egyptian texts dealing with wider medical issues and treatments and collectively, Egyptologists call them the Medical Papyri. Let’s take a look at 3 of them.
Kahun Papyrus
Let’s start with the oldest one of the three – the Kahun Papyrus. This papyrus dates to the Middle Kingdom’s 12 Dynasty, so around ca. 1850 BCE. Speaking of time periods, what we often refer to as “Ancient Egypt” actually spanned multiple millennia. Menstruation practices could have varied depending on the time periods and region, so we’ll be as specific as possible when it comes to date and locations.
When it comes to the Kahun papyrus, Egyptologists often referred to it as the “gynecological papyrus,” because, in addition to veterinary medicine, it detailed the diagnosis and treatment of gynecological diseases, as well as issues with fertility, contraception, and pregnancy. This text even gives us a recipe for contraceptives, which consists of crocodile manure, honey, and natron, which is a type of salt. In this text, treatments frequently prescribed the use of plants, oils, or liquids to fumigate or be massaged onto the body, to be drunk, or to be inserted as pessaries.
Now pessaries are removable treatments that are inserted in the vagina. So while not exactly tampons, we’re getting close.
Ebers Papyrus
Next up is the Ebers Papyrus, which dates to around ca. 1550 BCE during the New Kingdom period; however, this papyrus is technically a copy and compilation of medical ailments and remedies that we think were written down earlier during the Old Kingdom period.
This papyrus has an entire section dedicated to “remedies that are to be made for women.” That brings up another important point. People across time and the world have diverse conceptualizations of gender.
Traditionally, Egyptologists have interpreted Ancient Egypt to have two genders: male & female with marked differences between the two. However, recent scholarship has found examples of deliberately ungendered individuals as well as third-gender categories. When it comes to texts, Ancient Egyptian languages were gendered; however, recent scholarship has observed texts occasionally referring to gender categories beyond the “male” and “female” binary. So we’re still figuring things out on this front.
And when it comes to this video, we recognize that not all women, and only women menstruate; so, if a gender is clearly stated in an ancient Egyptian text, we will say so, and if it’s not so clear, we’ll use a gender-neutral term like, “person”. In the case of this particular section of the Ebers Papyrus, the text frequently uses gendered language, indicating the desired audience of these remedies is women.
In it, we find remedies for issues with menstruation and lactation, diseases of the breasts and genitals, aids for abortion and giving birth, and advice for nursing mothers. One particular entry dealing with regulating menstruation, advised to douche the patient with a mixture of garlic and wine, and if that didn’t work, with fennel, bsbs-plant, honey, and sweet beer for four days.
So here we learn of treatments surrounding managing and regulating menstruation, but not much on the tampon front.
London Medical Papyrus
Finally, we have the London Medical Papyrus that dates to the Ramesside Period around 1350 BCE.
A section of this papyrus reads:
“Anubis came forth to prevent the flood from entering the pure territory of (the goddess) Tayet to protect what is in her. This incantation is recited over linen yarn on which a knot has been made. Place inside her vagina.”
There are three important things to note here.
First, ancient Egyptians mythologically connected menstrual bleeding with the flow and inundation of the Nile River.
Second, the combination of knot tying and reciting spells aloud is common in ancient Egyptian medicine. Knots such as this one had protective functions and were mythologically connected to the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis – yes, the same Isis pictured in the o.b. ad from earlier.
Third, some scholars analyzing this text have interpreted it as a spell against bleeding that would be spoken over a knotted tampon, which would then be placed in the vagina. Although this knotted linen might resemble a modern tampon, this medicinal treatment seems to be more concerned with the prevention of a miscarriage rather than the collection of period blood.
So from this papyrus, we learn of a tampon-like product, made out of linen, that is knotted and then inserted into the vagina, but not for collecting routine menstrual fluid.
Translation Issues
This papyrus also highlights an inherent complication when it comes to textual evidence and something we mentioned earlier: translation.
When translating ancient languages into modern languages, there are ideas and concepts that don’t translate 1:1 and we do our best to make sense of them. For example, the ancient Egyptian word for menstruation was hsmn (hes-men). But this word could also mean “purification.”
Egyptologist, Jaana Toivari-Viitala, argued that hsmn could refer to “regular menstruation” as well as purification rites connected with childbirth, miscarriages, abortions, and possibly circumcision. Another Egyptologist, Terry Wilfong, argued that although hsmn has been translated as both “menstruation” and “purification,” the ancient Egyptians made a distinction between these two usages and, therefore, we should not see these words as interchangeable. It’s important to note that there was no codified spelling in Middle Egyptian and words sometimes used common spellings for certain circumstances. Thus, this word – hsmn – could refer to different things in different contexts.
For example, when examining examples of the word hsmn in texts from the archaeological site of Deir el-Medina, Wilfong argued that “menstruation” and not “purification (after pregnancy)” was the appropriate translation. In Middle Egyptian, a determinative sign is a particular type of hieroglyphic sign that categorized a word. Wilfong argued that the word hsmn was written with the same determinative signs when the word could be translated as “menstruation,” with more certainty – usually in medical texts.
The same word having a different meaning depending on the context is nothing new. Take the English word, “period”. Depending on the context, it could mean a length of time, menstruation, or a punctuation mark.
So translations are tricky; however, it’s important to recognize when we might be imposing our modern worldviews and experiences on the past. We have to be careful not to assume that certain products and practices that some of us use today would have also been used in the past, making the matter of ancient Egyptians using tampons a bit complicated.
According to the papyri we looked at, ancient Egyptians did insert items in the vagina, much like we would insert a tampon; however, they weren’t used to capture fluid from a routine period. instead, they were usually doused in some type of treatment in order to treat things like irregular menstruation or as preventative measures.
Menstrual Fluid Capture
So then you be asking, “what did Ancient Egyptians use to capture menstrual blood?” Again, this is a bit difficult to know for certain, but one Middle Kingdom text might help us.
The Satire of the Trades, also known as the Instruction of Khety, is a Wisdom Text dating to around 1950 – 1900 BCE. Wisdom Texts, also known as didactic literature or Instructions, were a genre of Ancient Egyptian texts that taught ideal virtues and morals like justice, truthfulness, self control, etc. Usually, the teaching would be bestowed upon a student or son by a wise sage or father. This particular text describes a father trying to convince his son to be a scribe by making other more manual professions out to be undesirable. It remarks that a washerman’s duties are undesirable and lists one of the tasks as cleaning the clothes of a woman who is menstruating.
The Egyptian word for the referenced garments has been translated as clothing, skirt, kilt, and loin-cloth. Terry Wilfong argues that the garment in this text could be interpreted as a woman’s skirt stained with menstrual blood rather than a specific menstrual towel or loincloth. The idea of a dedicated product comes from another term, which appears in the so-called “laundry lists” at Deir el-Medina, and that most likely referred to towels, or loincloths, used during menstruation.
Now as we mentioned, menstruation practices could have varied throughout Ancient Egypt, so it’s fair to think that some people in different places might have managed menstrual blood differently. However, the reference to the garments worn by menstruating women in the Satire of the Trades led some scholars to think there were taboos surrounding menstruation in Ancient Egypt. However, other scholars didn’t think that was the case.
Since this Wisdom Text presents all professions other than scribe as undesirable, the reference to menstruation clothes more likely indicates biases surrounding gender and laundry tasks, as opposed to a widespread taboo. Toivari-Viitala also argues that since these garments are mentioned together with other laundry items there was probably no “marked notions of social pollution attached to these garments.”
Another text, known as the Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days, marked two days as days when “you should not have sex with a woman.” These days have been traditionally interpreted in the scholarship as prohibitions against having sex with a woman when on her period. However, Wilfong argues that this addition “when on her period” is never explicitly stated or implied in this text. So, according to Wilfong, there was no formal, universal taboo for menstruation in ancient Egypt, at least before the Greco-Roman period.
Archaeology
So we’ve been referencing ancient texts a lot, but what about other parts of the archaeological record? When it comes to period products, we haven’t found direct archaeological remnants of a specific product – at least according to our research. However, we might have some clues in other artifacts.
For example, the tyet amulet is a funerary amulet that was used for the protection of a deceased person as they went into the afterlife. They were often made from a red stone such as jasper or carnelian with the design being an open loop of fabric with a hanging sash.
So you might be asking, “What does this have to do with menstruation?”
According to Egyptologist, Geraldine Pinch, the items depicted in the tyet amulet have typically been interpreted as a “girdle tie or as a sanitary towel.” So while not a period product itself, the amulet could indicate a type of period product that was used in ancient Egypt.
Furthermore, tyet amulets were strongly associated with the goddess Isis – yes, the same Isis that we covered before. According to Spell 156 from the 6th century BCE Book of the Dead by Ankhwahibre, the power of the blood of Isis is mentioned in this spell for a tyet amulet. Pinch thinks that this amulet may be linked to menstrual blood and its role in the creation of human life.
So this may be both an archaeological clue into the period products that people were using in ancient Egypt, as well as larger beliefs surrounding menstruation.
We also have some interesting finds from a site we’ve briefly mentioned already – Egypt’s New Kingdom settlement at Deir el-Medina. Deir el-Medina is quite a unique archaeological site. First off, this settlement housed the workers who built, decorated, and furnished the royal New Kingdom tombs, which are located in the Wadi of the Kings and Wadi of the Queens.
Second, while lots of literary, medical, historical, and religious texts were found in this town, there is also a ton of nonliterary material like inscribed stelae, graffiti, and ostraca and they’re written in varied handwriting. This means that while this settlement likely had dedicated scribes, there were other people who could read and write, thus leading archaeologists to surmise a higher overall literacy rate here. Furthermore, this gives us both archaeological and textual evidence detailing the lives of the people who lived and worked here.
When it comes to menstruation, archaeologists have found something interesting at this settlement. Several documents, including the necropolis journal, a record of festival offerings, and a property statement, refer to women going to or returning from a somewhat enigmatic “place of women.” This place has been interpreted as a specific location for menstruating women either for “ordinary” periods or with special circumstances.
Furthermore, there are several documents indicating when workers were absent from work. One indicated reason for an absence was due to someone in the worker’s household menstruating. Some reasons include, “his wife is menstruating” and “his daughter is menstruating.”
Scholars have theorized that a worker would remain at home with the family if a wife or daughter needed to go to the “place of women” or if they were incapacitated due to menstrual pain.
Now when it comes to the location of this “place of women”, that is up for debate. Archaeologist, Lynn Meskell proposed the rooms at the back of Deir el-Medina houses as a possible location for these menstruation spaces. Whereas, Egyptologist Terry Wilfong argued that although there is no obvious archaeological evidence for location; there are several structures outside of the settlement that might have functioned as this place.
Outro
So as you can see, we’re still learning how Ancient Egyptians conceptualized and managed menstruation. This includes the products they might have used and the places they might have gone.
Ancient texts offer invaluable information, but how we translate these texts impacts our interpretation of past menstrual practices.
When comes to other material artifacts, as Anne Sherfield, who examined menstruation at Deir al-Medina for her BA thesis, mentioned in a blog post, “Worldwide, the amount of ethnographic and textual work on menstruation is disproportionately larger than the amount of archaeological work on the subject.
So there’s still a lot of archaeological work to do.
Now, if you’re interested in learning more about what we do know about the archaeology of menstruation in other areas of the world, check out our video on that here. That’s all for this video, and we’ll catch you in the next one.
Credits
Brooke Norton: Co-Producer, Scriptwriter, Researcher
Noor Hanania: Lead Video Editor
Smiti Nathan: Director, Co-Producer, Support Video Editor, Scriptwriter
Special thanks to Sneh P. Patel and Anya Gruber for checking this video’s script and offering invaluable feedback.
If you enjoyed this post, check out my channel and other videos.