The business of death

Book review: “Mrs Tsenhor: A Female Entrepreneur in Ancient Egypt”, by Koenraad Donker van Heel

By Nadia Ismail

Death was big business to the Ancient Egyptians, with their tombs and reliquaries also providing some of the best information on their life and culture. In the intriguing new book, “Mrs Tsenhor: A Female Entrepreneur in Ancient Egypt”, Koenraad Donker van Heel introduces readers to Tsenhor, “sister of Horus”, a strongly spoken and highly independent working woman who made her fortune through the industry of death.

Born in 550 BCE in Karnak, Tsenhor is described as one of a family of chaochytes, hired to bring offerings on behalf of families to the dead in their tombs on the west bank of the Nile. Tsenhor inherited her work from her father, Nesmin, and continued this work alongside her second husband, whom she is described as having married on equal terms.

In exchange for her work, Tsenhor received food items, high quality farm land, foods amongst other things. Such was the demand for the services of chaochytes like Tsenhor, that she amassed not only a house that she could afford to restructure, but she also owned at least one slave and amassed an array of assets to her name. All this was done with little male input.

However, with a good chunk of surviving evidence, either unclear or written in a form of hieroglyphs that only a few Egyptologists can understand, van Heel has a tough job of creating a solid story around Tsenhor.