Actually (I'm seriously not perverted! I just want to know!), I'm also curious if the Egyptians had birth control.

Also, what did the Egyptian women do about "that time of the month" (unless the she-pharaoh had PERMANENT PMS ).

(If this is inappropriate, then I have no problem if our wonderful mod deletes it.)

why thank you Tadukhipa for being respectable about it. I heard in the Bible times (not sure if this is true with Egyptians) that the women during their time of the month were considered unclean and put in a special place where they pretty much sat around all day. Not exactly the best thing.

Thank you for the compliment ^_^, I try.

I wonder if I qualify for the title of she-pharaoh or if that would be an admin...

Okay, since it is asked for my source is Women in Ancient Egypt, by Gay Robbins, Harvard University Press, 1993, pg 78-80.
There is little mention of menstruation in surviving documentation. In the New Kingdom there is in the Satire of Trades (a surviving piece of liteature)talks about the washerman who cleans the clothes of a woman in menstruation. However there seems to be a dispute about the text in question so they may not have had either clothes or a washerman to clean them.

According to the much later Demotic story of the Princess Setne Khaemwaset, once she became pregnant she no longer had to perform purification.

According to Dr. Robbins some medical texts also cantain prescriptions for contraceptives. Not all of these would have had much effect in practice, but intervaginal insertions of different substances may in some cases have been effective. Use for this was, crocodile dung, or honey. One prescription includes ground acacia tips, amongst other ingredients. Acacia tips contain gum arabic which has a chemical effect on sperm, and actively retards conception.

Pregnancy tests, Egyptian dr.s took the pulse, examined the breast, and the color of skin in checking for pregnancy signs. A famous Egyptian pregnancy test was to observe the effect of the womans urine on the germination of grains of barley and emmer wheat. This test supposedly also indicated the sex of the baby. The woman was to urinate on the grains ever day. If they sprouted she was pregnant. If the barley sprouted first the child would be male but if the emmer spouted first, it would be female.
end of information from Dr. Robbins.

Aw i am mighty glad to be a woman of the 21st century, don't know about you all though

With the freedoms granted to women in Ancient Egyptian society i don't see them being isolated during menstruation. They may not have been able to do temple duty or attend certain feasts but forced to sit around all day do not much of anything just doesn't sound like the Egyptian love of life. Of course poor women wouldn't have had the luxuary of sitting around and doing purification like a Princess would have.

I agree with you, Egyptians respected women and also, they were good at medicine and all, maybe they understood what causes menstruation and didn't think it is mysterious -> weren't afraid of it -> they didn't thought women have to be separated from other people during their periods.
I've heard somewhere that tampons were invented in Ancient Egypt.

i am sure all of you have at least one friend that is full of little facts and stuff, i do, i dont know any source for this, apparently the first known contraceptive was crocodile Dung, used in Egypt around 2000 BCE

You're quiet right Tash, thanks

To bad your aliens friends didn't help the ladies out in Ancient Egypt Crocodile dung!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very funny with the alien thingie, but i recon back then you would NEED to have kids, u gotta remember the populus wasnt that big, and you never know, was the aliens anatomy anything like that of humans, AND IF THE ALIENS DID HELP, they could have studied the chemical composition, therefore providing Croc poo as a valuable contraceptive, has anyone studied it lately, ill give my mate steve erwin a call and see what he thinks, (yes i know i spelt his name unpropa)

YES I HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR AS WELL<

I AM VERY SORRY MODERATOR IF THE FOLLOWING POST IS UNAPPROPRIATE BUT THE ALIEN THING KINDA PUT ME OUTA LINE

i have noticed that you do have a sense of humor. i will let your unbridled fit of humor past this time As for the value of crocodile dung i do believe that it has been studied chemically. As far as i know the one contraceptive that did have a chemcial help was the ground acacia tips. Acacia tips contain gum arabic which has a chemical effect on sperm, and actively retards conception. i do believe that the main assistance that crocodile dung provided was in its use as an intervaginal insertion. In other words it blocked conception. Now if it had been rolled in ground acacia tips together both would have been a potent contraceptive.

As for your reasoning... i am sorry Tash. While you're right that it was far back in time with a small number of people compared especially to today. It doesn't change facts that some women have never been able to give birth safely, some women should never give birth. The proof that population size wasn't a reason not to provide contraceptives is in the fact that Ancient Egypt had specialists that did prescribe contraceptives. The best that science could provide at the time. Your alien concept if true, failed these women. Even while they provided the science needed to create the Pyramids and to fly through space. Not to mention communciating with people that may not have been like them.

You have a nice day i forgot to log in for this so my name does not show.
Sekhmet

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha i dont think it realy matters to me that much

there are some records of ancient egyptians using pieces of dough coated in crocodile dung or sour goat's milk as a contraceptive.

hope that helps a little

my egyptology teacher (an actual official egyptologist--one of 12 in the usa) said that there is thought that they used a folded cloth shaped like an ankh and tied in the middle, as an ancient version of the tampon.

also, i believe herodotus (?) mentioned that egyptian sex was woman on top, which referenced the nut/heb myth...obelisks are phallic and are representative of heb, god of the earth shown laying down. nut is the sky goddess and she gives birth to the sun everyday.

there's some rather pornographic imagery in egyptian mythology.

wow this is all very interesting! not the usual conversation but very interesting!! glad u bought it up and i got to read it!

Yeah me too. I never would have guessed that they used crocodile dung l! And I did wonder what ancient women did during that time of the month , lol!

Pregnancy test, help us to determine if the girl is pregnant after she delayed from her monthly period. Some women they can determine without using a pregnancy test. By the symptom that they ca suffer, like dizziness, vomiting and others.