🧠🔍 Psychological Profiles of Ancient Egypt

Posted On May 27, 2025

A series exploring the emotional and mental landscapes of ancient Egyptian lives—through archaeology, primary texts, and forensic insight.

✍️ Written by Anela Abdel-Rahman, PsyD

Forensic Psychologist & Egyptologist
Cultural Ambassador & Court Baroness, SCA – Kingdom of An Tir

Article 3: The Protective Mother – Children, Danger, and Divine Appeasement

While women as healers formed the emotional backbone of the household, protective motherhood carried a weight all its own—defined by fear, divine appeasement, and love shaped into vigilance.

🧭 Introduction 

A particular kind of love lives alongside fear. It watches a child sleep, listens for coughs in the night, and whispers protection into silence. In ancient Egypt, that love carried an especially heavy burden. The world was full of danger—visible and invisible, natural and divine. Illness arrived without warning. Spirits were thought to creep through cracks in the walls. Gods could bless a child or strike them down. And so, the work of protection became sacred.

Everyday life was built around this effort. A mother didn’t just care for her child—she defended them from cosmic disorder. She lit incense not just for beauty, but to purify the air. She tied amulets not just for decoration, but to shield against misfortune. Spells were spoken, herbs prepared, names of gods recited in whispers that doubled as prayer and incantation. These weren’t rituals reserved for priests or temples. They belonged to the home, the hearth, and the hands of the caregiver.

To love a child in ancient Egypt meant more than affection—it meant responsibility for their very survival. And this responsibility shaped the inner world of those who held it. It created hyperawareness, sacred repetition, moments of joy sharpened by anxiety, and grief too deep for words when protection failed.

Across tombs, stelae, medical papyri, and votive offerings, the record of this emotional labor remains. Not always in direct confession, but in the practices preserved—protective spells, images of goddesses nursing children, letters to the dead begging for intervention. These fragments tell the story of those who fought, day after day, to keep life close.

Even if her name is lost, the protective mother of ancient Egypt left behind a legacy: not only in her child, but in her actions, her rituals, and her will to shield the living from the chaos always waiting at the edge.

🪔 I. Constant Vigilance – The Psychological Weight of Protection 

Fear wasn’t a response—it was a constant state. In ancient Egypt, caregivers lived in an emotional landscape shaped by unpredictability. Illness struck quickly. Crocodiles, scorpions, spirits, and divine displeasure were all part of a daily mental map. Protection became a full-time emotional posture—constant, instinctive, deeply embedded. Mothers, in particular, absorbed that burden and carried it in their breath, in their sleep, and in their silence.

This vigilance was not incidental. It was culturally reinforced, spiritually sanctioned, and emotionally necessary. Tomb texts and medical papyri, like the Ebers Papyrus and Hearst Papyrus, reveal a world preoccupied with early symptoms, fever states, breath sounds, and unusual crying. They don’t only treat illness—they try to catch it before it takes hold. That attentiveness, reflected in the texts, mirrors what a mother watched for in her child.

To modern psychologists, this state of hyper awareness is known as hypervigilance—a condition often arising from trauma, where a person becomes acutely alert to danger. But in the context of ancient caregiving, it was normalized. A mother who had lost one child might scan the surviving ones with anxious precision. She might check a fever multiple times in a night. She might feel dread in the silence between breaths. These behaviors were not dysfunction—they were strategy. They were love shaped by fear.

The Papyrus Leiden I 348 contains spells used at night to keep demons from disturbing a sleeping child. These spells were spoken aloud, not just to protect the child, but to settle the caregiver’s own anxiety. Sleep was not rest. Sleep was risk. And even while exhausted, a mother stayed half-alert, waiting for the cry, the movement, the silence that would demand action.

Vigilance became sacred. Every act—placing a charm, adjusting bedding, reciting names of protective deities—was a gesture of devotion. The gods were watching, yes—but more importantly, so was she. To be inattentive might mean death. To act early might mean salvation. And so she lived in the space between fear and function, in a world where constant watchfulness became not just a survival tool, but a spiritual and emotional calling.

Even in the stillness of a quiet night, the caregiver’s mind never fully stilled. That quiet was not peace—it was potential. And in a world filled with dangers seen and unseen, vigilance was not weakness. It was resilience. It was ritual. It was love transformed into discipline.

Fragment of the Ebers Papyrus, c. 1550 BCE. An ancient Egyptian medical papyrus detailing symptoms and protective remedies. Source: Leipzig University Library

Amulet of Bes. A glazed faience amulet representing Bes, a guardian deity of mothers and children. Source: Brooklyn Museum

🌿 II. Rituals of Defense – Protective Practices in Daily Life

When control is scarce, ritual becomes survival. In the ancient Egyptian household, protection wasn’t passive. It was performed—layered into everyday acts of caregiving. A mother tied red thread around a child’s wrist. She burned incense near the door. She whispered the same prayer every night before bed. These were not grand temple rites; they were intimate gestures of defense, repeated so often they became part of muscle memory.

What modern psychology calls ritualized coping—the use of patterned action to manage anxiety—was deeply embedded in caregiving. The act of doing something, even when it could not guarantee safety, helped regulate fear. In moments when illness or divine wrath threatened to steal a child’s breath, these small rituals gave the caregiver something to hold onto.

The Papyrus Leiden I 348 contains spells specifically for mothers and children—spells to soothe teething pain, to protect the child at night, to guard against invisible forces. The language is tender but urgent. In one spell, the mother calls out: “Come forth, pain, from the limbs of the child! I drive you out with the names of the gods!” This was not just a plea to divine powers. It was an act of reclaiming control over the uncontrollable.

Amulets added a physical dimension to this work. A tiny Bes figure tucked near a pillow. A Taweret carved onto a birth brick. These were objects of power, yes—but also reassurance. They served as emotional anchors, letting a caregiver see that she had done something to protect. Even their weight in the hand had meaning. To hold an amulet was to hold intent. To touch it was to affirm love.

There is something profoundly human about this. The mother knew she could not stop every fever or snakebite. But she could prepare. She could act with precision. She could perform the same ritual at the same hour every day, not because it promised a miracle, but because it kept fear from unraveling her. Repetition became comfort. Intention became stability.

This was not superstition. It was structured hope. And in that hope lived the heart of caregiving.

⚖️ III. Fear of Divine Will – Appeasing the Gods to Protect the Child

In ancient Egypt, not all danger came from illness or accident. Some were believed to come from the gods themselves. A child’s fever might signal divine displeasure. A sudden illness might mean a ritual was forgotten, or a vow unfulfilled. This belief didn’t emerge from cruelty—it came from the deep emotional need to explain suffering, to assign meaning where there was fear.

If harm came through imbalance, it could be reversed through offering. Caregivers turned to ritual not just to banish illness, but to make amends. They poured beer for Hathor, placed milk before a statue of Taweret, or anointed a Bes figure with scented oil. Domestic shrines uncovered at Deir el-Medina and Amarna show that many homes maintained devotional spaces dedicated to childbirth and protection. These were sites not just of praise, but of apology and negotiation.

The Papyrus Leiden I 348 includes protective spells that invoke long lists of divine names: “I drive you out… by the name of Re, and of Isis, and of Amun, and of the gods who see you.” These were not just words of power. They were proof that the caregiver was doing her part—reciting the right names, making the right gestures. Saying them aloud restored the hope that effort mattered.

Psychologically, this behavior mirrors what modern clinicians call moral injury—the belief that one’s actions, or failure to act, may have caused harm. This can result in deep guilt, even when the harm was out of one’s control. For the ancient Egyptian caregiver, divine appeasement wasn’t just ritual—it was emotional repair. If she could offer something—bread, incense, tears—then she could believe she was trying to restore balance.

This emotional structure appears again in oracular stelae, like those from Deir el-Medina, where parents petitioned gods for answers: Why has this happened? How can we make it right? The gods were believed to respond through dreams or through priests. These rituals formed a feedback loop: petition, hope, response—each a small salve for overwhelming fear.

But with this came a heavy burden. If the child died, perhaps the ritual had failed. Or worse—perhaps the mother had. That quiet, haunting doubt—that she hadn’t done enough—could linger longer than the illness itself. It was grief, sharpened by guilt.

Appeasement, then, was never just about obedience. It was a structure for coping with helplessness. Through ritual, a mother gave her fear a direction. Through offerings, she built meaning into suffering. And in giving something—food, devotion, words—she tried to believe she could still hold on to what mattered most.

Metternich Stela (Cippus of Horus). Used in healing spells and protective rites; features Isis invoking divine names to heal Horus.Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

💧 IV. Mourning the Child – Sorrow, Silence, and Memory

When a child died in ancient Egypt, the silence was not just in the home—it was often in the records. Graves of children exist. Stelae name lost sons and daughters. But many losses went unmarked in formal texts, especially for the poor. The absence is telling. It does not mean that grief was smaller. It may mean it was too large to be captured, or too painful to name.

Infant and child mortality was high. Some families lost multiple children in the same household. In letters to the dead—scratched onto bowls, potsherds, or papyri—mothers plead with departed relatives to protect the living or explain a death. One from Deir el-Medina reads, “Why did you take him? Did I not offer bread at your tomb?” The grief is raw, but also laced with confusion and spiritual accusation.

Psychologically, this speaks to disenfranchised grief—grief that lacks public acknowledgment or ritual outlet. When mourning cannot be named or shared, it doesn’t disappear. It turns inward. It lingers as guilt, silence, or obsessive ritual. A mother who has lost a child may intensify her protective rituals for the others, not out of superstition, but because the pain has made her more afraid to let go.

In elite tombs, some stelae use coded language: “He was called by Osiris” or “The gods took her in her sleep.” These phrases are gentle veils. They soften pain by assigning divine purpose. But psychologically, they also mask the depth of mourning. Even a theologically accepting parent might feel anger or regret. These feelings are rarely spoken—but they are felt.

Funerary rites for children, when performed, often included lullabies, toys, or milk offerings. The deceased child was comforted as if still alive. This practice reflects continuing bonds theory—the idea that grief is not about letting go, but maintaining connection. The mother may still speak to her child, touch a toy left at the tomb, or invoke the child’s name during protective spells for the siblings.

In ancient Egypt, grief was personal and sacred. Even when the gods were blamed, they were also begged for help. Even when the child was lost, their presence remained—woven into memory, ritual, and the rhythms of the surviving heart.

Relief of Mourning Women. A limestone relief depicting three mourning women, illustrating the emotional labor of loss. Source: Brooklyn Museum

🕊️ V. Mythic Models – Isis and the Archetype of the Protective Mother

In the mythology of ancient Egypt, no image of maternal protection is more powerful than that of Isis. She is not distant or abstract. She is hands-on, active, tireless. She nurses Horus in hiding. She revives him when he is stung. She outwits gods, commands spirits, and creates protection through word and will. Her motherhood is not a passive trait—it is a force.

The Metternich Stela and other magical texts depict Isis calling on divine power to save Horus from snakebite and scorpion venom. She utters incantations, recites secret names, and speaks healing into his body. These texts weren’t just mythology—they were tools. Copies of them were used in households and healing shrines as living scripts. Caregivers read Isis’s words aloud, not only to invoke her magic, but to identify with her.

Psychologically, this is a process called symbolic alignment—where the caregiver draws emotional strength and structure from an external role model. To stand in Isis’s place was to believe one’s words mattered. To whisper her incantation was to reclaim agency in a terrifying moment. A mother might not be divine, but she could act like Isis.

Even visual depictions reinforced this model. Isis is often shown shielding Horus with her wings, kneeling protectively beside him, or breastfeeding him in a pose known as Isis lactans. These images appeared on amulets, coffins, temple walls, and stelae. To wear or display such a scene was not only an act of devotion—it was a declaration: this is who I must become.

Isis’s power wasn’t in brute strength. It was in her persistence, precision, and refusal to give up. These are the same traits demanded of caregivers under pressure. In a world where one mistake could cost everything, Isis offered not perfection, but the power of continual effort. She showed that healing was not guaranteed—but still worth fighting for.

By aligning themselves with Isis, caregivers absorbed something larger than themselves. They found reassurance in repetition. They saw endurance mirrored in myth. And they whispered, again and again, “I am the mother who protects.”

🧠 VI. The Sacred Joy of Caregiving – Meaning and Connection in Daily Life

Protection in ancient Egypt was not only about fear—it was about love transformed into daily devotion. Though the work of caregiving was heavy, it was also holy. Feeding a child, guarding sleep, tying a charm, whispering a name of power—each of these was an act of intimacy and intention. They were not just responses to danger. They were affirmations of life.

Amid the demands of survival, there were moments of stillness. Children are shown in art not only receiving care but giving joy. In painted tombs and carved stelae, they reach for jewelry, climb into laps, play at the river’s edge. These scenes, while quiet, are declarations: caregiving was not only sacred work—it was shared life. The caregiver didn’t merely protect. She connected. That connection brought laughter, comfort, and a purpose deeper than duty.

Many women understood their role as part of ma’at—the divine order that held the universe together. In a world where imbalance could bring chaos, the act of caregiving became spiritual architecture. A mother who soothed a child’s fever, who placed protective amulets at thresholds, was not just tending to the household—she was keeping the universe in alignment. Even the goddess Hathor was called “Mistress of Ma’at,” linking beauty, motherhood, and sacred balance.

The rituals of care—bathing, anointing, feeding, protecting—reflected divine archetypes. The mother of a child became a living expression of goddesses like Isis, Taweret, and Hathor. This alignment wasn’t abstract. It was emotional. It gave structure to exhaustion. It gave holiness to repetition. And in that, it gave joy meaning.

Modern psychological studies affirm that caregivers who perceive emotional or spiritual value in their role are more likely to report resilience, patience, and fulfillment—even under chronic stress. This connection between belief and action—between sacred worldview and emotional strength—has likely existed for millennia. The ancient caregiver may not have named it, but she knew it: when care has meaning, even hardship can be a kind of joy.

These small moments—quiet breath, soft weight, a child’s laughter after fever—were not forgotten. They were the hidden rewards of sacred labor. And for the caregiver who lived with fear, they were the reasons to keep hoping.

Isis Lactans Statue. Image of Isis nursing Horus, a symbol of protective motherhood and divine care. Source: Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

🔚 In the Quiet, Something Close to Peace 

Not every day brought crisis. Not every night required a spell. There were evenings when the fever broke, when the child slept deeply, when the protective charm held its silence. On those nights, the caregiver might rest her hand on the child’s back—not to check, but simply to feel them there.

That moment—when breath steadied, when danger paused—was not peace in the grand sense. But it was enough. It was something real. It was what psychologists today call earned peace: a state not of calm by default, but of calm reclaimed after vigilance. The kind that feels like exhale after holding breath for too long.

For the protective mother of ancient Egypt, that feeling was rare, and it never lasted. But it was hers. In the flicker of an oil lamp, in the rhythm of a heartbeat beneath her hand, she knew the reward of her care. Not in praise. Not in certainty. But in survival.

Even when her name is lost, the echo of her love remains. It lingers in spells, in stelae, in the wear of amulets once tied with trembling hands. It endures in the knowledge that she faced the impossible with devotion, and in her quiet triumph, made space for life to continue.

Domestic Shrine with Harpocrates. A household figure of divine protection and continuity of life. Source: British Museum

Endnotes

1. Ebers Papyrus, trans. Paul Ghalioungui (Cairo: National Publications, 1963), cols. 58–62.
2. Papyrus Leiden I 348, trans. R. O. Faulkner, in Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts (London: British Museum, 1937), spells 19–23.
3. Geraldine Pinch, Magic in Ancient Egypt, 2nd ed. (London: British Museum Press, 2006), 106–109.
4. Kathlyn M. Cooney, The Cost of Death: The Social and Economic Value of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Art in the Ramesside Period (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 49–54.
5. Ann Macy Roth, “Fingers, Stars, and the ‘Opening of the Mouth’: The Nature and Function of the NTR.W in Funerary Ritual,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 79 (1993): 57–79.
6. Emily Teeter, Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 74–77.
7. Gay Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt (London: British Museum Press, 1993), 87.
8. Rita Lucarelli, “Demonology during the Late Pharaonic and Greco-Roman Periods in Egypt,” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 11, no. 2 (2011): 109–125.
9. Barbara Watterson, Women in Ancient Egypt (Stroud: Amberley, 2011), 41.
10. Carolyn Graves-Brown, Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt (London: Continuum, 2010), 130–134.

Bibliography

Cooney, Kathlyn M. The Cost of Death: The Social and Economic Value of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Art in the Ramesside Period. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Faulkner, R. O. Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts. London: British Museum, 1937.

Ghalioungui, Paul. The Ebers Papyrus: A New English Translation, Commentaries and Glossaries. Cairo: National Publications, 1963.

Graves-Brown, Carolyn. Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt. London: Continuum, 2010.

Lucarelli, Rita. “Demonology during the Late Pharaonic and Greco-Roman Periods in Egypt.” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 11, no. 2 (2011): 109–125.

Pinch, Geraldine. Magic in Ancient Egypt. 2nd ed. London: British Museum Press, 2006.

Robins, Gay. Women in Ancient Egypt. London: British Museum Press, 1993.

Roth, Ann Macy. “Fingers, Stars, and the ‘Opening of the Mouth’: The Nature and Function of the NTR.W in Funerary Ritual.” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 79 (1993): 57–79.

Teeter, Emily. Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Watterson, Barbara. Women in Ancient Egypt. Stroud: Amberley, 2011.

Suggested Further Reading

• Manniche, Lise. An Ancient Egyptian Herbal. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989.
• Ritner, Robert K. The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1993.
• Troy, Lana. Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History. Uppsala: Uppsala University, 1986.
• Hornung, Erik. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many. Translated by John Baines. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982.

About the Author

Anela Abdel-Rahman, known in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) as Dame Talia bint Al-Athir, OP, is a cultural historian, educator, and practitioner with formal training in both forensic psychology (PsyD) and Egyptology. Her research bridges emotional insight with archaeological and textual study, focusing on the lived experiences of women in ancient Egypt—especially through the lenses of domestic ritual, healing, clothing, scent, and belief.

A Native Hawaiian Cultural Ambassador and active mentor, she is committed to presenting historically accurate, evidence-based interpretations of cultures of color. In the SCA, she is recognized for her teaching and scholarship on ancient Egyptian material culture, particularly in the areas of women’s daily life, sacred labor, and sensory history. She also runs Scarabs and Silk, a public-facing academic blog dedicated to the emotional, spiritual, and cultural dimensions of ancient Egyptian life.