The biological and social profiles of women in pre-pharaonic Egypt and Nubia (4th–3rd millennium BC): a biocultural approach

Project Information

WOmen-PRO

Grant agreement ID: 101066185

DOI

10.3030/101066185

Project terminated on 22 April 2025

EC signature date 8 August 2022

Start date 1 November 2022

End date 30 June 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 187 624,32

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WOmen-PRO (The biological and social profiles of women in pre-pharaonic Egypt and Nubia (4th–3rd millennium BC): a biocultural approach)

Reporting period: 2022-11-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

WOmen–PRO explored the social identity and life history of women in pre-Pharaonic Egypt and Nubia (Sudan) during the 5th–3rd millennium BCE transition to complex society and the rise of the Pharaonic state. While this period has been the subject of extensive archaeological research, the lives of women have received considerably less attention than those of men, reinforcing male-centred interpretations of social roles, labour organisation, and gender dynamics in the region. Additionally, bioarchaeological approaches have rarely been applied to broader questions of lived experience, identity, and social organisation in early Nile Valley contexts.

WOmen–PRO has been the first project to address this gender gap in pre-Pharaonic Egypt and Nubia via a social bioarchaeological approach. Specifically, the Principal Investigator, Dr. Veronica Tamorri, employed a cutting-edge, non-destructive biocultural methodology, integrating osteological, archaeological, and statistical data. This approach combined the analysis of activity levels, women’s health status, diet and nutrition, with mortuary practices as expressions of social identity.

Data were collected from the skeletal and dental remains of adult individuals of both sexes across key cemeteries in Egypt and Nubia, enabling broad geo-temporal comparisons. By shifting the focus of Predynastic research away from grand narratives centred on elite male individuals and state formation processes, WOmen–PRO foregrounded the lived experiences of women at a crucial historical and cultural juncture, offering a more balanced perspective on the emergence of early society in the region.

WOmen-PRO’s objectives were:

1. To reconstruct female health status in view of rising social complexity.

2. To investigate aspects of female diet and how it may have changed over time.

3. To identify evidence of female physical activity levels over this transitional period.

4. To identify any correlates between funerary rites and the indicators of embodied life experiences, emerged from overall bioarchaeological analyses.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the course of the project, I compiled a comprehensive dataset of bioarchaeological and funerary evidence of several hundred individuals from key sites across 5th–3rd millennium BCE Egypt and Nubia. This dataset is among the most extensive and integrated for the region and period, representing a significant advancement in comparative, gender-focused archaeological research.
Additionally, I developed and implemented an interdisciplinary, non-destructive biocultural methodological model to investigate gender and the life course in the context of emerging social complexity. This approach is highly transferable and relevant to researchers working on gender, the rise of centralised power, and embodied social identity in early state societies worldwide.
For researchers working on early Egypt and Nubia, specifically, the project provides a new analytical lens through which understanding large-scale social processes, such as state formation, from the perspective of individuals such as women, whose lives have generally been less investigated. More broadly, WOmen–PRO makes a critical contribution to gender research by helping bridge the disciplinary divide between social archaeology and bioarchaeology. With a targeted, new study on past female individuals in a biocultural and interdisciplinary frame, the project, also contributes to further emphasise the importance of methods’ integration to explore themes such as gendered bodies and dynamics in this region and period.
In addition to research and methodological achievements, WOmen–PRO built extensive international collaborations with the museums and institutions curating the skeletal collections studied. These partnerships were essential for data access and contributed to knowledge transfer across institutions. They also laid the groundwork for future collaborative research.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

WOmen–PRO addressed the longstanding underrepresentation of women in the archaeology of the early Nile Valley by reconstructing the life experiences of these individuals through a gender-based biocultural approach. While working to redress this imbalance, the project critically questioned why archaeological reconstructions of early societies have prioritised males’ lives over those of women.
One key achievement of the project is the creation of the first comprehensive collection of bioarchaeological profiles of women from the 5th–3rd millennium BC in this region (publications in preparation). Furthermore, through its interdisciplinary, non-destructive approach, WOmen-PRO shows how gender roles and social inequality were materially and physically embodied. These findings will make a significant contribution to ongoing debate about how emerging social complexity shaped individual experiences differently depending on biological sex and gender, directly challenging prevailing assumptions and generalisations on the uniformity in social development across the population in pre-state societies.
The outcomes of WOmen–PRO are momentous not only within the immediate field of study of the project, but also for the broader humanities and social sciences. By producing novel, comparative data on women’s lives, the project offers a more inclusive and accurate account of the past. Its insights help foster informed discussions around gender and diversity, both within academic research and among the wider public. In doing so, WOmen–PRO contributes meaningfully to raising awareness of gender equality and offers a template for future studies seeking to integrate intersectional and inclusive perspectives in the study of human history.