314 Kevin McGeough Roth and Roehrig follow Fischer’s translation of the word jn¿t as midwife and interpret the associated determinative as a midwife holding a birthbrick (20). Indeed, written evidence for childbirth gives important information as well. Aside from the gynecological literature available, which is too numerous to detail here, references to direct aspects of child birth are attested. Roth and Roehrig argue that references to birth bricks can be found in the Sixth Dynasty tomb of Watetkhethor at Saqqara. Information about birthing practices is given indirectly in a votive stele from Deir el-Medina. A stelae from a man named Neferabu to the goddess Meretseger includes a line that Lichtheim, following Gunn and Wilson, translated as: “I sat on bricks, like a woman in labor” (21). The word for brick used here is dbt, and it is also used in the birthing context of the Westcar Papyrus. In the end portion of the Westcar papyrus that describes Reddedet’s labor (which has already been mentioned in passing), the reader is explicitly told what happens to the child immediately after birth (22). The child is washed, the umbilical cord is cut, and he is placed upon a cushion of bricks (ifdy m dbt). Here, “bricks” is a translation of the word dbt. It is unclear from these two uses whether the dbt was some furniture that the woman knelt on while giving birth or whether it was equipment used in dealing with the baby after birth (23). It is clear, however, from the art-historical and textual evidence that at least well-to-do women in Egypt gave birth sitting in a chair, and possibly in a birthing arbor or an area of the house set off for this activity. While Hathor is the deity most associated with Egyptian childbirth in modern accounts, another goddess, Meshkenet, seems to have been particularly associated with birthing equipment. Meshkenet is directly linked with both the birthing stool and with the bricks that the child is placed on after birth. Meshkenet is also a word that is used to describe the birthing stool – the determinative for the word when referring to the stool and not the divinity is a chair. Yet Meshkenet herself is also depicted as a brick with a human head (24). In some copies of the Book (20) ROTH – ROEHRIG, “Magical Bricks and the Bricks of Birth”, 131. (21) M. LICHTEIM, Ancient Egyptian Literatur (Los Angeles 1984) II, 108. (22) See the translation in W. SIMPSON, The Literature of Ancient Egypt (New Haven 1972) 15-30. (23) See ROTH – ROEHRIG, “Magical Bricks and the Bricks of Birth”, 131-132 for a more complete discussion on various interpretations. (24) Ibid., 130.