316 Kevin McGeough town was likely established in order to support the mortuary cult of King Senwosret III whose mortuary complex lies roughly to the southwest of the town (28). The birthing brick was found in the mayor’s residence of this town. Within the mayor’s residence were a group of rooms that seem to have been associated with his daughter, as her name appears on the large quantities of seal impressions recovered from this part of the complex (29). Within one of these rooms, the birth brick was found almost intact. The brick itself is no different in composition from the literally thousands of mudbricks that make up the mayor’s complex. It is made of clay, the same fabric as the regular building bricks, and is roughly consistent in size. The striking difference is the preserved painted images upon the brick. The imagery of the brick clearly identifies it as a birth brick. The center of the image is a seated woman, holding a child. Her posture regarding the child she holds is reminiscent of the ostraca scene of the woman and baby in the birthing arbor found at Deir el-Medinah. The seated woman has two attendant women, perhaps midwives. Certainly the kneeling figure is suggestive of this. The entire scene is framed by two standards, each bearing the head of the goddess Hathor (30). The presence of this goddess, who is associated with birth, female sexuality, and the female creative principle further points to this object’s childbirth connection. The sides of the brick are not nearly as well preserved, and the reverse was not preserved at all. The images on each of the sides consist of anthropomorphic or anthropomorphized animal figures. Wegner associates these images with scenes from Middle Kingdom apotropaic wands. These figures were certainly protective in nature, calling on mythological/symbolical motifs as protection for the newborn. Wegner argues that this brick may have been a brick knelt on by Egyptian women. It is also possible that this brick was used as the brick upon which the baby was placed after birth, as in the Westcar papyrus; given the ambiguities of this equipment already mentioned above, it is difficult to determine which theory accurately reflects this (28) J. WEGNER, “Excavations at the Town of Enduring-are-the-Places-of- Khakaure-Maa-Kheru-in-Abydos: A Preliminary Report on the 1994 and 1997 Seasons”, JARCE 35(1998) 3. (29) WEGNER, “A Decorated Birth-Brick from South Abydos”, 4. (30) Ibid., 3.