Hello everyone and welcome back to the History of Egypt Podcast.

This is a special Q&A question and answer episode.

To celebrate the milestone of reaching 100 narrative episodes, I invited

listeners to send in their questions about ancient Egypt. The results are great, a wide

range of topics and time periods for me to research outside the main story.

I won't keep you waiting. Let's dive in. listener Jennifer asks, were the women in the King's harem all there voluntarily,

were some prisoners of war or gifts from other leaders, and what can we say about

the women who lived there and how they felt about their role?

That's a great series of questions.

It doesn't have a very clear answer.

As for the voluntary aspect, no, not all of them were there voluntarily.

Some women, such as Guilu Kappa of Mat Matani came as diplomatic brides, gifts from their fathers to the Pharaoh.

We also know that the pharaohs like Armunhotep II took large numbers of prisoners in war, and evidence from the non-royal sphere does occasionally

reference female servants being sold or traded.

So long story short, yes, some of them were there involuntarily and that's just a sad fact.

As for the Egyptian women in the harem, well that's tricky.

On the one hand being a minor bride to a

Pharaoh would have probably been a great honor and advantageous for her family.

On the other hand we have no idea how the women felt about this.

So it's a bit of a difficult question because we just don't have the information from their

particular point of view.

Even if they were there involuntarily, this didn't necessarily mean that their life was

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