brick 999.bri.0002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . Excavators of a 3,700-year-old Egyptian town have delivered a surprising find�a painted brick that was one of a pair once used to support a woman's feet while she squatted during childbirth. Until now known only from ancient Egyptian writing, so-called birth bricks were used in childbirth rituals that called on gods to secure the health of newborns. http://sheehan.myblogsite.com/

The newly discovered mud birth brick was identified by the scene on it depicting a mother with her newborn baby, attended by several women and Hathor, a cow goddess associated with birth and motherhood.http://sheehan.myblogsite.com/

Archaeologist Josef Wegner of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the dig director, suspects that a princess named Renseneb used the brick. It turned up in a residential wing for females in a mayor's mansion (SN: 8/28/99, p. 139). Inscribed clay-seal impressions found near the brick refer to Renseneb, who may have married one of the town's powerful mayors, Wegner says. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire