Two Unpublished Figurines of Women Purifying themselves in the Greco-Roman Museum of Alexandria

Abstract

The Greco-Roman Museum of Alexandria has two female figurines, unpublished. According to the register of the museum, they came from Fayyum, are made in alluvial Nile silt clay, reddish-brown color, and fabricated by using two moulds, one for the front side and the other for the backside. These figurines seem similar; each one represents a sitting naked woman, holding a pot. But there are some differences between them in the details. It is possible that each woman is purifying herself. The pot which women hold is associated with baths and purification. This article publishes these two figurines with a descriptive and analytical study, in addition to a discussion of women’s purification in inscriptions and papyri documents of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The research also tries to identify these women; were these women associated with a cult? Or particular gods? Was purification necessary in the rituals of this worship?