… well, at least the first we’ll probably ever know much about, was, I learnt today, Merneith (lots of other spellings possible) of what we call the first dynasty of the united Egypt, about 3,000BC. The clinching data about her role, according to the British Museum display (room 64), and the gallery talk speaker, is a seal found in 1988 that amounts to an early kinglist.

It runs Narmer (well-known from the famous palette, although the unification of the Two Lands is now thought to have been largely a gradual process, rather than one great war that he won, which was the story when I first read Egyptology), Djet, Merneith and Den (her son, who may have led campaigns as far afield as Palestine).

Although it is less confident than the speaker today, this site contains most of the information known about Merneith. Some other, non-ruling queens from the period are also known, at least by name.

I learnt that the first palettes were used to grind eye makeup for the statues of the gods, but they gradually became both more elaborate and purely ritual items. One in the gallery shows what may be an early step in the direction of hieroglyphs, with a picture of a shrine beside one of a two-headed bull (known to be an early god), which probably identifies it.

Generally, however, from our current knowledge hierogylphs emerge very suddenly, but already in a highly sophisticated form, about 3,200BC (although this date is currently the subject of fervent debate), what we call the start of early dynastical Egypt. This indicates there must have been several centuries of gradual development in a form that has not survived.

The movement from the “early dynastic” period into the Old Kingdom comes with the sudden explosion of the use of stone, particularly for building, and the pyramids. It was only during the First Dynasty that Egypt practiced human sacrifice, with the king’s servants being killed to serve their master in the afterlife. The speaker suggested this died out fast because the next king found he lacked vital skills in his court as a result of the practice.

Having come home after less than a week away, cleaned out the spam, and been left with more than 700 email messages (yes I do belong to too many lists), blog reading has been a bit slow, but I have to point to an excellent post from Sharon at Early Modern Notes about the history of attempts to use the law to repress women’s “deviant” sexuality. She was spurred on by the grotesque proposed legislation in the US state of Virginia that has been widely discussed on Feminist Blogs, but really it is a piece of history that all women should know, and remember when confronted with restrictions on their reproductive rights.

She’s also put up History Carnival No 1, a broad and fascinating roundup in which (declaration of interest) yours truly has a modest part. I haven’t had time to follow all the links yet, but it looks great.

Items particularly relevant to women’s history include War, women and waffle (on a subject very close to my heart, and I hope one day wallet), Happy Birthday, Zora Neale Hurston and An English lady in 19th-century Wales.

On literary history, Today in Literature’s person of the day is Emily Hahn, an unfairly forgotten early proponent of “new journalism”, who started life with a degree in mining, became the concubine of a Chinese poet in Shanghai, worked with the Red Cross in the Congo, was an environmental pioneer, and wrote more than 50 books. There’s lots more even; she really has a CV. (That link will only work for a couple of days – don’t miss it!)

On another note altogether, I had to laugh at a headline on UK politics in yesterday’s Libération Brown-Blair : deux hommes et un seul fauteuil (two men, one armchair – a perfect summary). I pause, however, to think of its missing correspondent in Iraq, Florence Aubenas.

Now back in London (sadly, except for the joy of being able to touch type on an English keyboard again), but time to gather a brief report on yesterday’s lovely stroll around the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris’s premier place of eternal rest. To plot a course around the mini-city of the dead, I decided to track down every woman marked on my map of famous graves. (No, I didn’t succeed – it did eventually get a bit too depressing.)

In visitor popularity, as judged by flowers left, Edith Piaf was a definite winner among the women, well ahead of Oscar Wilde, although the real forest of blooms was for Allan Kardec, a spiritualist whose reverential society is here).

The graves

1. The women on whom I don’t have to comment further:
Colette (interesting that she is the only woman on the map sufficiently identified by the one name, while many of the men need no such qualified)
Edith Piaf
Gertrude Stein
Heloise (and Abelard) – although this can’t have been where they were first buried.
Sarah Bernhardt
Maria Callas

The women of letters and arts
(Comtesse) Marie d’Agout (Marie Sophie Catherine de Flavigny, d. 1876), who wrote under the pseudonym Daniel Stern – as is acknowledged on the grave. She has a very grand tomb halfway up the hill with a portrait sculpture.

She wrote a well-regarded history of the revolution, played an active part in politics, particularly in the 1840s, and ran a salon, although she is best known as a long-time mistress of Lizt (of course). There’s an excellent English outline of her life here, including a short bibliography.

She was, I think I might say not too anachronistically, a feminist. In “Essai sur la liberté” she wrote “Les lois qui retiennent le sexe féminin dans l’asservissement ou l’infériorité sont des lois inintelligentes, restes de la barbarie.” (My – inexpert – translation: “The laws that keep women in slavery or in an inferior condition are stupid, and founded in barbarism.”)

Countess Anna de Noailles (1876-1933) a writer and poet from an exotic Greek and Romanian aristocratic background, of course the patron of a salon. And she certain has the looks for these roles. Extracts from poems (in French) here and an outline of a book (in English) on them.

Mme de Senonnes, subject of a famous painting by Ingres, who seems to have also been a salon type?

Rose Bonheur, (1822-99), a celebrated painter, particularly of animals, and a character who is said to have had special permission from the police to wear trousers in public – an excellent biography here. A list of her works here.

The political campaigners

Marthe Richard, a spy during the two world wars, (and maybe a former prostitute – so some sources say) who used the influence of that claim to service to campaign, successfully, for the closure of Paris’s official brothels in 1946. There’s a short, not very good, article here. And a piece on the continuing debate here.

The performers
Mlle Georges, considered the greated actress of France in the 1830s and their environs. She starred in Dumas’s Christine, about the Swedish Queen (among many other parts) and features in anecdotes about him. As is classical for the time she was also a courtesan, her conquests including Napoleon, Talleyrand and Wellington.

Alice Ozy, who has a lovely mini classical temple on one of the main avenues, housing incongruously a Madonna and child, was the one of the most prominent of the women’s graves. It describes her as an actress and musician. She was romantically linked for a while to Victor Hugo and the artist Théodore Chassérieau, among others. There’s a painting of her here.

Jane Avril (1868-1943), a dancer who was locked in a lunatic asylum by her mother but escaped to become a cafe dancer at the Moulin Rouge. When you see Toulouse-Lautrec’s portrait you’ll recognise it immediately.

Mlle Lenormand, (1722-1843), after whom a certain type of tarot cards was named, indicating how she made her fortune.

Germaine Dulac (1882-1942), a film director who was important in the development of the theory of the auteur. She also wrote about the cinema.

Ginette Niveau (1919-1949), whose tomb bears the image of a violin, is widely described as a legendary performer. She was buried with her brother after both died in a plane crash in the Azores.

Lise Topart (1927-1952), a film actress who was killed in a plane crash in 1952.

Nicole Berger (died 1967), a film actress killed in a car crash.

Sylvia Montfort (1923-1991), an actress: a list of films here.

Marguerite Jamois, actress and director of Théatre Montparnasse.

Eleonore Duplay, stage and screen actress.

Marie Dubas (1894-1972), a singer.

Women for whom I couldn’t find information:
Beatrice Dussane
Mme Sans-Gene

It’d be nice to complete the set; more information welcome.

Whew – I hadn’t really thought about what I was taking on when I started that! (Had I been doing the men I probably would, however, have had seven or eight times as much work.)

Off the subject of women of Paris today and on to Asian history, at the spectacularly wonderful Musee Guimet. Very sensibly in the Forties they brought together the elements of several Asian collections in Paris to make a remarkably complete picture. To get the same in London you’d have to go to half a dozen museums.

There is also material from French colonies and French areas of interest that I’ve not seen elsewhere. (It is a bit like reading Le Monde and suddenly discovering Francophone Africa, which usually hardly gets a mention in the English-language media.)

There is some lovely stuff from and near Pondicherry, including “kammals”, fish vertebrae carved into discs that were used to enlarge earlobe piercings. Some of these have also been found on the Palatine Hill in Rome, dating back to the second century BC. Certainly Rome knew the area well by a few of centuries later – Ptolemy called it “Poduke”.

But the piece de resistance in my eyes is the collection from Afghanistan and northern India, covering from the Bactrian period (after Alexander the Great) right through (there’s a wooden idol “a knight and his female assistant” from the &çth century utterly unlike anything I’ve seen before, on the lefthand stairs). This is largely the result of excavations in the Twenties.

This truly was the meeting place of the world: the great Indian monarch Asoka issued his treaties in Afghan territory in Greek, while the Milindapanha contains a dialogue between the Greek King Meander and the Buddhist sage Nagasera;

Han expansion forced the nomads of Central Asia west, and the Yuezhi people, who in would create the wonderful hybrid Gandhara culture, including the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, took over. From Begram, near Kabul, just one area are Greco-Roman bronzes, glasses fro, Alexandria; Chinese lacquers and Indian ivories. And the kings had three titles – in Indian; Iranian and Chinese, just to make sure.

Truly the meeting place of the world.

And it made its own unique items, particularly astonishing delicate glasses, including “flacons icthyomorphes” – fish-shaped flasks with delicate fins and tails. Again I’ve never seen their like before – and I couldn’t find a single picture on the net.

Well today I learnt a new French word, that for blog. It is “blog”. I think the academie is fighting a losing battle. That from an article in Le Monde about music blogs, Avec les blogs, les mélomanes tissent leur toile . The headline seems a bit harsh, and a bit odd, “weaving their canvases”, but maybe that’s just the cyber vernacular in France.

Yes there are lots of links in there, many in English if it matters, but I haven’t followed them up: music just sounds like noise to me. Yes, I know I’m a philistine.

I’ve noticed other intrusions, particularly the unlovely “fixeur”, an English noun with a French ending, referring to a journalist’s all-around helper, “c’est a dire ‘arranger'”. (No I’m not game to put French quote marks in there, since they are like HTML brackets and can’t imagine what Blogger would make of that.)

There was also a big piece in Sunday’s Le Monde about how MSN Messenger is sweeping France, “entirely changing social life”. Well looking at the Rue de Abbesses tonight it certainly doesn’t seem like it.

But what I really want to know is: why do you have to use the shift key to get a full stop …… not to mention the question of why Q is in the easiest spot on the keyboard to hit, the location of the English keyboard A?

Anne of Kiev, queen of Henri I (1031-60), coming from a supposedly even more backward area, complained to her father, Yarolsav the Great that the “the houses were gloomy, the churches ugly and the customs revolting”. (p. 7)

But life was looking up by 1314 when three married sisters were living in a castle-come-palace, the Hotel de Nesle, on the Left Bank where the Academie Francaise stands today. (Its location is noted on the walls.)

Two, at least, were having a merry time carrying on with their gentlemen in waiting, until they got caught. The men were very unlucky – skinned alive, castrated, then disembowelled, while the women had their heads shaved, were publicly paraded, then jailed in miserable conditions. One was suffocated, so her husband could remarry without complications, the other was lucky enough to end up in a convent.

The third sister, Jeanne, would go on to become Queen, and again live in the Hotel de Nesle. She was supposed to have watched from her tower for incautious but likely looking Sorbonne students wandering past, then, “having exhausted their virility” (nice way of putting it), would have them sown in sacks and cast into the Seine to drown. (p. 60) Sounds like a good tale for gullible country students. More here.

On a lighter note, welcoming Louis XI into the city in 1461, the organisers ensured that after five noble ladies had made a speech of welcome, at the fountain of Ponceau, “three handsome girls took the part of sirens, all naked, and you could see ‘their lovely breasts, round and firm, which was a very pleasant thing’ and they warbled little motets.” (The dirty old man in Andre Maurois, quoted p. 70)

Later, the mistress of the Marshall Vicomte de Turenne, Genevieve de Longueville (a very different character to the last of that name) is supposed to have egged him on to take up arms against the king (Louis XIV). She was also heard to say: “I don’t enjoy innocent pleasures.” (p. 119)

She set the scene for many who were to follow. (And no I haven’t even gone into the great age of the salon.)

But tomorrow if the weather is good I’m hoping to find the grave of the intrepid balloonist Mme Blanchard, brought down in 1819 on her 67th ascent, when her craft was brought down by a festive firework. (p. 476)

(From Alistair Horne’s Seven Ages of Paris: Portrait of a City.)