Dwarfs and pygmies in Ancient Egypt

Deneg / Daneg / Dag
dng/dʾng/dʾg
Dwarf / Small person / Pygmy

Deneg / Daneg / Dag
dng/dʾng/dʾg
Dwarf / Small Person / Pygmy

In Ancient Egypt, especially during the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods, dwarfs and pygmies were seen as peoples with celestial gifts. They were treated with the greatest respect and enjoyed the highest social positions. During the 1st Dynasty (c. 3150–2900 BC), dwarfs served and worked directly for the king and the royal household, and a number of them are found buried in subsidiary tombs around that of the pharaoh. In fact, the proportion of dwarfs in the royal cemetery of the 1st Dynasty indicates that some must have been brought into Egypt from elsewhere on purpose.

Later, in the Old Kingdom (c. 2680–2180 BC), dwarfs were employed as jewellers, tailors, cup-bearers and zookeepers, could found families or be brought into one. Pygmies were employed as dancers for special occasions and religious festivals. The social position of dwarfs seems to have declined after the Old Kingdom. By the time of the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC) they were depicted in ridiculing ways, and while the papyrus "The wise doctrine of Amenemope, son of Kanakht" asks people not to treat them badly, this probably shows that they were subject to abuse.

In Egyptian art, dwarfs and pygmies are depicted realistically which enables their identification as cases of nanism. The ancient Egyptians had three words and special hieroglyphs for dwarfs and revered several dwarf deities, in particular Bes, the god of the household and birth, and two dwarf forms of Ptah.

The ancient Egyptians used three terms to describe peoples with short stature: the first of these was Deneg, Daneg or Dag (depending on different transcriptions), which simply means "little human", "dwarf" and/or "pygmy". The Egyptian hieroglyphs used for these words could be combined with the determinative of a dwarf, alternatively the determinative was used alone. Stelae of the 1st Dynasty show only the determinative, implying that the determinative itself was read Deneg, Daneg or Dag and with the same meaning. In later times, these words were often combined with further determinatives such as the one for "clothes/fashion" (Gardiner sign S38), literally describing a "fashion dwarf" (Egyptian Daneg-seret); or with the determinative of a dancer (Gardiner sign A32) for a "dancing dwarf" (Egyptian Daneg-ibaw). During the Middle Kingdom period, two new words concerning dwarfs and pygmies appeared: Nemw, meaning "malformed one" and which points to the medical origin of Egyptian dwarfs as achondroplasia patients; and Hewa meaning "shepherd" or "cattle drover".

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