Life in Ancient EgyptThere is a mystery that surrounds life in ancient Egypt. Even the Great Pyramid - it has been told that it flew in like a ship. Legend has it that the ancient Sphinx was built by people through the first seventeen generations. The first few generations did the hard work and moved the big stones, because they had the knowledge aout how to move them and cut and form them without any great suffering. So the original and old story of slaves moving the blocks is not true. Life in ancient Egypt had 3 main social classes - Upper, Middle and Lower. The Upper class consisted of the royal family, rich landowners, government officials , army officers and doctors. The Middle class were mainly merchants, manufacturers and craftworkers. The lower class, the largest by far, consisted of unskilled labourers. They improved their status mainly through marriage or success in their jobs. The father headed the family life in ancient Egypt and upon his death, his oldest son became the head. Women had almost as many rights as men and could even obtain a divorce ...............few other ancient civilizations gave women all these rights. Only a small percentage of boys and girls went to school in ancient Egypt. Most of them came from upper-class families. They used papyrus, the world's first paperlike material, and wrote with brushes made of reeds, whose ends were softened and shaped. Life in ancient Egypt was full of many libraries. A famous library in Alexandria had over 400 000 papyrus scrolls, which dealt with astronomy, etc. Food and ClothingBread was the chief food, and beer the favourite drink. Wealthy Egyptians regularly ate beef, antelope and gazelle meat. The people ate with their fingers. The Egyptians generally dressed in white linen garments. Rich Egyptians wore wigs, partly for protection against the sun. Young children rarely wore any clothes. The ancient Egyptians liked to use cosmetics and wear jewellery. Women wore red lip powder, dyed their hair and painted their fingernails. Men also outlined their eyes and often wore as much make-up as women.RecreationThe life in ancient Egypt was filled with numerous leisure activities. They fished and swam in the Nile, adventurous Egyptians hunted crocodiles, lions, hippo's and elephants. At home, the Egyptians played senet, a board game similar to backgammon.The AfterlifeThe ancient Egyptians believed that they could enjoy life after death.This belief in an afterlife led to much preparation for death and burial. The Egyptians believed that the bodies of the dead had to be preserved for the next life. The mummy was placed in a tomb, sometimes with their pets. The Egyptians did not have a money system - they traded goods for services directly for other goods or services. Chief industries of manufacturing were linen clothing and textiles, pottery, bricks, weapons, jewellery and perfume. Life in ancient Egypt meant observations in astromony that helped them develop a calender of 365 days a year. The calender was based on the annual flooding of the Nile River. The flooding began soon after the star Sirius reappeared on the eastern horizon after months of being out of sight. Information about life in ancient Egypt also comes from written records made by the Egyptians themselves. For over 1000 years, scolars tried but failed to decipher the writing system of ancient Egypt. Then in 1799, a rock slab with ancient Greek and Egyptian writing was found outside Rosette, a city near Alexandria. A french scholar named Champollion began to compare the Greek and Egyptian words on the Rosetta stone and by 1822, he had deciphered the hieroglyphics. The Building of the SphinxThis great edifice was built to honor the teacher of man. The cat was considered the teacher of humankind in ancient time. The original Egyptians(working with the magic they were taught and with their special abilities) moved a huge block of stone to where the Sphinx now sits, and began the work of carving out the cat. Although today you see the face of a man, it was originally the face of a cat. According to history, there was a place very close to the Sphinx which in the ancient language means 'the mystery'. If you were to walk one hundred human sized paces from the front of the Sphinx with your back towards the cat's head, directly away from the Sphinx, there was once a place there where a three dimensional picture of a cat would appear .............Over ten generations, then, the sculpture was completed. Once complete, the picture of the cat in that spot no longer appeared. In those ancient times cats were supposed to teach people how to understand and communicate with all life. How fascinating ............ ScarabsThe beetle was considered as sacred in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians had scarabs everywhere. The Egyptians were taught by their teachers how to communicate with such beetles and that these beetles could bring messages that would save them, such as warnings of the future. The beetles were known and understood to be sacred messengers, and such artworks as have survived show the great value and high esteem that such beetles held for the ancient Egyptian wise people.Return from Life in Ancient Egypt to Home Page |
