In his immense scholarly work The Histories, the Greek scholar Herodotus wrote a book exclusively about Egypt set in the years between 664 BCE and 525 BCE. This material has been valuable to our modern-day understanding of life in everyday Egypt. Herodotus writes that “concerning Egypt itself I shall extend my remarks to a great length, because there is no country that possesses so many wonders, nor any that has such a number of work which defy description…” Clearly, Herodotus captures something of the enduring fascination with Ancient Egypt in this excerpts from his work.
Interestingly, our insights and knowledge about Ancient Egypt have been informed by the written reports of Greek and Roman scholars who travelled to Egypt between the fifth century and the second century BCE. Key writers include Hecateus of Mitetus in 500 BCE. Hecateus’s work Periodos Ges (alternative title, Periegesis, meaning ‘Tour of the World’) offers useful insights into what daily life was like. He writes that Egypt is “the gift of the Nile” in a phrase that ably articulates the fascination that has endured for so many over the subsequent centuries.
In the artwork of Ancient Egypt, the human figures who feature largest in any given image on a monument would have had the most social capital and standing. The lower a person’s position in the social order, the smaller their image in public art. Suffice it to say, Ancient Egyptian society and its structure adhered to a very strict sense of long-established social hierarchy.
In the Third Dynasty, the pharaoh Djoser unified the country and established a very clear social order based around the capital at Memphis in northern Egypt, just south of the fanlike shape of the Nile delta, which was comprised of tributaries that ran out to the Mediterranean. Under Djoser’s reign, the Old Kingdom era flourished, and it was during this period that kings were regarded as gods on earth and pyramids were raised in their honour. However, residing above all people – pharaohs included – were the many multiple deities, such as Ra, Osiris and Isis.
In terms of society and social structure of Ancient Egypt, we have to think about a culture that spanned 3,000 years, reaching from the Predynastic period through to the time of Ptolemy. Across the three millennia of this period, we can identify five key elements that shape our understanding of the society: kinship (connection between blood relatives and through marriage), location (connection between people born in the same place or who live in the same place), gender (connection between people of the same sex and sexual orientation), age (connection between people of the same age), and social class (connection between people born into the same social standing).
At the very highest rung of the social ladder, the pharaoh was regarded as a living god, in particular a manifestation of the earthly embodiment of Horus, the god of order, who was the son of the goddess Isis. The pharaoh was responsible for maintaining order and ensuring that the gods were kept happy with human endeavour. It’s also unsurprising that the pharaoh’s interests and responsibilities included military campaigns. The women at the centre of the king’s life were also accorded great status. One of the most famous royal marriages was that of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. In cartouches dated to the Second Intermediate Period, the name of a king’s wife would be represented. A number of Old and Middle Kingdom wives of kings were buried in a pyramid.
Below the king on the social pyramid was the ruling elite, comprised of nobles and priests. There may have been family connections between the monarchy and the elite strata, although not in every case. A famous exception to this rule was Imhotep; an elite scribe educated in mathematics, writing, medicine and architecture; he rose through the ranks to become an adviser to Djoser.
The children of a high-level government official in Ancient Egypt could expect a rather different kind of upbringing and life in general, compared to the child of any other social order beneath them on the social hierarchy. Typically, Egyptian writing was the product of the elite class and was indicative of their life experiences. Below the elite were the craftsmen and physicians of Egyptian society – these comprised what we would today consider the middle class.
At the other end of the scale, manual labour was seen as less worthy of respect than work that involved writing or arithmetic. At the lowest rung on the social order were farmers – the class that comprised most people in Ancient Egypt. Their lives are rarely recorded in extant Egyptian texts.
However, we have been able to develop a sense of their lives through archaeological work on funerary objects. Weaving throughout society were slaves, who occupied the lowest of the social classes yet played an integral part in the life of the upper classes. It seems the idea of freedom, as we might understand it today, was not embraced.
Yet, through surviving writings and information available on its numerous public architecture, monuments and art, we get some sense of a culture that saw women enjoy some kind of social mobility, albeit within the parameters of an overriding patriarchy. Perhaps it is surprising, then, that the wife of a pharaoh would have often been directly involved in military matters and helping influence important policies. Given the country’s emphasis on order in its multifarious contexts, Egyptian males’ ‘openness’ to elite women’s freedom runs counter to the stress so clearly placed on marriage and motherhood.
Establishing social order
Ancient Egypt evolved a formalised class structure, which was the foundation of social order. A rigid social hierarchy denied what we would now call upward social mobility, which was not a common experience.
History records that individuals in society could be defined by seven classes. At the top of the pyramid was the pharaoh, who was considered divine, and below him were the further seven levels of society: the priests and officials, and then below them the warrior class. Below the warriors were scribes, and below them merchants then craftsmen. Below craftsmen were farmers and the boatmen that traversed the River Nile and its tributaries. Critically, we must recognise that the culture also comprised slaves (typically former prisoners of war), as well as marginalised individuals and groups existing on the fringes of the mainstream.
The most acute expression of the social order was manifest in the money earned by the different professions. Practitioners of medicine were among the best paid. In contrast, craftsmen earned meagre sums.
Taxation is a central feature of nation states with a developed infrastructure, and Egypt was no exception, with administrative emphasis crucial to its smooth running.
The pharaoh served as head of state and appointed the great treasurer. Evading tax payment incurred severe punishment. The nation’s clearly defined social hierarchy was underpinned by long-standing laws and administrative structures. One of the binding laws was the law of Tehut. Tehut was the god of wisdom, and the culture’s broader sensibility adhered to a mood of integrity and personal responsibility.
Home life
Through the trail of archaeological excavations, we have come to gain an insight into some class-based variations in the rhythms and patterns of life in an Ancient Egyptian home.
An ordinary working Egyptian man, such as a farmer, would have had no slaves at the home to help him prepare for the day ahead. His wife would have been responsible for preparing the children for the day. A bench would suffice as a place to eat at and the family would sit on reed mats. When the farmer went out to work on his land, his wife would typically remain at home and tend to domestic work, such as preparing food.
A farmer would have been required to take some of his harvest to the temple as payment for using the temple land. Evening meals for the family were modest. Bread and fruit would have been staples of the everyman’s daily diet, and beer was a commonly consumed drink.
In contrast with the ordinary labourer’s home, the homes of the elite were well appointed. Key to the day-to-day running of the household were the slaves, who would assist an elite man in washing and shaving for the day ahead. Husband and wife would boast a servant each to assist their morning preparations, in addition to servants who would get the children ready for the day ahead. A nobleman would also employ a man to supervise his land in terms of arable and pastoral work.
The homes of Egyptians were constructed from a combination of mud and papyrus, the climate understandably informing the kind of building materials used. However, with the Nile flooding annually, materials shifted to bricks made from clay and mud. Among so many other things that we can thank the Egyptians for, the word ‘adobe’, which stems from the Egyptian word dbe, meaning ‘mudbrick’ can be attributed to them.
Contrasting with the very modest conditions of most Egyptian homes, those of the elite might have as many as 30 rooms, as well as a garden with space enough for many guests. The flat roof of an Egyptian house meant that it could be used as another living space, which was especially handy for the poorest of society. They lived in single-room houses that were furnished primarily with mats and perhaps a single stool. To keep the sunlight and heat at bay, windows would be covered with reed mats. There was also no running water, so it would have been sourced from a local well.
For all of its seeming remoteness from our own lives, the daily lives of a typical family in Ancient Egypt revolved around an extended family, particularly among the rural communities. Away from these rural communities, in a city like Memphis or Thebes, houses were in close proximity to each other. Given the commonality of shopkeeping, the ground floor of a property was often used for business, while home life was conducted upstairs.
Entertaining
Key to developing a culture’s sense of identity is not just work and big-picture value systems; how the society entertains itself is also important to consider. Board games were hugely popular in Ancient Egypt, notably one game called Senet – an especially wellknown and simple game that people played for more than 2,000 years. Senet simply involved throwing sticks down in order to determine how far a player’s game piece would advance along a board.
For the pharaohs, hunting was the king’s sport just as it once was in Britain. Then there was the Nile itself, which was the perfect venue for swimming and sailing. As with most, if not all, cultures, music was a key part of the creative expression in the daily life of Egyptian people.
The harp and lyre were widely used instruments, and we can imagine how perhaps their love of poetry related well to their musical inclinations. Archaeologists have excavated a collection of such poems in a village named Deir el-Medina. The texts date back to the period of the New Kingdom.
Children in Ancient Egypt would typically play with small models of animals, reflecting the rurally centred lives that most Egyptians shared. It doesn’t seem too wildly speculative to suggest that, as in our own culture, the forms of entertainment embraced by the people mirror somewhat the class distinctions that influenced and shaped their lives.
Education
Certainly, education in Ancient Egypt was regarded as a means of improving one’s social standing, and formal schooling was a fundamental part of the lives of young people from the elite strata of society. However, we can also say that Ancient Egypt was a culture that recognised the more broadly enriching value of education as a way of deepening one’s understanding of the world.
As we might typically expect to be the case, it was in the family unit where a child would learn and develop their value system. Boys had the opportunity to be trained in the work that interested them, but girls did not have this opportunity available to them. Education, then, would have extended to include imparting younger family members with a code of morality (with its emphasis on maintaining order at both individual and broader social levels) and training for a particular kind of work, whether agricultural, craftwork, medicine or work as an administrator. Each kind of job carried with it a certain social standing. What we know about education in Ancient Egypt is derived significantly from The Books Of Instruction, which offer us a fascinating insight into the dynamics of social life and the expectation of right behaviour.
Historian J M Roberts writes that “the bureaucracy directed a country most of whose inhabitants were peasants,” making the distinction between what we might call “the haves” and “the have nots”. Thousands of Egyptian boys would have been educated to work as scribes (in Egyptian the word sesh meant ‘to draw’), and a school dedicated to this was located at Thebes. However, we need to be mindful that this education was enjoyed by only a minority and that almost all Egyptians did not undertake a formal education. At this school, the students were educated in history and literature (tales, hymns and poems), as well as different kinds of writing. Students were also instructed in the disciplines of surveying, military endeavour, architecture and accountancy. Memphis was notable for being an administrative centre of Ancient Egypt; the emphasis on writing allowed the Egyptian state to become evermore cohesive and unified.
In a 1972 academic paper in the Journal Of The American Oriental Society, Volume 92, No.2, Professor Ronald J Williams of the University of Toronto quotes from the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (writing in the first century BCE). Siculus, who travelled in Egypt during 60-57 BCE, observed that the students had “strong bodies, and with spirits capable of leadership and endurance because of their training in the finest habits.” Diodorus also explains that scribal students learned two kinds of writing, “that which is called ‘sacred’ and that which is more widely used for instruction.” The type of sacred writing Diodorus identifies is exemplified by The Book of the Dead, which served as a key text for the people of Ancient Egypt and took the reader through the range of ceremonial beliefs.
Algebra would have been a very important part of the mathematics lessons taught to boys from the most privileged backgrounds. Egyptian numbers were developed using just seven ideograms: a single vertical stroke representing one; a shape resembling an ‘n’ but which was in a fact a representation of a heel bone for the number ten; 100 was represented by a coil shape that represented a coil of rope. An ideogram of a lotus plant represented 1,000, and an ideogram of a human finger was used to represent a value of 10,000. An ideogram of a frog represented 100,000 and 1,000,000 was a value represented by a kneeling god. The young pupils had a lot to remember!
Fictional stories, poetry and hymns all comprised examples of how an education in literacy yielded important literary material.
Lessons in educating Egypt
Mathematics
In this lesson, scribal students undertake training in accountancy protocol, record keeping and the requirements for maintaining budgets on architectural projects so as to understand income and outgoings. Don’t forget to bring your scribe board and reed stem pen to make notes with.
Architecture
In this lesson, scribal students will learn the rules of proportion and scale. We will also revise rules of geometry and physics in order to identify issues in organising the movement of building materials. Key to our work will be how to record information about issues with safety on site.
Poetry
In this poetry class you will recite three poems handed down from our ancestors. In each of these poems, we can learn something of the wisdom of how to live the most full and orderly life. We will then concentrate on transcribing three new spells and three new hymns.
Hieroglyphic practice
In this class we will focus attention on Demotic writing so that you can make notes quickly and then develop full documents. We will then revisit the storage of your papers in our archive of clay jars. You will be tested on how to locate an item in the archive.
Social and moral instruction
Instruction will be given by a chantress as you learn several new hymns to share with your friends, families and the wider community. You will then transcribe her instructions. In your work as successful scribes you will be required to transcribe meetings on a daily basis.
Learning how to worship and appease the gods
Because the religious instruction received from the deities was accepted, preaching as a means of converting people who did not ‘believe’ was unnecessary in Ancient Egypt. Festivals were a major part of religious devotion and priests were central to organising these. At the priest’s school, students would be instructed in ritual, magic spells and hymns and songs as offerings to the gods.
At the school, students would not refer to one single text but instead to a variety of texts that described rituals and religious belief systems. The student would also be educated in the routines and observances of a temple.
A priestly role that students might aspire to would be that of kher keb, which means the lector priest. This priest would read from a given text, this function bestowing on them particular authority. At the school, students would also be taught about how to conduct purification ceremonies. These would be undertaken by a priest in order to prepare themselves to enter the most sacred area of any temple, namely the sanctuary.
A student priest would be educated in the particulars of the many feast days and festivals such as First of the Month and the New Moon festivals. One of the most important festivals for a student priest to be taught about would be the Opet festival that was given at Karnak.
Alongside their more obvious, priestly duties and responsibilities, a student priest would be educated in a wide range of administrative processes that sat alongside their public religious functions.
Working life
Historian J M Roberts wrote that “Ancient Egypt has always been our greatest visible inheritance from antiquity.” As such, the archaeology and scholarship that has subsequently developed around Ancient Egypt offers us a sense of both the big and small picture of the nation.
Social status, then, was connected with one’s occupation: a relationship that echoes and anticipates what still holds true for so many in the 21st century around the world. When was the last time you went to a social gathering and weren’t asked what work you do to make a living?
It’s essential to make clear the point that agricultural working life was the broad base on which Egyptian society and culture was built. In the Early Dynastic Period and thereafter, farmers lived in small villages and cereal agriculture was the most important domestic product.
Key agricultural crops were emmer wheat and barley. In their development of technology and the agricultural industry, Egyptian farmers developed irrigation systems that expanded the amount of land that could be farmed beyond immediate proximity to the River Nile.
Another key agricultural product was wine, and it was not only grapes that were used to produce it: farmers also made wine from figs, dates and pomegranates. Common to all farming life were sheep and goats, and wealthier farmers would also own cattle and oxen that would be a source of food as well as used for ploughing.
Essential to the organisation of the country and its workers were the scribes. For a scribe, their routine work would include writing up data about taxes, creating and administrating census lists and drawing up calculations for the varied, immense building projects across the country.
Egypt was indeed a country of grand designs. The tradition of a civil service is a long-standing feature of so many countries. Historian Dr Gae Callender has made the point that “the Middle Kingdom was a time when art, architecture and religion reached new heights but, above all, it was an age of confidence in writing, no doubt encouraged by the growth of the ‘middle class’ and the scribal sector of society.”
Labour-intensive work on public buildings and monuments was a constant feature of working life for many Egyptians, and this would have been supervised by the scribes, whose education included sustained study of administrative processes and principles of architecture and maths.
In Ancient Egypt, winches, pulleys, blocks or tackle were not used in civil engineering projects. Instead, levers and sleds and the use of immense ramps of earth were the combinations of ‘hardware’ that allowed for immense pieces of stone to be moved and positioned. It might be fair to say that the Hollywood movie The Ten Commandments recreates this kind of activity quite faithfully.
Ancient Egypt, unlike its eastward neighbour of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iran), did not become so urbanised and, therefore, working life for most of the population was largely centred around agricultural work. Arguably, while slavery did have a key role in the social hierarchy of Ancient Egypt, it was not as prevalent as can be found in other contemporary societies beyond that of Egyptian borders.
Critically, women, while having not been formally educated, worked at all levels of society, and shared almost all of the same legal entitlements as men, from performing the duties of a royal household right through to piloting boats on the Nile and working as market traders. Crucially, women from the upper class served in the priesthood, often as chantresses, an extremely high-profile and resonant role in such a highly religious community.
Key to Egyptian working life was trade both within and beyond its borders. Debate continues about whether the trade benefited the working man or the pharaoh more. Because of the Nile leading so readily to the Mediterranean, Egypt could trade relatively easily with the Mediterranean countries.
In "Book of Ancient Egypt" (All About History), editor in chief Jon White, Future Publishing, UK, 2016, excerpts pp.89-97. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.