Life Style

The culture of Egypt has been recorded for over thousands of years. It flourished between 5500 B.C. - 30 B.C. and maintained a strikingly unique and stable culture which influenced the later cultures of Europe. Egyptian society was structured like a pyramid. At the top were the gods, such as Ra, Osiris, and Isis. Egyptians believed that the gods controlled the universe. Therefore, it was important to keep them happy.

The Egyptians also elevated some human beings to gods. Their leaders, called pharaohs, were believed to be gods in human form. They had absolute power over their subjects. At the bottom of the social structure were slaves and farmers. Slavery became the fate of those captured as prisoners of war. In addition to being forced to work on building projects, slaves toiled at the discretion of the pharaoh or nobles and were treated brutally. Farmers tended the fields, raised animals, kept canals and reservoirs in good order, worked in the stone quarries, and built the royal monuments. Farmers paid taxes that could be as much as 60 percent of their yearly harvest, and if they didn’t, they were treated brutally. All in all, in the ancient Egyptian society, the rich prospered while the poor were stripped off all the basic human rights and found it extremely difficult to stay alive.

Population

With regard to the population of ancient Egypt, the development of centers of habitation was largely directed by the geographical features of the country. The pre-dynastic towns and villages remained the basis for this development; communities were strung out along the river, hedged in on one side by the desert and by the river on the other. Thus, their direct contacts were with their neighbors who lived immediately to the north or south. Since the Nile was their only direct means of transport and communication, it was always difficult for people in the north to have contact with the far south. Gradually towns and villages came to form larger districts or provinces, each with its own deity, capital city, and traditions.

These provinces, or nomes, were used as government districts. Some of these in the Delta were quite large, whereas others in the south were much smaller; there were about twenty nomes in both Upper and Lower Egypt. Changes occurred over the centuries: At different times nomes appeared in some lists as independent units and in others as parts of other provinces, thus reflecting political or governmental changes. Although their boundaries, areas, and status might change, however, the nomes remained the basic divisions of Egypt.

There are no definite estimates of population figures during the historic period. Numbers supplied by the Egyptians in military campaigns, for example, are unreliable, and a “hundred thousand persons” probably simply meant “a very large number” rather than representing a specific figure. Nevertheless, it is known that the country was very fertile, and it probably supported a dense population within the narrow confines of the cultivation. Even with a high infant mortality and low average life expectancy, the Egyptians still found it necessary to limit the size of their families by using contraception. It can perhaps be estimated that, at its peak, the population reached between 5 and 7 million. ¹

Aging and Death

Egyptian perspectives on age were ambivalent. Life expectancy was low – most would not live much past their 30s and rarely, an individual attained any considerable age. Although the ideal age was expressed as 110, and a number of officials are known to, or claim to, have lived past their 70s, the idea of what constituted old age was probably fluid. Individuals who had adult children, those with a reduced capacity for work, and/or those physically weakened may have been considered old.

Old age was desirable in monumental discourse and teachings; prayers and funerary wishes expressed the hope for a good old age with the wisdom and authority of advanced years without associated weakness. Although the Teaching of Ptahhotep expressed conventional ideals of a good old age, it also gave a striking description of age as frailty and illness: ‘‘what age does to people is evil in every respect; the nose is blocked and cannot breathe, because of the difficulty of standing and sitting’’

Old age, especially once it reduced the ability to work, entailed a transformation of social position. Those of advanced age became dependent on others and risked social isolation. This could be mitigated for some office-holders through the appointment of a son or assistant as a ‘‘staff of old age’’ to assist in their duties. Evidence for income through pensions or endowments includes the legal text inscribed in the tomb of the Nineteenth Dynasty temple official Samut which bequeaths his property to Mut in return for a type of pension. Most, however, probably depended on their family or community. ²

Calendar

The ancient Egyptian year was divided into three seasons, marking nature’s rhythms, each consisting of four thirty-day months. “Inundation” began the year around our September, when the Nile overflowed and flooded the farmland. “Emergence,” which referred to the re appearance of the land from the receding water, was planting time, and was followed by “harvest.” Each season called for work, appropriate to environmental circumstances. During inundation, when the waterlogged land could not be worked, the farmer repaired his tools and house. Emergence began with reconstructing the canals that brought essential Nile water to the fields, after which came plowing, planting, then tending the crops as they grew. During harvest, farmers reaped and processed the crops before storage. Of course, three seasons of four thirty-day months added up to only 360 days, which left five days unaccounted for. This yearly five days provided Egyptians with the closest they ever got to a sustained holiday: no one worked during the long New Year’s celebration.

Despite being nameless, each day was marked in calendars as representing specific theological events thought to have occurred on that particular day. Thus, the first day of the second month of emergence was considered the day Ra had lifted up the sky, whereas the twenty-sixth day of the first month of inundation marked the time Sekhmet’s ferocious eyes first caught sight of her human prey. These mythical events lent every day a quality, marking it as auspicious, if some fortunate event had occurred, menacing, if the contrary, or neutral. Egyptians took these matters seriously, planning important events to coincide with auspicious days and taking extra care on menacing ones.

As to the intervals of a day, Egyptians invented the hour—the same twenty-four equal day divisions we use today. These intervals were measured either by marks down the side of a candle or by lines on a bowl that showed the water remaining after steady dripping. Although appointments could be set and kept by such devices, the average farmer needed no more indication of time than the position of the sun or the moon, and none of his countrymen understood divisions finer than an hour. The word for minute—let alone the ultra-precision of a second—did not even exist in the language. ³

Ethnology

The racial mixture of the population was another uncertainty. The theory of a Dynastic Race is now discredited. It is certain, however, that many groups entered Egypt at different times; there were prisoners of war taken captive in Egypt’s Asiatic campaigns, and craftsmen, diplomats, technicians, and traders who came from neighboring lands. There were foreign rulers such as the Hyksos who ruled the country in Dynasties 15 and 16, and the New Kingdom saw the development of a cosmopolitan society with foreign queens and their entourages at court, traders bringing a variety of goods to Egypt, and immigrant craftsmen and servants working at building sites and in Egyptian households.

When the Egyptians were ruled by foreigners during the later dynasties, the Ethiopians, Assyrians, and Persians all had some influence, although it is generally accepted that their long-lasting impact was minimal. Under the Greeks and Romans major changes were introduced, and the arrival of a substantial minority of Greek settlers undoubtedly had an effect upon the overall population.

Despite these influxes, Egyptian civilization remained remarkably stable and homogeneous. Foreign influence was minimal in the formative years of the society, allowing the distinctive Egyptian traditions to become firmly established. The culture was so all-embracing and pervasive that, when it finally encountered foreign ideas and customs, these were either readily absorbed or Egyptianized, or had little or no impact on the mainstream culture. Within Egyptian society, however, each community retained its physical separateness, although the inhabitants were generally crowded together in the Nile Valley. The population never truly combined to become one nation, and usually when the central government collapsed, the country broke down again into its various geographical divisions. ⁴

Social Organization

Egyptian materialistic culture offered a rich and diverse range of evidence for social organization and experience. The self was social: personhood and identity were constructed through relationships and maintained and developed within them. ⁵ Regarding social organization and kinship, Ptahhotep said:

  ‘‘Beware of the selfish man’s deed. It is a painful disease of an incurable. The man who catches it cannot survive: it alienates fathers and mothers, and even the closest brothers; it drives apart husband and wife. It is the compound of all evil; it is a sum of all that is detested.’’ ⁶

This passage, which is addressed to elites, stresses kinship, but hierarchical and occupational structures would have been vital for most individuals. Everyday life was crisscrossed by patterns that regulate the behavior of its inhabitants with each other and that, at the same time, relate this behavior to much larger contexts of meaning. In Egypt, these contexts include, religion, and ideals of perfect order, justice, and vertical solidarity embodied in the concept of maat. Mechanisms of connection and mediation operate within and between institutions and individuals, including patronage, economic ties, legal systems and traditions, hospitality, and friendship, as well as coercion and violence. ⁷

Modern classifications of an upper, middle and lower class based on income have no parallel in ancient Egyptian society where money did not exist. As in the later feudal systems of Medieval Europe, Egyptian society was composed of three distinct classes: royalty, free people and chattel, ranked according to their autonomy. At the top stood royalty, a tiny percentage of the population who wielded all official power through the pharaoh. Underneath them lay a large group of free citizens consisting of government officials, priests, soldiers and civilians. The fact that movement was common among these four professions shows that they occupied the same tier of the social hierarchy. The sons of a free farmer sometimes entered government service, sometimes became priests, sometimes enlisted as soldiers and sometimes followed their father’s footsteps. Beneath these free citizens lay two groups with little or no freedom—slaves and serfs.

Royalty

Royal status depended on a blood relationship with the reigning pharaoh. His brothers and sisters, full aunts and full uncles and mother and father automatically belonged to this class. Rarely did unrelated commoners attain membership in this group. Exceptions include Tiya, the principal wife of Amenhotep III, whose marriage raised her to royalty, and the similarly named Tey, elevated when her husband Ay took the throne, although, in general, a pharaoh’s numerous wives were considered non-royal. One could also attain royal status by marrying the eldest daughter of pharaoh’s great royal wife. In the absence of a better claimant to the throne, her husband, regardless of his parentage, became the royal heir apparent, but otherwise gained no royal status by the marriage. Royal status conferred privileges, including the right to lifelong support by the state, but, except in the case of the pharaoh, carried no automatic power. The extended royal family, who lived together in various palaces, were not required to work, although nothing prohibited them from doing so. A pharaoh’s grown sons, one of whom might ascend the throne, were likely to be awarded government positions as training for such eventuality. This held true not only for the heir apparent, but for other male children as well, because circumstances, such as an heir’s death or unsuitability, could always change the order of succession. In other cases, a pharaoh might award positions to family members as a way of manipulating institutions not entirely under his control. During the New Kingdom, for example, a pharaoh’s chief wife or daughter generally became the god’s wife of Amun, an appointment that gave the pharaoh direct control over that god’s powerful and wealthy priests.

Free People

Free Egyptian citizens—both male and female—possessed two defining rights: they were free to travel and free to enter into contractual agreements. Although they enjoyed no other rights of modern societies, their right to make contracts permitted members of this group at least to own property and marry. Serfs and slaves were also permitted possessions, but they could not transfer them without a contract—only the free class could acquire and sell animals, property and buildings as they wished. Though most free people eked out a subsistence living, some accumulated wealth and grew into citizens of substance, and a few even earned high positions in government. ⁸

Serfs

Egyptian peasants were serfs—people who had to work their masters’ land and could not leave. They could also tend their own land and own animals when they had time. But most peasants owned very little, and everything they produced was heavily taxed. Most lived in small mud-brick houses in villages next to the fields. Each village had a Council of Elders, members of the main families who handled day-to-day matters and minor disputes.

A peasant’s life was one of constant, backbreaking labor. He planted, tended, and harvested his master’s main crop. He labored in his master’s garden and tended his master’s herds, flocks, and beehives. He carried endless heavy clay jars of water from river or canal to field and garden, balanced in pairs across his shoulders on a frame called a yoke.

The government also required labor for certain projects from peasants, although it was not considered slavery. During the inundation, the fields were under water and most peasants had nothing to do. The government took advantage of this idle labor force. They were drafted to build royal tombs and temples, cut and haul stone, work mines, or for military campaigns. Canals, dams, and reservoirs that held and managed the waters of the inundation were in constant need of improvement, maintenance, and repair. Draftees were put to work year-round on these projects and were sent wherever their labor was most needed.

The work was often very hard and dangerous. A man who had enough money, could hire a replacement worker to take his place in the labor draft. This practice was not officially approved, but the government tolerated it. ⁹

Little evidence indicates what percentage of the population consisted of free people. Although surely the numbers varied over time, a guess would put the percentage at something less than half of Egypt’s people. The lowest rung of society was composed of slaves and serfs whose lives were completely controlled by other people. Slaves differed from serfs in that they could be individually bought and sold; serfs belonged to the land, hence changed masters only as the land changed hands while neither group could enter into legal marriage, a contractual arrangement that simply involved inheritance rights on its dissolution, this fact carried more technical than practical significance. Since they owned little that could be assigned to survivors in any case, serfs and slaves could enjoy most aspects of marriage, such as cooperative living and raising children. Since marriage in ancient Egypt was a social rather than religious institution, their unions closely resembled “legal” marriages in practice. During every period of Egyptian history serfs far outnumbered slaves. Serfs originally comprised all the people of Egypt except for a tiny percentage of powerful elite that formed a hereditary caste.

Since individuals remained serfs unless good fortune changed their situation, only gradually, their high proportion declined. A serf could be elevated through the intervention of a master who, in recognition of a special talent or ability, might assign the person to a managerial position on an estate—serf status was tied to occupation as well as birth. Marriage, too, was a way out of serfdom. Since free persons could not marry serfs, union with a serf required that he or she first be freed. While one can imagine many parents looking askance at their child marrying a serf, others recognized the worth of a young serf as the mate for their child. In the early times of civilian armies, valor in war could also earn a serf his own land and freedom. Through one or another of these means, the percentage of serfs decreased over time, swelling the ranks of the free class until, by the height of the New Kingdom, serfs had probably declined to less than half of the population. ¹⁰

Slavery

Slavery was never common, being restricted to captives and foreigners or to people who were forced by poverty or debt to sell themselves into service. ¹¹ Many scholars attest to the principle of slavery by birth, and as a rule, the offspring of slaves were regarded as slaves. Slavery could also be inflicted upon natives Egyptians as a form of punishment. ¹² These people were considered to have forfeited their freedoms either by their individual choices or by military conquest and so were forced to endure a quality of existence far below that of free Egyptians. ¹³ They were also known as Hemw and were a part of the Egyptian households. The Egyptian hemw had some fundamental rights. That does not mean that the hemw were treated like everyone else, however they worked long hours, they had to do whatever their masters ordered, and their movements were immensely limited.

In whatever manner one defines the hemw, they played a significant role in society, mainly because they were paid less than free workers. This allowed their masters to get certain menial tasks done more cheaply than would have been possible using free persons’ labor. Well-to-do households and estates, like the royal palace, the mansions of nobles, and temple estates, used numerous hemw—probably thousands or even tens of thousands, although exact number is unknown. As for households of average means, not all kept hemw, and those who did use them were far fewer than did wealthy households. For homeowners who could barely afford to support their families, feeding, housing, and paying extra helpers was simply too expensive. Those average households that did keep hemw as maids and other servants likely had fewer than half a dozen. There were several different ways that a person might become a hem (singular of hemw) in Egypt. During some eras, many originated as war captives. Others were free people who became hemw to work off debts they owed. Also, it appears that they could be free people who committed crimes and lost some of their rights as a punishment, while at least some were born with fewer rights because their parents were hemw. ¹⁴

Most slaves were foreign war captives from Asia or Nubia. The concept of a slave as a person, totally owned by another person, did not exist. The line between “slave” and “citizen” was fuzzy. The personal slave of a wealthy man was often better off than a peasant. The slave could own property, and even have servants. He could purchase his freedom, or his master could free him with a word. ¹⁵

Slaves sometimes even married members of their owners’ families, so that in the long term those belonging to households tended to be assimilated into free society. In the New Kingdom (from about 1539 to 1075 B.C.), large numbers of captive slaves were acquired by major state institutions or incorporated into the army. Punitive treatment of foreign slaves or of native fugitives from their obligations included forced labor, exile (in, for example, the oases of the western desert), or compulsory enlistment in dangerous mining expeditions. ¹⁶ Working in gold mines was at least as fearsome as construction. Naked slaves mined for long hours under horrible conditions which was ignored by their masters and were paid very little for it. Men worked deep underground hacking at the gold ore (rocks that contained the precious metal). Children carried the stones up in baskets, and women and the elderly washed the ore. Slave miner’s life was so unbearable that it is a thought that many wished for an early death to release them. ¹⁷

Kinship and Households

In the early civilizations, kinship tended to remain important within each class, although specific kinship arrangements varied considerably from one civilization to another. There were also differences among classes within the same civilization, with the upper classes generally placing greater emphasis on tracking genealogies and having more generations of the same family living together than was the case for peasant families. ¹⁸

At the core of Egyptian social structure are family and household, the latter is a more expansive and inclusive institution. In Egypt, as in all state-level societies, kinship was not the dominant mode of connection and articulation of social modes of being. Rank and role usually determined social position, and most people had to relate to non-kin in order to function within the society as a whole. But kinship was a primary structuring mechanism in communities and was vital for the individual. ¹⁹ The family was considered the core of Egyptian society—even the private gods were arranged into family groupings. They had pride in their families and their forebears, and traced their ancestry back through both the mother and father’s lines. ²⁰

Six basic kinship terms formed the core of the Egyptian system, locating the individual in ascendant and descendant (vertical) or collateral (horizontal) relationships: father (it), mother (mwt), son (sA), daughter (sAt), brother (sn) and sister (snt). Additional terms describe affinal (non-blood) kin relationships, notably husband (hAy) and wife (Hmt). The distinction between ascendant and collateral relationships may point to the existence of separate patterns of kin category.

Ascendant terms both restricted and extended meanings in terms of generation and lines of descent: ‘‘father’’ could also mean grandfather and spouse’s father, as well as male ancestors more generally; ‘‘mother’’ has a similar frame of reference. It can extend metaphorically to the role of ‘‘guardian’’ or ‘‘teacher.’’ Such usages illuminate the behaviors and responsibilities associated with particular relationships. The range of meanings encompassed by the collateral terms, sn and snt, is wider. Sn could designate an individual as brother, mother’s brother, father’s brother, sister’s husband, mother’s sister’s son, brother’s son, sister’s son, or brother by marriage. The terms also extended to non-kin colleagues, friends, or rivals.

At the heart of Egyptian kinship terminology was the parent–child relationship. Although the social realities of kin group and household were probably more extended and complex, the image of the nuclear family was potent for monumental display, mobilizing continuity, legitimacy, and adherence to social norms. ²¹

Men

The history of the ancient Egyptian man can be traced back to pre-historic Egypt. The known history, however, begins with the unification of lower and Upper Egypt and thus the formation of the kingdom in 3100 BC. The mass of the population of Egyptian men and women lived in the local villages. The bulk of the priests in the temples and nobles in the court also consisted of men, although women could also attain these ranks, even though it was rare. It was a custom for Egyptian men to follow the profession of their fathers. But this was not a strict rule and independent careers could be chosen should there be some luck or skill involved.

The role of ancient Egyptian men in society was not much different from the role of men in other societies of the time. A large section of Egyptian society was involved in agriculture, like all traditional societies, while many ancient Egyptian men also had roles in trade and commerce. It was expected of men to establish themselves in their career before seeking a wife. The class of priests and nobles was also mainly composed of Egyptian men. ²²

Women

In the tombs, women were portrayed in secondary positions if they were shown at all. In some historical periods, women were portrayed the same size as their husbands, but in most instances, they were smaller and placed in a peripheral area. The royal women were the best documented, but even they are only cursorily mentioned in dynastic records. In the nomes, however, many women, such as Princess Nebt, did maintain their own estates and hold high ranks personally or as regents for their minor sons. In times of building, for example, women were subject to the corvée, ²³ the service given to the pharaoh at pyramid or temple sites. No government positions were held by women, except as regents for the royal heirs or nome heirs, and even in the temples the roles of women were normally peripheral. In the Eighteenth Dynasty, queens held the rank of “God’s Wife of Amun,” a role that evolved into a politically powerful role in later generations, restricted to princesses of the various dynasties. At the same time, however, women bought and bartered items in the marketplace, sold real estate, oversaw doctor’s treatments, piloted boats, and served as court-appointed executrixes of estates. They normally married only with their consent, unless they were Nome heiresses or members of the royal families. They testified as valid witnesses in court, drew up wills, and filed for divorce. In a divorce proceeding, the woman kept her dowry and was usually awarded one-third of the joint property. In the Late Period (712–332 B.C.) couples made prenuptial agreements. Higher-ranked women were comparatively literate and quite equal to men before the law. ²⁴ Following were the roles of women in ancient Egypt:

Royal Women

Just as family ties were centrally important to average Egyptians, they were equally important to the ruling household. The word pharaoh, which we usually use to mean “king,” actually meant the “great house”—the king, his family, and administrators—that governed the land and brought order to it. (The word pharaoh always referred to the king himself as the embodiment of the full administration.) In this system, although kings had immense power, the women of the household also were able to exert a good deal of influence and independence. While kings could have many wives and concubines, they nevertheless had one woman as their main consort, and they selected a family member—sister or half-sister—to fill this role. In this way, they imitated the brother sister marriage of the deities Isis and Osiris and at the same time kept their own divinity in the family.

The most influential royal women could thus claim to have many titles: ‘king’s daughter,’ ‘king’s wife,’ and with luck and longevity, ‘king’s mother.’ The royal consort was depicted with her husband fulfilling official ritual duties, and the sources indicate that sometimes these women engaged in correspondence with foreign dignitaries. Beyond these general roles, however, the actual working out of power relationships within the royal households depended upon the individual women involved. Some women— such as Queen Tiy—exerted immense influence while remaining within the traditional family structure. Others, such as Queen Hatshepsut, ruled completely alone, taking on the image and activities of a king. Occasionally, queens ruled as regents in the name of very young sons who inherited the throne. ²⁵

Harem Women

Particularly during Egypt’s imperial age, kings kept harems ²⁶ of hundreds of wives. Many were brought from foreign lands (along with their many servants and attendants) to firm up diplomatic ties with peoples in distant parts of the empire. Female singers, dancers, and musicians were often added to the royal harem to entertain at court.

Contrary to a Royal Lady, a harem woman might not see the king very often, even though she was married to him. Still, there was always a chance he might choose her as a favorite. And there was a small chance that the king’s great wife would not give birth to a son. If that happened, and the son of a harem woman would be promoted to crown prince. Whatever her origin, a woman whose son became king became a queen herself—the great royal mother. ²⁷

Working Woman

The wife supervised the household, including servants, and is expected to care for her children’s upbringing. ²⁸ Some did have professions, but these seem to be restricted to midwifery, textile production, mourning, ²⁹ priestesses ³⁰ of Hathor or priestess musicians. However, it also true that there were few male midwives and mourners, so it may not be the case that men had more opportunities than women, but simply that their opportunities were different.

The roles women held were not only influenced by gender, but also by their social class. While elite women could become Chantresses of Amun, and would spend much of their time running large households, non-elite women might be household servants, hairdressers and wet nurses, as well as homemakers.

The roles women held were not only influenced by gender, but also by their social class. While elite women could become Chantresses of Amun, and would spend much of their time running large households, non-elite women might be household servants, hairdressers and wet nurses, as well as homemakers.Roles also varied from period to period. During the Old Kingdom, women were priestesses, buyers and sellers, gleaners and possibly even doctors. For much of ancient Egyptian history, they were the chief producers in Egypt’s second most important industry – textile manufacture. Throughout Egyptian history, they were vital to the running of the home and in the care of children critical to social reproduction. Some activities were conducted outside the home, though they may have largely involved women whose primary role was that of housewife. These include trading, cultic singing and dancing, wet nursing, gleaning, flax-pulling, looking after animals, and so forth.

Women as Slave Owners

The usual pattern was that women owned female slaves, but they were free to own male slaves as well. Bitinna of Ephesus, the protagonist in the mime, owned a male slave who was also her lover. She berated him for not being satisfied with her and for his involvement with another woman. The women who were primarily the owner of the slaves, received them through inheritance or dowry since they did not have the cash to purchase them. ³¹ In ancient Egypt, the morality of the people had stooped so low that it was normal for them to have sexual relations with whomever they liked, regardless of the fact that he was her brother, father, son or even a slave. Since the women were not sexually satisfied by their men, who used to have countless sexual partners, the women also started to use their slaves as tools to satisfy their carnal desires.

Inheritance

Women held the same legal rights as men from the same class and could own and inherit property. A woman did not lose her legal rights after her marriage and retained her property during the marriage. While married, she could own, inherit, and sell any of her property with the same freedom as if she were single. When drawing up her will, a woman could distribute her property any way she wanted and had no legal obligation to leave anything to her children. An Egyptian widow was automatically entitled to a third of her husband’s property as well as keeping all she entered the marriage with, in addition to all she accumulated throughout the marriage. (The remaining two-thirds of her husband’s property was divided between his children and his siblings.) By making gifts to his wife during his life, a husband could prevent distribution of his property after death, because his wife already owned everything. ³²

In general, the position of women appears to have been more favorable in territorial states than it was in city-state systems, perhaps because life at the peasant level in territorial states was less transformed from what it had been prior to the rise of the state and because upper class women had more political roles to play in the small ruling elites of these societies. Yet the relatively high position of women in Yoruba society warns us that these arguments should not be pushed too far. It seems that specific cultural traditions exerted an important influence, alongside structural considerations, in shaping the role played by men and women in early civilizations. ³³

Marriage

Fertility in crops, animals, and humans was a major theme of the Egyptian religion, so it is not surprising that Egyptians wanted to get married and start having children as soon as possible. The ancient Egyptian expressions for marriage were grg-pr ³⁴ (to find a house) and meni, (to moor a boat), and both suggest that the arrangement was about property. There were no religious or state ceremonies involved in a wedding and—strangely for a society obsessed with recording every detail of life— marriages were not registered by scribes. ³⁵

In ancient Egypt, a healthy attitude towards sex was not regarded as tainted with guilt but as an enjoyable activity, although within the parameters of marriage. Incest was also allowed but was mostly practiced within the royal family, where brother-sister marriage was necessary for the succession. Believing that life after death would be more or less a continuation of life on earth, sexual activity would not cease after death. Thus, some Egyptian men attached false penises to their mummies while Egyptian women added artificial nipples. ³⁶

Foreign to modern ideas was the frequent custom in the royal family of marriage between brother and sister; it was considered as the most suitable and fitting alliance. It must, indeed, have been a general custom, especially where there was landed property; for in the literature and love songs, the words brother and sister bear the same significance as beloved and lover, or as husband and wife. ³⁷

Some evidence shows that during the Pharaonic Period consanguineous marriages were possible. Within the royal family the practice may have been more common than it was among commoners, but incestuous associations appear on the whole to have been rare until the Ptolemaic Period. When practiced it was almost always a marriage between a half-brother and a half-sister. In the literature on the so-called Amarna Period (14th century B.C.) some scholars are of the opinion that there existed an incestuous relationship between king Akhenaten (Amenophis IV) and three of his daughters, even resulting in the birth of several small girls. Also, Ramses II is believed to have married one of his daughters. ³⁸

Indeed, most marriages in Egypt were arranged. Usually a relative— most often a father, uncle, or grandfather—met with his counterpart in the other family and worked out an agreement in advance. Evidence suggests that only sometimes was the modern ideal of romantic love the basis of a marriage. Yet there is no doubt that some Egyptians did fall in love, since numerous love songs and poems, several of them beautifully written, have survived.

Those Egyptians who managed to find the sort of deeply felt love expressed by these words were likely in the minority. Yet most people aspired to find it. This is confirmed by the extensive use of magic spells intended to make one person fall in love with another. To the Egyptians, magic was viewed as a real natural force that was generated in some unknown way by the mysterious powers of one god or another. Thus, in order for a spell to work, one had to call upon and request the aid of a particular deity. Archaeologists have found such spells written on pieces of broken pottery. In one, a man who desired to make a young woman fall madly in love with him invoked the help of Ra, god of the sun: ‘Grant that this girl, true child of her mother, pursue me with undying passion, follow close on my heels like a cow seeking pasture, like a nursemaid minding her charge, like a guardian after his herd! For if you will not cause her to love me, I must surely abandon the day, consumed to dust in the fire of my burning.’ ³⁹

Whether a bride and groom were in love or not, the average age at which Egyptian males got married was between fifteen and twenty. Females were a bit younger, most often twelve to fourteen. Once it was decided who would marry whom, the actual marriage process was much uncomplicated by modern standards. More often than not, however, the bride’s and groom’s families did get together to celebrate the union. ⁴⁰ The suitor offered a sum called the “virginity gift,” when appropriate, to compensate the bride for what she would lose, indicating that in ancient times virginity was prized in female brides. The gift did not apply in the case of second marriages, of course, but a ‘gift to the bride’ would be made even in that case. In return, the family of the bride-to-be offered a ‘gift in order to become a wife.’ In many cases, these two gifts were never delivered since the pair soon merged households. However, in the event of divorce, either party could later sue for the agreed gift. A third sum, called the “alimentation,” consisted of a periodic subsidy from the bride’s family to compensate for the additional expense of a second person in the household, and it was given with stipulations of how the wife must be treated in return. The remainder of the contract consisted of a kind of ancient prenuptial agreement, specifying what property belonged to the woman and what belonged to the man, as well as stating who would inherit what on the death of either party. In some cases, a written contract was executed before witnesses, in others only a verbal agreement took place. The new husband and wife presided at this affair, rather than being the guests of either set of parents. Surviving wall paintings and writings describe wedding parties that involved feasting, singing, dancing, and storytelling. ⁴¹

The Wife’s Rights

Even though marriages were not officially registered, it was normal for the fathers of the bride and groom to arrange a prenuptial contract between them. This lays down what allowance the wife was to receive from her husband and what presents he would give his wife and future in-laws.

Role of the Concubine

While the king could have several wives, for everyone else marriage was monogamous, which meant the husband had only one wife at a time. However, it was considered legal, and even respectable, for a man to keep an official lover, or concubine, if he could afford. This was another aspect of the Egyptian’s desire for many children to improve the family’s fortunes. Although the man’s wife and children used to come first, he was expected to look after the concubine and her children after the original ones. ⁴²

Divorce

After recovering from the merriment, the couple began married life with the presumption that their union would last until death. Of course, life did not always work out so well; even in ancient times, divorces although not common, did occur. Since neither church nor state had joined the pair, no authorization was required for their separation. All that severing involved was living apart. ⁴³

Yet, given marriage’s contractual obligations, divorce for most couples involved a legal declaration of the dissolution of the marriage, which freed them to marry again. The original marriage contract also contained stipulations about the contractual gifts and other matters. If a husband initiated a divorce, he forfeited the entire gift to the bride, or in some cases an amount double of that gift. If the wife instituted a divorce, she returned half of the gift to the bride. Regardless of who began the proceedings, the husband was obliged to continue paying the wife’s alimentary money, providing full financial support until she married again. Not without its modern counterparts, this clause certainly held some marriages together that otherwise would have dissolved. Other contracted sums were generally assigned to the children. ⁴⁴

Causes of Divorce

Adultery appeared to have been the most common cause of divorce in Egypt. In a majority of the known cases, the husband accused the wife, which might reflect the fact that the male-dominated society viewed a wife’s infidelity as more disreputable and unforgivable than a husband’s. Still, Egyptian literature does contain a number of warnings against male cheaters. One cautions, “Do not sleep with a wife who is not yours so that no fault may be found with you because of it.” In another the actual divorce process began with one spouse—usually, but not always, the one accused of cheating—leaving the house. A majority of ancient.

A majority of ancient Egyptian homes were owned by men. Often, the wife was expected to find lodgings elsewhere, perhaps with her parents or a sibling. In one documented case, a male friend of a husband who had thrown his wife out took her in for a while because she had nowhere else to go, the friend wrote, “His wife spent forty days dwelling with me in my house, and I provided for her.” The parties also had to sign a formal agreement that said, among other things, that one, the other, or both were free to remarry. ⁴⁵ Another reason for divorce was that the married couple was unable to have children. ⁴⁶

Either partner could start a divorce for fault (adultery, infertility, or abuse) or no fault (the two discover they were not compatible). Divorce was the matter of disappointment but it was certainly not a matter of disgrace, and it was common for divorced people to remarry. When a woman chose to divorce, and her husband did not disagree, she left with what she brought into the marriage, plus a share of the joint property. But the circumstances were also taken into account. When one woman abandoned her sick husband, a later judgment forced her to renounce all the joint property. If the husband left the marriage, he would be liable to make payment to support his ex-wife, and he might be forced to give up his share of the joint property. Generally, the wife was given custody of the children and was free to remarry. ⁴⁷

Recreational Activities

Egyptians lived in an economic environment completely different from ours. Money did not exist initially; the idea of a workweek had no meaning and the concept of leisure time was unknown to most of the population. Surprisingly, however different the context and specifics might have been, work and play in Egypt’s ancient culture closely resembled that of modern societies—at least until the nineteenth century, when machines took over the world.

Egyptians had no weekends. Most worked every day, with few exceptions. Special holy days of the year called for all the inhabitants of a given area to lay down their tools and gather at a local temple to watch a procession of idols, after which they feasted on bountiful free food supplied by the temple. ⁴⁸ Even their recreational activities consisted of things which were very harmful for the society.

Entertainment

There were no games or public theaters in Egypt, but the musical splendor of public holidays in honor of various gods made up for this. At large temples, priests and priestesses often performed sacred dramas about the lives of the gods, which not only made for a religious experience, but also a fun day out for the family. Festivals held in ancient Egypt were usually holidays in honor of important gods. During festivals held in their honor by the priests, statues of the gods were carried through the streets. ⁴⁹

Play

Long hours of incessant work allowed little playtime for farm workers; others enjoyed only a few free days granted by their employers from time to time. Most play, therefore, involved children, independent marsh men or people rich enough to have estates with overseers. Yet abundant evidence pointed to the playful spirits of all Egyptians, even those without the leisure for pure play. Whenever workers were shown in tomb scenes, they were described in hieroglyphs as encouraging one another, bantering with fellow workers and singing.

Recreation

Since tomb walls served as pictorial records of what the deceased wanted to recreate in his next life, they tell us what the owner enjoyed in this life as well. Most common are scenes of banquets, hunting and fishing. At least the class of people who could afford decorated tombs found some of their fondest pleasures in sport. Much like today, fishing and hunting were pursued more for the pleasure of the catch than for the food. Marshes provided a favorite arena for the activity.

Desert hunting provided the thrill of the chase. Egyptians, mounted in chariots, usually in groups of three or four to corral their prey, pursued speedy game such as rabbits, antelope or gazelles with bows or spears. Even the most dangerous animals—fierce lions and leopards—were hunted in a desert more verdant than it is today. Sometimes a tied cow was used as bait, and hunting dogs, swifter over short distances than chariots, were employed as well. Indeed, Egyptians are the first people on record, though not necessarily the first in fact, to domesticate the dog, a greyhound-like species known today as the saluki. More certain and surprising is the fact that they first domesticated cats and used them as hunting animals in the marshes.

Children practiced with bows, spears and throwing sticks by the hour to gain enough proficiency to hit live targets, and adults honed their skills regularly as well. Bullfighting was the one known Egyptian spectator sport. The Egyptian version pitted bull against bull rather than man against beast, but referees with short sticks watched, ready to step in to prevent fatal injury to either animal. ⁵⁰

Other Egyptian amusements included sailing for its own sake with no objective other than to enjoy the cool breeze of the Nile. Music provided another favored entertainment. Festive scenes on tomb walls almost always depict an orchestra, generally with dancers swaying to its rhythms. Old Kingdom bands consisted of harp, drums, oboe and flute, with a variety of mandolins and lyres; a double flute was added by the New Kingdom. While a type of straight bugle existed, its shrill tones only issued commands for troops and never figured in musical ensembles. Harps, ranging from half the size of a man, and played kneeling, to taller than man-sized and played standing, consisted of four to seven cat-gut strings in the smaller versions and as many as from ten to twenty-two in the larger. All were tied to an oversized sounding board which used stretched leather to amplify the sound. Blind harpists, probably because their handicap gave them better memories for the lyrics they sang, are often depicted. Flutes or, more correctly, reed pipes, were blown from their ends rather than their sides as with the modern flute. Surviving examples include instruments with from three to fourteen holes; another common type joined two pipes together, probably producing a semblance of harmony. Mandolins, thin oblong sounding-boxes with about six to eight strings attached to a long arm, were held vertically like guitars; a pick was used to strum the instrument.

Percussion instruments were many and varied. Drums consisted of a sort of tom-tom several feet long, slung over the shoulder with a cord and played with drumsticks. It was used not only to set a beat for a band, but this style of drum was also employed by the military to give Egyptian troops their marching cadences. Other drums were shallow in depth and struck with the hand. Both the tambourine and the forerunner of castanets, a pair of five-inch sticks clicked rhythmically in one hand, were also popular. A special percussion instrument called a sistrum was made of metal in the shape of the head of the cow goddess Hathor, patron of music. Her horns were elongated, so several wires on which metal disks were loosely strung could be attached crosswise, producing a metallic rattle sound when shaken. Dancers’ rhythmic clapping added more percussive sounds to a performance. Only women, most often naked or with only a sash around their waist, danced at banquets. They were often depicted bending backwards in gymnastic-like contortions as their long hair, tied at the ends with weights, that swayed to the music, touched the ground. When these immoral acts were done in the name of entertainment, they were not condemned and women, who were supposed to be respected, merely became tools for pleasure and lust. To reduce the venom of these heinous acts, people gave them names like freedom of expression, natural lifestyle etc. and many naïve people fell for this sugar coated poison and ended up destroying the social and moral fabric of the society because if the women went astray or fell in to wicked ways, humanity suffers a lot.

One scene shows part of a troop of dancers, their hair pulled high to simulate the tall, white pharonic crown, posing in the familiar attitude of a pharaoh smiting his enemies while others in the group acted the role of victims. Given the dancers’ slim bodies and noticeable breasts, this dance must surely have been performed for comic effect. In a solemn dance performed for funerary processions, dancers with caps hiding their hair slid their right feet forward, with arms, palms up forming a circle over their heads, then slid their left feet ahead while their right arms moved to a forty-five-degree angle and the left descended behind the body. Step by slow step the dancers made their way to the tomb, followed by singers, mourners, friends, relatives and servants. ⁵¹

Games and Sports

In Egypt is found one of history’s oldest sports cultures, surpassing in age, scope, and depth of sources even the Sumerian sports culture. The rise of the sports culture in Egypt coincides with the height of the Egyptian civilization at the beginning of the third millennium B.C. some twenty-three hundred years before the first Olympic Games in Greece. ⁵²

Boys wore their hair in a single side-lock, the rest of the head was shaved in youth, and this aspect is also depicted in many works showing people playing games outdoors. A healthy childhood was thought to lead to a healthy and productive adult member of the community, although, in a seeming contradiction of this value, wealthy priests, scribes, and administrators are frequently depicted as overweight. ⁵³ Games existed in great variety, from sedate board types to more physical ones, with most of the latter being played by children. They loved their version of tug of war in which one team’s captain grasped the wrists of the other captain while, behind, each team formed a human chain to try to pull them apart. “Your arm is much stronger than his! Don’t give in to him!” one team urged its captain on a tomb wall from 4,000 years ago. Another favorite game resembled the buck-buck game played by modern-day Boy Scouts.

A standing group of six to eight boys formed a line by linking their arms over their shoulders. The object of the game was for the other members of their team to leap on top—not an easy feat—and settle on all fours. Then the other team had its turn. One scene illustrating this game included the score: two children succeeded.

Another game consisted of seating two children back-to back with their arms grasping the ankles of their outstretched legs. The object was for a third child to jump over this human obstacle, a challenge complicated by the obstacle’s attempts to trip the jumpers. Although the seated children kept their eyes closed, the jumper was required to yell a warning as he ran toward them. Also popular was the universal odds and evens in which two players shot out as many fingers as they wished after yelling either odd or even; a count of the combined fingers determined the winner.

Wrestling, beloved of both men and boys in ancient Egypt, achieved a great degree of complexity and required long training. Tombs of Middle Kingdom nobility in modern Beni Hassan show hundreds of vignettes of paired wrestlers—with only a ribbon around their waists—illustrating as many different holds and throws, from half-Nelsons to hip-rolls. A match began, as in our own day, with two opponents coming at one another in a semicrouch, reaching for a first hold. Marshmen and other boating people substituted a kind of joust for wrestling in which, as spectators rooted for their favorite, the crew of one small punt tried to knock the other crew in the water with long poles. Other games taught military skills, as one in which contestants wielded short sticks simulating swords or battle axes and used small boards fixed to one lower arm to ward off an opponent’s blows. Others involved aiming arrows and spears at targets. Given the Nile’s proximity, swimming, of course, was a favorite pastime for all.

Girls and young women enjoyed their own varieties of games. Many involved balls carved from wood or made by sewing leather around a packed wad of straw. Juggling two or three balls was popular, as was a simple game of catch. To make tossing a ball more interesting, one girl rode piggyback on another and threw the ball to a similarly mounted rider, attempting to keep three balls moving at once. Perhaps the first girl to drop the ball became the “horse” in the next round. In another, more gymnastic, exercise, two participants stood back-to-back with outstretched arms while two others grasped their arms and leaned back almost horizontally with their feet resting against each other. The entire ensemble then spun around as often as they could until overcome by dizziness.

More activities included four board games known from examples found in tombs—an indication of how much they must have been enjoyed. The oldest, called mehen, consisted of a serpent etched on a board whose body, divided into segments, coiled to the center. Pieces representing three lions and three lionesses were found in a drawer in the board along with a red and a white ball. Since no instructions were included, its rules are unknown, but most likely it was an antecedent of such modern games as Chutes and Ladders, in which a piece moves from square to square, some with rewards, others with penalties, and the objective is to reach the end before one’s opponent. How moves were decided is a question, since dice did not exist. ⁵⁴

Indoor Board Games

The ancient Egyptians did like hanging outside, but it was indoors that Egyptians enjoy the most popular entertainment of all—board games. In Hounds and Jackals, named after its stick counters topped with the heads of those animals, the game was played by moving the pieces about the board determined by the throw of marked sticks.

Parties and Quiet Relaxation

Wealthy Egyptians often entertained by holding extravagant parties with plenty of food to eat and wine to drink, while singers, musicians, dancers, prostitutes, concubines, acrobats, and jugglers entertained the guests. The Egyptians loved music, and played instruments such as the lute, harp, lyre, and several types of flute and pipes.

Other quiet moments might be spent enjoying household pets, which included geese, monkeys, cats, and dogs. When a pet died, its collar was buried along with it, ready for reunion with its owner one day in the afterlife. ⁵⁵

Story Telling

Along with their games and sports, the Egyptians enjoyed another form of recreation equally, and this was storytelling. Although the tale of Sneferu and the Green Jewel highlights how the king's spirits were lifted by watching the beautiful women row him about the lake, the focus of the tale was on the green jewel which falls from one of the women's hair and was lost in the lake. She became upset and stopped rowing. The king's chief scribe, who had come along on the trip, parted the water on either side and retrieved the jewel. The story related how "the water was twelve cubits deep" but the scribe uttered his magic spell which folded the water back on itself to create a wall of water which "amounted to twenty-four cubits after it was folded back".

Stories of the gods, tales of heroes like Sinuhe, The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, ghost stories all were told at gatherings, festivals, and parties. These stories often had a moral but this did not lessen their entertainment value or popularity. The Tale of Setna and Taboubu, for example, was a very popular story dating from the first millennium B.C. which relates how a prince, lusting after a beautiful woman, surrenders everything, including his family, to have her. He is tricked, however, and finds himself naked in the street after being taught a lesson in respect and prudence by the goddess Bastet. ⁵⁶

Dancing

An Egyptian would not have jumped onto the table and danced the night away to tunes from the party band. Music was typically accompanied by a group of dancers, who, like the musicians, were hired for the occasion. ⁵⁷ Both men and women participated in dancing, often at the same, time and place. ⁵⁸

Dancing was a very erotic form of entertainment. The performers were normally naked, except for an elaborate collar and a decorative belt or loincloth. Some dancers are shown in tomb drawings with perfume cones on their heads, indicating they also smelt nice and gave the audience a waft of perfume as they flitted by. Many dancers used their hair as a tool by flicking it from side to side; some tomb images even show weights tied into the hair, ensuring it moved in the correct way. ⁵⁹ The basic contemporary problem is that instead of accepting that primitive people of ancient Egypt made mistakes and were wrong, the modern scholarship seems inspired by their idiosyncratic and shameful acts and encourages the naïve people to follow in their footsteps. The most humorous aspect of all this is that people label these primitive and barbaric acts as modernity.

Prostitution

Prostitution has been euphemized as “the oldest profession.” Anthropologists show that in even the most primitive societies, there was usually one woman who lived outside the village and engaged in transactional sex or overt prostitution. Prostitution has been well documented in antiquity and is alleged to have financed the production of some of Egypt’s pyramids. ⁶⁰

In ancient Egypt, the god Amun indulged in sexual relations freely with many women, concealing his debauches under a religious guise. Families chose their most beautiful daughters, and offered them to the priests of the temple. As soon as they grew too old to satisfy the sexual appetites or tastes of the priests, they were permitted to leave the temple surrounded by all due respect. Often they would marry in to noble families and enjoy the greatest honors and respects. Girls practiced prostitution until they were married. ⁶¹

Prostitution in Egypt apparently was tolerated. Foreign writers cite the instance of one king who is said to have prostituted his daughter in order to discover a robber, and of another king, Cheops, who prostituted his daughter to obtain money for the construction of the pyramid bearing his name. Temple prostitution is believed to have been practiced and certain religious festivals were accompanied by immoral dances. But the religious and secular authorities sought to prevent its practice as appears in a law mentioned by Herodotus forbidding sexual intercourse within the walls of a temple.

Prostitution was probably common and among the ranks of the courtesans were many married women whose husbands had left them, and who wandered about the country practicing their profession. An overlord might and probably did at times abuse his power by making the daughters of his inferior’s subjects of his passion. ⁶² This prostitution resulted in more instability in the marriages that were enacted, more fatherless children, increased rates of domestic violence and poverty.

Homosexuality

Egyptians of Dynastic times were inclined to regard with equanimity a wide variety of sexual practices. Traditionally the pharaohs married their half-sisters, a custom that other people considered heinous. Self-confident in their cherished habits and customs, the Egyptians nonetheless cherished a distinct sense of privacy which restricted discussion.

The realm of mythology provides several instances of homosexual behavior. In order to subordinate him, the god Seth attempted to sodomize his brother Horus, but the latter foiled him, and tricked Seth into ingesting some of his (Horus’s) own semen. Seth then became pregnant. In another myth the ithyphallic god Min anally assaulted an enemy who later gave birth to the god Thoth. Both these stories present involuntary receptive as a humiliation, but the act itself was not condemned, in the latter incident the god of wisdom was born as a result. Such myths were developed in the name of religion to legitimize homosexuality and make it a norm for the society.

Egyptians were accustomed to sodomize enemies after their defeat on the battlefield, the evidence is equivocal. In what is history’s first homosexual short story, King Pepy II Neferkare made nocturnal visits to have sex with his General Sisinne who was leading his army. General Sisinne was gladly used as a sexual toy by King. The episode is significant as an instance of androphilia – sex between two adult men – rather than the pederasty that was dominant in the ancient world. Furthermore, a tomb was excavated from a slightly earlier period known as the tomb of the two brothers. The excavators have explained them as the joined sepulcher of two men, Niankhnum and Khnumhotep, who were lovers. Bas reliefs on the tomb walls show the owners embracing affectionately.

A dream book from a later period attests to the presence of male prostitutes of the ordinary kind; yet the institution of male temple prostitution, well established in western Asia, seems to have been lacking. A woman’s dream book contained two casual mentions lesbian relations, which have been common ⁶³ in their society otherwise multiple other cases have been recorded by different historians.

The basic problem of humanity has been the same. It has been searching for peace, but since it was blinded by the mundane facilities, it tried to find comfort and peace in it. In these mundane facilities, finding peace through having sex with women was one option, but the problem was that the time period of that peace was short lived and was then replaced with even more guilt and discomfort. To remove that, people increased their sexual partners but were still unsuccessful. When they had tried everything, they could do with one or multiple women at once, men experimented in having un-natural sexual relations with other men and to legitimize it in the society, they made it part of the religion. Still, neither the people who engage in coitus with many women nor these homosexuals found any true peace because they were and are unaware of the fact that peace was never attained by fulfilling the carnal desire of the body but by submitting to the will of God. To provide this peace to the souls of the troubled souls of the world, divine messengers were sent to this world and Prophet Muhammad was the last messenger who gave the way of life to be followed till the Day of Judgment which would give eternal peace to the people and success in this world and the hereafter. Even today, those people who follow his teachings are living happily in this world.

Food

Besides sleeping, the most basic and repetitive daily activities in Egyptian homes were preparing and consuming the daily meals. The Egyptians practiced agriculture on a grand scale. So, as Romano remarks, they usually “had as much food to eat as they desired.” ⁶⁴ There was nothing bland about the Egyptian diet. The availability and variety of spices used in Egyptian cuisine of the period would impress any modern cook. The liquorish taste of anise found constant use, along with the “sweet” flavor of mint. Cumin was much used, especially as a coating for fish, but dill, marjoram, rosemary, thyme and sage each added its distinct taste and perfume. Mustard plants yielded their seeds, although they were not ground with vinegar into the mustard mixture we use today, and safflower existed as well. Celery seeds were commonly used for seasoning. Of course, salt brought out the flavors of whatever it was sprinkled on, but pepper was not yet cultivated in Egypt. For the wealthy, two imports added exotic flavors—cinnamon and coriander. ⁶⁵ Of the many crops grown in the country, the most plentiful were varieties of wheat, with which the people made their staple food—bread (te). ⁶⁶

Baking bread

Dough was usually cooked in the shape of a pancake, but long or round rolls were also popular, and bread in the shape of a figure was often baked for ceremonial purposes. Sometimes thick loaves were made with a hollow center that was then filled with beans or vegetables, and a flat bread might have raised edges in order to hold eggs or other fillings.

Many ingredients were employed to flavor the bread, such as butter, oil, and eggs, or coriander seeds, honey, various herbs, and fruits such as dates. Grape yeast was added to some recipes to make the dough rise (leaven), but unleavened bread was more common. After the dough had been kneaded, it was placed in a baking mold and cooked over an open fire. More sophisticated homes used preheated molds, wiped with fat, which were placed in a tall, tapered bread oven with a firebox at the bottom, or flat loaves were placed on the outside of the oven wall and then dropped off when they were cooked. ⁶⁷

The Egyptians also consumed a lot of vegetables and fruits, along with some meat. Among the many vegetables were lentils, chickpeas, lettuce, turnips, beets, radishes, leeks, cucumbers, beans, garlic, and papyrus root (eaten mainly by the poor). Particularly popular were sweet onions. (People also placed onions in the armpits and eye sockets of mummies, believing that the sharp odor would allow the dead person’s spirit to breathe easier in the afterlife.) The fruits grown in Egypt during pharaonic times included dates, figs, grapes, plums, watermelons, coconuts (consumed mainly by the rich), and raisins.

Only from the late 300s B.C. on—when the Greeks and Romans controlled the country—were oranges, peaches, bananas, and lemons imported in significant numbers. As might be expected, only wealthy households could afford meat on a regular basis. Most families of average means ate meat mainly on religious holidays and other special occasions. Numerous kinds of animals were bred or hunted for their meat in ancient Egypt, among them goats, sheep, cattle, desert gazelle and hares, birds (including geese, pigeons, ducks, heron, quails, and pelicans), and fish (including perch, mullet, tilapia, carp, catfish, and eel). Various types of meat, including certain fish, were eaten uncooked, while others were cooked, as confirmed by Herodotus. ⁶⁸

Cooking of the Food

Food was prepared by baking, boiling, stewing, frying, grilling, or roasting. Most cooking was done in earthenware pots or pans, which stood on a tripod over a brazier, fueled by wood. The fire was lit using a fire-drill that created heat through friction. Egyptians cooked in the open air to avoid smoke and cooking smells inside the house and the risk of starting a fire. Some cooked on the roof of their houses.

Meat, Fish, and Poultry

The Nile teemed with fish, which the Egyptians enjoyed fresh, dried, or salted, and they were cheap enough for all to eat regularly. The poor could also sometimes afford wildfowl—geese, ducks, quails, and cranes being most popular, as well as domesticated poultry. However, because of its cost, meat appeared mostly on the tables of the rich.

Common people usually had meat during a festival, when a sheep or goat might have been slaughtered. For those who could afford it, beef was the most popular meat, followed by wild game such as antelope, ibex, gazelle, and deer.

Dairy Products

Milk, cheese, and butter were not everyday products, but all were sometimes used to make soups and sauces. There were a number of different oils and fats used in cooking—beef and goat fats, and oils obtained from horseradish, safflower, and caster-oil plants, and sesame, flax, and radish seeds. Oil and fat were mostly used for frying meat and vegetables, though food was also cooked in milk or butter.

Seasonings and Sweeteners

Egyptians did not use sea salt, because of its connection to the evil god Seth, but salt from the Siwa Oasis was available to add to cooking or for salting fish and some meats. Spices used include aniseed, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, fenugreek, marjoram, mustard, thyme, and parsley. Olives, introduced by the Hyksos, were rarely used in cooking. Honey was used to sweeten food—at least by the rich, since it was too expensive for the poor, who rely on various fruits as sweeteners, the most popular being dates. ⁶⁹

Additional dishes used to appear on the tables of the well-to-do. The wealthy considered beer the beverage of working people and preferred the smooth taste of wine for themselves. Grapes—either as low pruned bushes or as trellised vines—grew abundantly, especially in the Delta region famed for its vintages. Demonstrating the extent to which Egyptians favored this drink were the numerous tomb paintings that depicted the harvesting and pressing of grapes to extract their juice. Egyptians used the age-old method of trampling grapes with bare feet in vats large enough to hold from four to six people, a process which, unlike heavy presses, did not add the bitter, acidic flavor of crushed stems. To prevent falling into the grape mixture, workmen grasped ropes tied to a beam above the vat. Sometimes they were encouraged in their work by children beating a rhythm with sticks.

Grape juice was also drunk as an unfermented syrup by boiling the juice down to a very sweet drink. Since wine turns to vinegar when exposed to the air, Egyptian knowledge of this acidic liquid, by accident if not by design, was unavoidable because the clay containers in which wine was stored admitted air through their pores—in fact, wine jars found in tombs today all contain nothing but dried residue. Whether Egyptians used vinegar in cooking or in salads is not known. ⁷⁰

Beverages

Much of the barley grown in Egypt was used to make beer, since its flour was not an acceptable ingredient in bread for eating. Beer was drunk by every class of society, by adults and children alike. Workmen on sacred and royal building programs were given beer three times a day as part of their pay, while a jar of beer and some bread is a customary homecoming for a schoolboy.

Women brew the beer because it is seen as an offshoot of bread making—the basis of beer are loaves of specially made barley bread. Worshippers of the goddesses Bast, Sekhmet, and Hathor got drunk on beer as part of their worship—but no one needed an excuse to enjoy this favorite Egyptian brew.

Famous Wine of Egypt

In contrast to beer, Egyptian wine was expensive and a rich person’s drink. Wine was also offered to the gods and the deceased. The resurrected pharaoh was sometimes referred to as “one of the four gods…who live on figs and who drink wine.” Egyptians used to make a variety of wines, sweet and dry, and both red and white. Wine was also made from dates, palm sap, and pomegranates, especially further south in Upper Egypt, where grapes did not flourish as well as in the Delta. ⁷¹

Dining Customs

Rich and poor did not set exactly on the same tables. Most farmers dined infrequently on meat and never tasted expensive imports. A cow in ancient Egypt cost the equivalent of an entire year’s income for a craftsman or the annual harvest of a small farmer. The average citizen would not waste such a precious commodity on dinner. ⁷²

Dining customs varied according to a household’s financial and social means. One of them was seating. Poorer individuals usually sat on the floor around a low table, whereas the wealthy more often used chairs, as most people do today. Also, in the rare situations in which a lower-class person dined with richer folk, he or she was expected to speak only when spoken to. A well-known moral adage warned, “If you are a guest at the table of one greater than you,” make sure not to speak “to him until he bids you, for one knows not what may be offensive.” Instead, talk only “when he addresses you.”

Still another way that mealtime in richer households differed from that in poorer ones was a strange custom that Herodotus witnessed during his stay in Egypt. “When the rich give a party and the meal is finished,” he wrote, “a man carries round amongst the guests a wooden image of a corpse in a coffin, carved and painted to look as much like the real thing as possible, and anything from eighteen inches to three feet long.” He shows it to each guest in turn, and says, ‘Look upon this body as you drink and enjoy yourself. For you will be just like that when you are dead.’ There was one dining ritual, however, that was the same in every Egyptian home, regardless of the owner’s financial means and social status. Namely, no one used forks or spoons. Eating utensils were very rare in ancient Egypt, Romano explains. “Even members of the royal family ate with their hands,” a habit frequently portrayed in surviving wall paintings. ⁷³

Clothing

Egypt's climate was very warm, as it is today, and Egyptian dress provided the perfect complement to this warm weather. Both men and women tended to dress very lightly. For nearly 1,500 years it was very rare for men to wear anything on their torso, or upper body. Women also dressed lightly, and they too often bared much of their upper body. The basic form of female clothing was a simple dress called a kalasiris. It was a tube of cloth, sewn along one side, with one or two shoulder straps. In many cases the straps extended to mid torso, leaving the breasts exposed. ⁷⁴

Egyptian fashion was quite awkward, and for most of the population, the same kind of outfit worn by a woman was worn by a man which seems ridiculous in nature. The upper-class women in the Old Kingdom of Egypt ( 2613-2181 B.C.) wore longer dresses which covered their breasts, but the women of the lower classes would have worn the same simple kilt as their fathers, husbands, and sons.

Upper-class Egyptians in the same time period dressed the same only with more ornamentation. Egyptologist Helen Strudwick observes how "only by their jewelry could men from the wealthy class be distinguished from farmers and artisans". Women's dress was more distinctive between classes as upper-class women wore a long, figure-fitting dress with or without sleeves. These dresses were held in place by straps over the shoulders and sometimes were supplemented by a sheer tunic worn over them.

Women's fashions which bared the breasts were not a matter of concern. The upper-class women's dresses sometimes began below the breasts and went to the ankles. Lower-class women's skirts, as noted, were from the waist to the knees without a top. Before the development of linen, people wore clothes made of animal hides or woven papyrus reeds ⁷⁵

Except for preadolescent children, who always went naked, the ancient Egyptians primarily wore clothing made of linen, usually plain white but sometimes dyed yellow, red, or blue using safflower, the root of the madder plant, and acacia, respectively. During the Old and Middle Kingdoms, women of all social classes wore simple knee-length linen dresses, while lower-class men wore loincloths and upper-class men wore knee-length skirts. By the New Kingdom, the clothing of upper-class men and women became more distinct.

Men’s skirts had pleats and women’s dresses reached the floor, and both kinds of garments became more colorful and decorative. In addition, sometimes one garment was layered over another, with the outer one being shorter to create a tunic effect. Robes (long, loose garments tied at the neck) were also worn to distinguish the members of one profession from those of another. For example, only a high priest could wear a leopard skin fitted over his linen robes, which were pleated and often decorated with embroidery.

Men and women might also wear wool cloaks on occasion; archaeologists have found one man’s cloak that was made with fourteen yards of wool. However, such cloaks were not allowed in a temple, because the ancient Egyptians believed that wool was ritually impure. Many Egyptologists believe that this attitude was held towards every product that came from an animal instead of a plant. However, leather sandals and slippers and fur-lined boots have been found at temple worksites, although there is no evidence that they were ever worn inside the temple buildings. The most common footwear was a reed or rush sandal. ⁷⁶

Wigs were used, and various types of head coverings were worn to protect the hair or bare scalp from dust and the heat of the sun. During the Old and Middle Kingdoms, wigs were made of fiber or human hair and were adapted for use by the upper classes. Such wigs were often long, with great masses of hair pulled together in a stiff design. In such instances, beads were woven into the hair at set intervals to form an intricate pattern. ⁷⁷

Architecture

Although pyramids and temples from ancient Egypt still impress us thousands of years after they were built, all that remains of the homes where people were born, grew to adulthood and died are occasional low mounds of mud outlines. Temples and tombs endure because Egyptians made a sharp distinction between their religious architecture, constructed of permanent stone for eternity, and all other buildings, even palaces and fortresses, which were built of less durable adobe.

Ancient Egyptians had to contend with enormous temperature swings. At noon on a summer day, in this country surrounded by desert, the temperature could reach 120°F; nevertheless, because the Sahara does not hold its heat, temperatures could fall into the upper thirties on winter nights. In addition to sheltering people from both heat and cold, residential architects had to provide some sort of sanitary devices as well as storage facilities for preserving food. Because rainfall was infrequent and slight enough, plentiful sun-baked mud (adobe) served adequately for the main construction material.

Homes

The homes of the lower classes and those of slaves were very basic structures made entirely of mud brick and containing few if any decorative elements. ⁷⁸ The basic Egyptian house for all, except the very poor consisted of a high rectangular enclosure wall with an entry door at the narrow end that faced north, if possible, to take advantage of the prevailing breeze. Inside, the compound was divided into three facilities. Just past the entry door lay a garden with a central pool of cool water that also irrigated trees and shrubs planted around it. Next came a roofed area raised on columns open at the front to catch breezes and provide shade for family and guests, after which came apartments for the owner and immediate family, walled and roofed for privacy and to seal out nighttime cold. These three elements—an open courtyard, a columned portico and private apartments—made up the architectural plan of all Egyptian houses, however large or small they might be and however many times these elements might be multiplied to incorporate additional three-part shelters for servants and, in a palace, for a harem. Refinements to this basic structure could include stairs leading to a roof terrace where poles supported an awning—shade for family or guests—to catch breezes not felt at ground level. Some of these terraces incorporated ingenious scoops which trapped daytime breezes and circulated them through vents to the apartments below.

To minimize the heat, windows in inner rooms were placed high to let the hottest air exit as it rose. Windows were small in area— light was not desired when the sun shone so hot and bright—and unglazed, merely slatted with wood to keep birds out. Bedrooms incorporated raised alcoves for sleeping and adobe benches along one or more walls for sitting and supporting objects; niches in the walls held small oil lamps. Bathrooms, which adjoined the bedrooms of more expensive houses, consisted of a latrine wall enclosed on three sides for privacy, with a channel running to the outside of the enclosure. A screened area beside this section held wooden stools with holes in their seats above a bowl. Poor farmers simply used outside areas near their houses for sanitary purposes. Farm houses included an area behind the private apartments that held stables for animals along with silos to protect grain from predators, thus adding a fourth division for farmers to the three-part Egyptian house. The silos were domed structures of adobe brick that stood six feet high with a door halfway up for access to the grain inside and a trapdoor in the roof for filling the silo. A modest house would have four or more such granaries. Larger dwellings might also include a separate slaughterhouse where cows and other animals were butchered and their meat was hung to cure. By the time of the New Kingdom, cellars were added, providing additional spaces for storage and for work such as weaving and baking that could be performed in cool, subterranean conditions. As in modern urban areas, housing in crowded cities grew upward rather than spreading outward: thriving Thebes and Memphis consisted of homes that typically rose three or even four stories above a narrow base and employed common walls to form row houses with granaries erected on rooftops. Houses formed orderly grids along roads or alleys that fed into main thoroughfares which crossed in the center of the city.

In size, Egyptian homes were comparable to those of our time. While a mansion could be as large as 25,000 square feet and contain thirty rooms or more, more modest homes used about 2,000 square feet for their six to twelve rooms. The poorest class, however, lived in shelters of less than 1,000 square feet and four rooms. Complex mansions began with a huge open court and grand portico, after which came servants’ quarters. Apartments for the owner were positioned in the center of the compound with harem quarters adjoining. Each quarter had its own open court, pool and a separate portico, in addition to living apartments, so each section of the compound reproduced the standard three-part plan. Private passages led to each separate quarter so that an owner would never have to walk through the servants’ rooms at the front to reach his living compound. A kitchen, granaries and offices—all separate structures—lay to the rear. ⁷⁹

The Construction material were timber/mats and Nile mud. As is usual around the Mediterranean and in the Near East, and because of climatic conditions, houses of this type had an outwardly defensive fortress-like appearance and were oriented towards the inside, being erected around a courtyard or Hall. They were built out of mud bricks and timber, materials that were climatically advantageous; stone was used only in thresholds, door frames, the bases of columns, window grilles and the like. ⁸⁰

To counter the occasional rain, roofs sloped slightly to produce a natural runoff of water into drain spouts attached to the lowest corners. Likewise, windows and doors often carried wooden hoods to force dripping water away from those openings, and the walls forming the compound enclosure were rounded on top, since flat tops would have held water and soon decomposed. In poor homes, floors were made of packed earth; in more elegant ones, floors consisted of adobe bricks plastered over, like all the walls of the house. Interior walls were painted with a white background on which bright painted designs or scenes from religion or nature provided the home’s main decoration.

Furniture was scanty, even for the rich, consisting of chairs, often set on a dais, low stools, beds, boxes for clothing and jewelry and small, portable oil lamps. Tables, generally round, were sized for individuals rather than families. Beds, also small, were simple wooden frames on legs with twine lashing for a mattress and a separate curved headrest which supported the head at the neck.

Ancient Egyptian residential architecture contributed to a genteel living style. A family could sit beside their pool, taking in the beauty of shrubs and low sycamores, or be joined by friends in the shade of the columned portico for talk or food. Conversation and eating finished, they could retire to the privacy of their own rooms. Owners often painted good luck wishes around the compound’s main entrance, such as, “May Amun-Ra, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, give life, prosperity, health, joy, favor and love,” or, “Mayest thou enter into this house, being healthy” etc. ⁸¹

Palaces

Much of the grandeur of Egyptian architecture was due to the sculptor and the painter. ⁸² The kings lived in style with hosts of retainers. Unlike modern countries with royal heads of state, Egypt did not maintain a national palace into which succeeding rulers moved. Although palaces covered acres of land, they too were constructed of adobe to last only a generation or so, allowing the next pharaoh to build a new residence to his own specifications. Each ruler constructed not just one new residence but several for the different places he needed to reside—the twin capitals of Thebes and Memphis at the very least. Unhappily, none of these grand palaces has survived, so what we know of them is based on tomb pictures and on the few floors and crumbling walls that today comprise the remains of the two best preserved examples. These belonged to a father and his son, Amenhotep III and the heretical pharaoh Akhenaten, built during the Eighteenth Dynasty, the apex of Egypt’s wealth and power. Akhenaten’s palace may well have been the grandest ever constructed in Egypt. A hundred-foot-wide thoroughfare, the Royal Road, divided the palace from the royal residences, joined by a bridge over the road. This bridging of structures was an innovation in Egypt, perhaps modified from Assyrian buildings that also spanned thoroughfares. On the east side of the road lay the formal palace, called the House of Rejoicing of the Aten, including the state reception rooms, some government offices and servants’ quarters; on the west stood the residence area for the pharaoh, his immediate family and personal retainers.

The private residence of the king on the west side ran for 100 yards beside the Royal Road and stretched back for at least 150 yards more. Servants’ quarters (or, perhaps, residences for royal guards) were discretely passed on the right before entering a square garden, 150 feet on a side which occupied the northern side of the compound. South of the garden lay the private apartments of the royal family inside their own walled structure. Its three areas consisted of personal servants’ quarters filling the west half, a separate structure in its southeastern corner of six rooms plus bathroom, presumably for the six daughters of the king, and the pharaoh’s private rooms.

Separated from the children’s area by a court and a wall, a large columned hall divided the king’s suite of two rooms on one side, with a bathroom and latrine, from an open area with an altar on the other side. Additional courtyards and rooms for family recreation filled the middle part of these private apartments. The rest of the compound, its easternmost, consisted of magazines for storing food and an artificial pond in the northeastern corner, 40 feet in diameter. A family of eight could live most comfortably in this 145,000-square-foot home. Across the bridge on the other side of the Royal Road stood the formal, state palace of the pharaoh, a huge structure that stretched for at least 700, if not 1,000, feet along the Royal Road and ran back from it for at least 600 feet more. It comprised several distinct areas: a palace, a festival hall, servants’ quarters and vast suites of rooms, generally considered harems, lining the Royal Road.

The only entrance from the road led into a pair of courtyards back to back, dividing what early excavators considered the harem into two roughly equal parts. The northern half centered around a sunken garden with a pond, flanked both east and west by rows of fifteen rooms. North and south of the sunken garden stretched more halls and still more rooms. One hall in the north section contained a floor sublimely painted with scenes of a fish-filled pool surrounded by marsh grasses and fowl. At least fifty rooms in the southern half bordered four large courtyards, making this structure seem far too large for harem purposes, especially for a king with only two known wives in addition to his queen, Nefertiti. More likely this vast complex of suites, north and south, consisted of offices for various high and middle grade government officials. If so, they worked in grand surroundings, though some labored in mere cubicles. Deeper into the compound, behind the “harem” lining the Royal Road, lay servants’ quarters to the north and the palace proper to the south. The servants’ quarters, which covered an area at least 30,000 feet square, consisted of roomy suites composed of a bedroom, bath and living room bordering a courtyard. Although never completely excavated, such servants’ suites would probably number fifty or more. ⁸³

After looking at the historical facts and the infinite level of praise given by people who are deemed as intellectuals of our age, it becomes clear the people who are the opinion makers, they were either biased or ignorant because after going through all the details of ancient Egypt and other barbaric and immoral civilizations of the world, how could they entitle them as great when none of those civilizations were able to provide sound religious, political, economic, educational, legal and military systems? These systems were provided and implemented by the prophets of Allah and were perfected in the era of Prophet Muhammad . The message and systems brought by the last prophet is the guidance for humanity till the Day of Judgment, but in the historical books, hardly any details about the divine prophets or the systems brought by them are found, and even if they are, they are portrayed negatively which raises important questions on the integrity of these historians and intellectuals.

• ¹ Rosalie David (2003), Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt, Facts on File Inc., New York, USA, Pg. 358.
• ² Allan B. Lloyd (2010), A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Blackwell Publishing, Sussex, U.K., Vol. 1, Pg. 487-488.
• ³ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 85-86.
• ⁴ Rosalie David (2003), Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt, Facts on File Inc., New York, USA, Pg. 358-359.
• ⁵ Allan B. Lloyd (2010), A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Blackwell Publishing, Sussex, U.K, Vol.1, Pg. 469.
• ⁶ R.B. Parkinson (1997), The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems: 1940-1640 B.C., Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K., Pg. 256.
• ⁷ Allan B. Lloyd (2010), A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Blackwell Publishing, Sussex, U.K., Vol. 1, Pg. 471.
• ⁸ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K. Pg. 77-79.
• ⁹ Wendy Christensen (2009), Empire of Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 87-89.
• ¹⁰ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 80-81.
• ¹¹ Kathleen Kuiper (2011), The Britannica Guide to Ancient Civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Britannica Educational Publishing, New York, USA, Pg. 18.
• ¹² Junius P. Rodriguez (1997), The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, ABC-Clio, California, USA, Vol. 1, Pg. 243.
• ¹³ Ancient History Encyclopedia (Online Version): https://www.ancient.eu/article/933/daily-life-in-ancient-egypt/ : Retrieved: 26-10-2017
• ¹⁴ Don Nardo (2015), Life in Ancient Egypt, Reference Point Press, California, USA, Pg. 38-39.
• ¹⁵ Wendy Christensen (2009), Empire of Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 89.
• ¹⁶ Kathleen Kuiper (2011), The Britannica Guide to Ancient Civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Britannica Educational Publishing, New York, USA, Pg. 18.
• ¹⁷ Jacqueline Dember Greene (2000), Slavery in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, Watts Library, New York, USA, Pg.42-44.
• ¹⁸ Bruce G. Trigger (1993), Early Civilizations: Ancient Egyptians in Context, the American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, Egypt, Pg. 34.
• ¹⁹ Allan B. Lloyd (2010), A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Blackwell Publishing, Sussex, U.K., Vol. 1, Pg. 471.
• ²⁰ Norman Bancroft Hunt (2009), Living in Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 42.
• ²¹ Allan B. Lloyd (2010), A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Blackwell Publishing, Sussex, U.K., Vol. 1, Pg. 472.
• ²² Legends & Chronicles: http://www.legendsandchronicles.com/ancient-civilizations/ancient-egypt/ancient-egyptian-men/ : Retrieved: 27-10-2017
• ²³ Unpaid labor (as toward constructing roads) due from a feudal vassal to his lord. [Meriam Webster (Online version): https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corv%C3%A9e : Retrieved 27-10-2017
• ²⁴ Margaret R. Bunson (2002), Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Facts on File Inc., New York, USA, Pg. 451-452.
• ²⁵ Joyce E. Salisbury (2001), Encyclopedia of Women in the Ancient World, ABC Clio, California, USA, Pg. 94-95.
• ²⁶ A harem consisted of the ruler’s wives and concubines, their female attendants, and eunuchs. These royal harems performed important political, as well as social, roles. [Encyclopedia Britannica (Online Version): https://www.britannica.com/topic/harem : Retrieved: 27-10-2017)
• ²⁷ Wendy Christensen (2009), Empire of Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 77-78.
• ²⁸ Norman Bancroft Hunt (2009), Living in Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 43.
• ²⁹ These specialists were hired to enhance the status of the deceased by openly grieving at the funeral. They would wail loudly and make ostentatious displays of grief: beating exposed breasts, smearing their bodies with dirt, and tearing their hair. [Joyce E. Salisbury (2001) Encyclopedia of Women in the Ancient World, ABC Clio, California, USA, Pg. 94.
• ³⁰ The word “priestess” generally meant a sacred temple prostitute or a musician. [Wendy Christensen (2009), Empire of Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 80.
• ³¹ Sarah B. Pomeroy (1984), Women in Hellenistic Egypt, Schocken Books, New York, USA, Pg. 128-129.
• ³² Charlotte Booth (2007), The Ancient Egyptians for Dummies, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., West Sussex, U.K., Pg. 44-45.
• ³³ Bruce G. Trigger (1993), Early Civilizations: Ancient Egyptians in Context, the American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, Egypt, Pg. 38.
• ³⁴ Ibid, Pg. 35.
• ³⁵ Don Nardo (2015), Life in Ancient Egypt, Reference Point Press, California, USA, Pg. 44.
• ³⁶ New World Encyclopedia (Online Version): http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ancient_Egypt : Retrieved: 20-08-2017
• ³⁷ A. Bothwell Gosse (1915), The Civilization of the Ancient Egyptians, T. C. & E. C. Jack, Ltd., Edinburgh, U.K., Pg. 4.
• ³⁸ Paul John Frandsen (2009), Incestious and Close Kin Marriage in Ancient Egypt and Persia, Museum Tusculanum Press, Denmark, Pg. 39.
• ³⁹ Don Nardo (2015), Life in Ancient Egypt, Reference Point Press, California, USA, Pg. 34-35.
• ⁴⁰ Ibid.
• ⁴¹ Don Nardo (2015), Life in Ancient Egypt, Reference Point Press, California, USA, Pg. 34-35.
• ⁴² Ibid, Pg. 44.
• ⁴³ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 79-80.
• ⁴⁴ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 79-80.
• ⁴⁵ Don Nardo (2015), Life in Ancient Egypt, Reference Point Press, California, USA, Pg. 35-37.
• ⁴⁶ Wendy Christensen (2009), Empire of Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 94.
• ⁴⁷ Don Nardo (2015), Life in Ancient Egypt, Reference Point Press, California, USA, Pg. 44-45.
• ⁴⁸ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 83-84.
• ⁴⁹ Norman Bancroft Hunt (2009), Living in Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 52-53.
• ⁵⁰ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 99-102.
• ⁵¹ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 99-102.
• ⁵² Donald B. Redford (2001), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt: P-Z, Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K, Vol. 3, Pg. 310.
• ⁵³ Ancient History Encyclopedia (Online Version): https://www.ancient.eu/article/1036/games-sports--recreation-in-ancient-egypt/ : Retrieved: 26-04-19
• ⁵⁴ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 103-106.
• ⁵⁵ Norman Bancroft Hunt (2009), Living in Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 52-53.
• ⁵⁶ Ancient History Encyclopedia (Online Version): https://www.ancient.eu/article/1036/games-sports--recreation-in-ancient-egypt/ : Retrieved: 01/11/2017
• ⁵⁷ Charlotte Booth (2007), The Ancient Egyptians for Dummies, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., West Sussex, U.K., Pg. 152.
• ⁵⁸ Brian T. P. Mutimer (1976), Women-Sex Objects in Ancient Egypt, Education Resource Information Center, USA, Pg. 5.
• ⁵⁹ Charlotte Booth (2007), The Ancient Egyptians for Dummies, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., West Sussex, U.K., Pg. 152.
• ⁶⁰ Melissa Hope Ditmore (2006), Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work, Green Wood Press, Westport, USA, Vol. 1, Pg. XXVI.
• ⁶¹ Nawal El Saadawi (1985), Prostitution in Egypt, UNESCO, Paris, France, Pg. 1-2.
• ⁶² James Bronson Reynolds (1914), Sex Morals and the Law in Ancient Egypt and Babylon, Northwestern University School of Law, Illinois, USA, Vol. 5, Issue. 1, Article-4, Pg. 21-22.
• ⁶³ Wayne R. Dynes (1990), Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, Garland Publishing Inc. New York, USA, Vol. 1, Pg. 350-351.
• ⁶⁴ Don Nardo (2015), Life in Ancient Egypt, Reference Point Press, California, USA, Pg. 24.
• ⁶⁵ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 115-116.
• ⁶⁶ Don Nardo (2015), Life in Ancient Egypt, Reference Point Press, California, USA, Pg. 24.
• ⁶⁷ Norman Bancroft Hunt (2009), Living in Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 24.
• ⁶⁸ Don Nardo (2015), Life in Ancient Egypt, Reference Point Press, California, USA, Pg. 24-26.
• ⁶⁹ Norman Bancroft Hunt (2009), Living in Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 24-25.
• ⁷⁰ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 116-117.
• ⁷¹ Norman Bancroft Hunt (2009) Living in Ancient Egypt, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, USA, Pg. 24-26.
• ⁷² Bob Brier, Hoyt Hobbs (2008) Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 110.
• ⁷³ Don Nardo (2015), Life in Ancient Egypt, Reference Point Press, California, USA, Pg. 28.
• ⁷⁴ Encyclopedia of Fashion (Online Version): http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/fashion_costume_culture/The-Ancient-World-Egypt/Egyptian-Clothing.html : Retrieved: 02-11-2017
• ⁷⁵ Ancient History Encyclopedia (Online Version):https://www.ancient.eu/article/1037/fashion--dress-in-ancient-egypt/ : Retrieved: 02-11-2017
• ⁷⁶ Patricia D. Netzley (2003), The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Greenhaven Press, USA, Pg. 89.
• ⁷⁷ Margaret R. Bunson (2002), Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Facts on File Inc., New York, USA, Pg. 104.
• ⁷⁸ Joan Jovinelly & Jason Netelkos (2002), Crafts of the Ancient World: The Crafts and Culture of the Ancient World, Rosen Central, New York, USA, Pg. 36.
• ⁷⁹ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 155-157.
• ⁸⁰ Dieter Arnold (2003), The Encyclopedia of Ancient Egyptian Architecture, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, USA, Pg. 110.
• ⁸¹ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 158-160.
• ⁸² James Henry Breasted (1944), Ancient Times: The History of the Early World, Ginn and Company, New York, USA, Pg. 110.
• ⁸³ Bob Brier & Hoyt Hobbs (2008), Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, Greenwood Press, London, U.K., Pg. 160-162.