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| Daily Life in Ancient Egypt |
The popular view of life in ancient Egypt is
often that it was a death-obsessed culture in
which powerful pharaohs forced the people to labor at constructing pyramids and
temples and, at an unspecified time.
In reality, ancient Egyptians loved life,
no matter their social class, and the ancient Egyptian government used
slave labor as every other ancient culture did without regard to any particular
ethnicity. The ancient Egyptians did have a well-known contempt for
non-Egyptians but this was simply because they believed they were living the
best life possible in the best of all possible worlds.
Life in ancient Egypt was considered so
perfect, in fact, that the Egyptian afterlife was imagined as
an eternal continuation of life on earth. Slaves in Egypt were either
criminals, those who could not pay their debts, or captives from foreign
military campaigns. These people were considered to have forfeited their freedoms
either by their individual choices or by military conquest and
so we're forced to endure a quality of existence far below that of free
Egyptians.
The individuals who actually built the
pyramids and other famous monuments of Egypt were Egyptians who were
compensated for their labor and, in many cases, were masters of their art.
These monuments were raised not in honor of death but of life and the belief
that an individual life mattered enough to be remembered for eternity. Further,
the Egyptian belief that one's life was an eternal journey and death only a
transition inspired the people to try to make their lives worth living
eternally. Far from a death-obsessed and dour culture, Egyptian daily life was
focused on enjoying the time one had as much as possible and trying to make
others' lives equally memorable.
Sports, games, reading, festivals, and time with one's friends and family were as
much
a part of Egyptian life as toil in farming the land or erecting monuments and
temples. The world of the Egyptians was imbued with magic. Magic (heka) predated the
gods and, in fact, was the underlying force that allowed the gods to perform
their duties.
Magic was
personified in the god Heka (also the god of medicine) who had
participated in the creation and sustained it afterward. The concept of ma'at (harmony
and balance) was central to the Egyptian's understanding of life and the
operation of the universe and it was heka that made ma'at possible.
Through the observance of balance and harmony people were encouraged to live at
peace with others and contribute to communal happiness. A line from the wisdom
text of Ptahhotep (the vizier to the king Djedkare Isesi, 2414-2375 BCE),
admonishes a reader:
"Let your face shine during the time
that you live.
It is the kindliness of a man that is
remembered
During the years that follow".
Letting
one's face "shine" meant being happy, and having a good spirit, in the
belief that this would make one's own heart light and lighten those of others.
Although Egyptian society was highly stratified from a very early period (as
early as the Presynaptic Period in Egypt of c. 6000-3150 BCE),
this does not mean that the royalty and upper classes enjoyed their lives at
the expense of the peasantry.
The king
and court are always the best-documented individuals because then, as now,
people paid more attention to celebrities than their neighbors, and the scribes
who recorded the history of the time documented what was of greater interest.
Still, reports from later Greek and Roman writers,
as well as archaeological evidence and letters from different time periods,
show that Egyptians of all social classes valued life and enjoyed themselves as
often as they could, very like people in the modern-day.
Population
& Social Classes
The population of Egypt was strictly
divided into social classes from the king at the top, his vizier, the members
of his court, regional governors (eventually called 'nomarchs'), and the generals
of the military (after the period of the New Kingdom), government
overseers of worksites (supervisors), and the peasantry. Social mobility was
neither encouraged nor observed for most of Egypt's history as it was thought
that the gods had decreed the most perfect social order which mirrored that of
the gods.
The gods had given the people everything
and had set the king over them as the one best-equipped to understand and
implement their will. The king was the intermediary between the gods and the
people from the Predynastic Period through the Old Kingdom (c.
2613-2181 BCE) when the priests of the sun god Ra began to gain more power.
Even after this, however, the king was still considered god's chosen emissary.
Even in the latter part of the New Kingdom (1570-1069 BCE), when Amun priests at Thebes held
greater power than the king, the monarch was still respected as divinely
ordained.
Upper
class
The king of Egypt (not known as a 'pharaoh'
until the New Kingdom period), as the gods' chosen man, "enjoyed great
wealth and status and luxuries unimaginable to the majority of the
population" (Wilkinson, 91). It was the king's responsibility to rule in
keeping with ma'at, and as this was a serious charge, he was
thought to deserve those luxuries in keeping with his status and the weight of
his duties. Historian Don Nardo writes:
"The kings enjoyed an existence
largely free from want. They had power and prestige, servants to do the menial
work, plenty of free time to pursue leisure pursuits, fine clothes, and
numerous luxuries in their homes".
The king is often depicted hunting and
inscriptions regularly boast of the number of large and dangerous animals a
particular monarch killed during his reign. Almost without exception, though,
animals like lions and elephants were caught by royal game wardens and brought
to preserves where the king then "hunted" the beasts while surrounded
by guards who protected him. The king would hunt in the open, for the most
part, only once the area had been cleared of dangerous animals.
Members of the court lived in similar comfort, although most of them had little responsibility. The nomarchs might also live well, but this depended on how wealthy their particular district was and how important it was to the king. The nomarch of a district including a site such as Abydos, for example, would expect to do quite well because of the large necropolis there dedicated to the god Osiris, which brought many pilgrims to the city including the king and courtiers. A nomarch of a region that had no such attraction would expect to live more modestly. The wealth of the region and the personal success of an individual nomarch would determine whether they lived in a small palace or a modest home. This same model is applied generally to scribes.
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