Life in ancient Egypt
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| Tomb painting shows Egyptian noble fowling in the Nile marshes. The Nile brought amusement to aristocrats, life-giving water to farmers' crops. The river gave rise to civilization and writing derived from picture symbols. |
The Egyptians have maintained a high level of civilization for about three thousand years. Their strong social habits and religious beliefs have contributed to this peace.
Civilized Egypt has a population of several million. Most were peasants: men assigned to landed nobles, or temples. They lived in tiny houses made of clay. In comparison, large houses with baths, courts, and halls belonged to the affluent nobles.
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Egypt's peasant farmers raised wheat and barley, developed linseed for lining, and held goats, horses, and pigs. In towns and cities, metal-smiths created bronze and copper tools; carpenters crafted valuable wooden items such as furniture and sand sleds; jewelers worked in gold, turquoise, carnelian; weavers made rich mats for the houses of the wealthy. The merchants who were distributing these goods traded beyond the borders of Egypt, which were manned by soldiers ' regiments.
Many serfs, craftsmen, traders, and troops believed in a religious type governed by priests who supported the pharaoh as the ruler of the god-kings. Religion has played a vital role in the lives of all. More than 2000 gods have regulated events such as birth and death, and have ruled over language, numbers, etc. Osiris, the king of the dead, and Re, the god of the light, were two gods whose worship spread over the whole world. In the Old Kingdom people believed that Re's son was every living pharaoh and Osiris was every dead pharaoh. Believing that the health of the pharaohs after death would benefit the prosperity of Egypt, the priests mummified their dead pharaohs. Instead, they adorned the Pharaohs with bread, wine, precious stones, and furniture, and buried them in pyramids, specially designed to help the souls of the Pharaohs on their path to heaven.
Every pharaoh in principle "owned" all of Egypt, though many families have inherited estates for centuries in practice. This was made possible by a "home register," a kind of deed. The property was passed on through a family's mother's side, for women held a high place in society, and could even be supreme rulers, such as Queen Hatshepsut (1490-1469 B.C.).
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| Six Egyptian gods: Re, falcon-headed sun god; Osiris, lord of the afterlife; Anubis, jackal-headed god of the dead; |
The pharaoh ruled by officials, the chancellors and viziers becoming chief. Princes, who retained their titles, governed each province and practiced justice in their own courts, but referred the greatest legal cases to the capital's Great Kenbet, or high court. The Pharaoh's tariff collectors took dues from traders at the borders of Egypt, while officials within Egypt raised taxes for the treasury. Money had not been produced in the form of coins, and people usually paid their taxes on goods; farmers, for example, sold food.
Though strong, the Pharaohs depended on the priests and the scribes to maintain the civilization of their kingdom. Just a few people-priests and scribes in particular-had knowledge of astronomy and mathematics and of the form of writing with which to document it.
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| Osiris and the goddess Iris were among the deities worshiped throughout Egypt. |
These men have devised a calendar of 365 days. They added an entire year every 1460 years, instead of including a leap year to make up the extra quarter-day.
Scholars acquired their expertise at temple schools where pupils learned to write on papyrus rolls, a paper made from papyrus reeds, using rush pens. Many rolls of papyrus were 100 feet long, each holding as much writing as a whole library of clay tablets. But before he could read, write or do arithmetic a pupil had to learn hundreds of signs. The Egyptians had developed a numerals system that allowed them to count to a million, but it was a rather sloppy system.
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| Papyrus painting shows Anubis weighing human heart(left) against a feather symbolizing Truth(right) People with unjust hearts were eaten by a monster, others enjoyed the afterlife. |
But though in some ways Egypt was less advanced than the civilized Mesopotamians farther east, she successfully pursued her culture through centuries that saw Mesopotamia stricken by war and semi-barbarism.
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