Living the Ancient Egyptian Life

From festivals, educating their young, and choosing their careers, having an Egyptian life surely brings curiosity out of us. Find out how these early settlements left a vivid picture of how life in ancient Egypt emerged.

The Ancient Egyptian Housing Plan

Every Egyptians dream of their own house. Imagine going home from work and you found out that there is no place for you to hide in the sun. Sweat starts to roll down your cheek and you can't bear to take a siesta. Without a lush forest like the ones found on Asia, eggs cook themselves out in the sun! Unable to bear the heat, the Egyptians tried to find ways to build cool and cozy houses. The solution, mud bricks!

Houses built on mud bricks helped the Egyptians go through the tormenting fury of the sun. After having a good lunch under a cozy roof, washing and cleaning the dishes gives you daylight nightmares! Of course, you don't want to haul water in the middle of the sun! If possible, you want your house located near a water source. Here, village planning kicks in!

For villages at work sites such as tombs of the pharaohs, organizers will find urban planning an easy chore. The process involves building the most important structure first such as a palaces or temples.

If you belong to the rich and noble class, your houses takes priority in building than most of the settlers. As the village prospers, the planned out streets eventually congest as a result of adding new houses. At least its not the same with villages that naturally formed along the river!

Like in a third world country, villages along the river banks of the Nile grow out like weeds out of control. In natural settlements, Egyptians prefer to build houses that suits their needs. A pharaoh with an obsessive-compulsive disorder might nit-pick this villages one by one! Luckily, I know no pharaoh that did it just for the sake of orderliness!

Filling the Resume

Education in ancient Egyptian life is considered as a luxury. To drive my point home, the literacy rate of ancient Egypt consists only 1% of the total population. For the rich and powerful, they receive education to gain highly paid professions. For the poorer class, they inherit the jobs of their fathers and learn how to do the their trade.

Let's pretend as the less fortunate ones. To get accepted in formal training, we must show our talents found only on gifted children. This will give us the chance to change our current standing in the society. However, if things turned out the other way, we must find our mentors. Luckily, daddy is always on our side!

Dad will give us hands-on training from his job, whether as a farmer, craftsmen, or as a mason! We can also get others to mentor us too if we hate the inherited jobs. Best of all, we have wages to receive for our on-the-job training in the form of grains. Till Alexander the Great conquered ancient Egypt, we have to hold off our urges to money!

For others, an institution called the House of Life served as school for a few, privileged, Egyptians. Besides in educating the young, it contains important religious texts for educating priests and doctors. The keeper ensures the safety and the passage of texts to generations to come. They also shroud the House of Life from the public, making it difficult to uncover what other purposes it have on Egyptian life aside from education.

The Role of Women in Egyptian Life

Women of ancient Egypt boasts an important place in the Egyptian society. They receive fair and equal treatment compared to men. Even though your girlfriend may take it for granted, not all early civilizations give fair opportunity to women. Egyptian woman even retain their rights even after married. If widowed, she already owned 1/3 of her husband's property, with the remaining inherited by their children.

Enjoying a Good Time in Ancient Egyptian Life

After long winding hours of work, Egyptians look for ways to entertain themselves. Story telling does it job well to keep the Egyptians from falling asleep from boredom. Although most of the Egyptians are illiterate, they are not restricted in creative thinking of stories. Aside from telling tales, most of them have other alternatives to kill time.

One of them is playing the board game named Senet. Playing this game takes a good portion of their time. Sports also act as substitutes for rich and nobles who have nothing to do during the day.

You may also be surprised to know they also have night life. Since grapes are not present in the desert land, they use barley to brew beer. They engage themselves in having a good time and enjoy the different foods especially during religious festivals. With the nature of their work, its no wonder why they want to drink and be merry all night or in weekends. Next day, most of them will excuse themselves from work because of hangover!

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