The evidence for different kinds of tools and toolmaking in the Pharaonic Period complements and helps to explain other aspects of the crafts and craftsmanship. In addition to actual preserved examples of tools, there are depictions of tools and their uses represented in great detail in tomb reliefs and paintings. A third source of information is the detailed models of objects, complete workshops, and their products that were placed in the tombs. As a result, it is possible to understand in greater depth how many different ordinary craft activities were carried out.

The scribe has left his pens, pen case, water pot, and the papyrus sheets on which he wrote. The farmer, butcher, carpenter and joiner, sculptor, quarryman and stone mason, metal smelter and jeweler, and even the maker of mud bricks have all left evidence, either as objects or representations of them to illustrate their working methods in great detail. Such a wealth of specific information about working processes has not been preserved anywhere else in the ancient world. This is probably one of the distinct hallmarks of the culture that make a study of various aspects of the ancient technologies in Egypt so revealing and so interesting.

In ancient Egypt there was a clear distinction between the architecture of temples and tombs in contrast with the structures for the living. Temples and tombs, the houses of the gods and the eternal homes for the spirits, were made of durable stone. Palaces for royalty and houses for all levels of society were made of much more perishable stuff. For practical use the principal building material of the ancient Egyptians was sun-dried, unbaked brick made of Nile mud. This cannot be emphasized too strongly for an understanding of living conditions in ancient Egypt. In the contemporary United States this use of material can best be compared to the use of mud brick in the adobe structures of the American southwest, although mud brick is still an important building material in many other parts of the world.

Mud brick is a practical material that requires only a minimum amount of skill to produce. In ancient Egypt the bricks were formed in a wooden mold using earth mixed with water, perhaps with the addition of chopped straw or other natural materials to act as a binder. They were then laid out in rows to dry in the sun and cure to a degree of hardness suitable for construction. Actual preserved examples of the wooden brick molds have been found. Depictions on tomb walls, particularly in the Theban tomb of Rekhmire, show the process exactly as it is still carried out in Egypt today (Fig. 25).

In the present day, consumer society is almost completely dependent on metal cans, bottles of glass and plastic, specially designed cartons, and other packaging means such as Styrofoam or shrink-wrap. Foods that are shipped long distances need to be protected; fragile electronic parts need other kinds of special protection designed for them as well. The use of expert packaging has become so familiar that we tend to forget that there was a time when glass was a rarity, metal was too precious to waste on one-time use, and the whole field of plastics had not been invented and developed. In the modern world, packaging has become a specialized industry where the highly complex design and engineering of materials is intended to contain, protect, and display goods. Any thoughtful visit to a supermarket or a hardware store immediately reveals how much the purchaser is influenced by the wrapper or package.

The ancient Egyptians had a number of solutions to the problems of “packaging.” First and most important among these was the use of pottery – vessels or containers made of the local clays of the Nile valley (Fig. 56). Pottery was the most widely used material in almost every aspect of life, and this is well attested by the vast quantities of it, both whole and broken, found on any archaeological site. Although clay was by far the material most commonly used, the abundance and variety of native stone in Egypt made it also possible to fashion durable containers for more special uses. In addition to the two materials of pottery and stone, sacks for dry foodstuffs were made from woven fibers; animal skins and leather were used in a variety of ways as containers for liquids as well as for dry materials.

Any assessment of the material world of ancient Egypt has to include a catalog of the resources immediately available to the dwellers in the Nile valley. On the most basic level the Egyptians possessed the essential ingredients for survival from the beginning of their culture – a constant supply of water and at least the potential for gathering and eventually growing foodstuffs. In addition to collecting food from the native plant materials they had the possibilities of supplementing their diet by hunting and trapping. Eventual guaranties of continued supplies were provided by the domestication of animals and the gradual development of agriculture. In the transition from the state of hunting and gathering to organized agriculture and animal husbandry, the utilization of local resources for the production of shelter, clothing, and tools had to be understood and utilized.

The Nile valley and the delta were rich in some basic material assets and lacking in others. One of the most abundant (and obvious) resources was the rich earth that was renewed each year. Not only did it make the cultivation of crops, particularly varieties of grain, a relatively simple operation, but it provided building materials that were readily available and simple to work with. However, an extensive supply of wood for construction was not one of these resources.

1. The noble, Imyhsetj, playing the pipe very well.

2. Playing the flute for your Ka every day.

3. Captions to tomb scenes

Music and Musical Instruments

What is usually defined as music is basically sound and rhythm organized in time, and virtually all cultures and societies have or have had some form of it. In Music and the Mind Anthony Store made the observation that in every culture music serves as a device or tool to bring people together in common activities. Repeated rhythms serve to unite participants in recreation and ritual, organize troops on the march, and coordinate the efforts of workers in the fields. Anyone who has ever seen the effects of the “call and response” work songs of field hands, where a leader sings or chants a verse and the workers respond with a chorus, can attest to their rhythmic results.

One of the most serious obstacles to an understanding of ancient Egyptian music is the almost complete absence of any preserved musical notation in the form of written music. There is at least one exception, but one that is not much help. This is a small statue of a harpist depicted with an open manuscript before him. The page has the remains of some symbols on it, probably representing some direction as to how he was to play. Even though it is not very helpful, this object does prove that there may have been a system of written music. However, preserved evidence of musical notation and writings about music theory in Egypt are not well attested until the time of the Greeks.

One of the most important and characteristic aspects of any civilization is the way that people were able to nourish themselves, the kinds of food and drink that were available to them. In a culture with the geographical advantages of ancient Egypt, where the fertile land was renewed yearly by the annual flooding of the Nile, the production of abundant food crops was usually a dependable resource (Fig. 38). With the assurance that fields would be refreshed with new silt and that water was plentiful, the people of Egypt were confident that they were provided for by the gods. Egypt remained basically an agricultural land with a society that was based on the tilling of the soil, and agriculture in one form or another was the main occupation of the greater part of the population.

Food was plentiful except in times when the annual flood was irregular, either too low or too high. To counter periods of inadequate production or natural threats to the supply, the Egyptians developed methods of food storage and preservation early in their history. The plagues described in the Bible certainly give some indications of the natural phenomena that had their effects on Egyptian agriculture. These exceptional occurrences could possibly be anticipated and provided for by stockpiling foodstuffs. It is probable that all levels of the population had enough to eat, although times of famine were also recorded. The primary difference was that the higher classes had larger resources to choose from and consequently a more varied diet.

1. Do not covet copper, Disdain beautiful linen;

2. What good is one dressed in finery, If he cheats before the god?

3. The Instruction of Amenemope

Dress

Ideas of what constitutes dress or costume are as old and as varied as civilized humankind. The original impulse to don some sort of clothing can be explained in three ways: as the desire for protection of the body, to satisfy a developing sense of modesty, or as a need to display various kinds of social distinctions. Aspects of protection that might have determined the type of garments chosen include the need to combat the effects of climate, of heat and cold. The need for protection also includes the safeguarding of sensitive parts of the body, particularly the genital area. By contrast to the considerations of protection, a sense of modesty is a learned habit that demands concealment of various body parts, depending on the requirements or the traditions of the particular culture. In addition to the elements of protection and modesty, special types of costume and dress can provide the visual clues that differentiate social class and rank. The special costumes that are appropriate to different social positions and levels of authority utilize distinctive patterns and kinds of clothing for the male and female, and still other variations suitable for the young and old. Costume among the ancient Egyptians fulfilled these various requirements of protection, modesty, and social distinction in a variety of ways that can be studied in the sources preserved for us.

My interest in ancient Egypt began early in my childhood and became more intense during my secondary school years when I discovered Piazzi-Smyth’s Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid. I eventually sought to know more about the culture of Egypt as it was preserved in its own artifacts, somewhat in the way that Flinders Petrie was to debunk Piazzi-Smyth’s famous work by accurately measuring the monuments. After experience in the U.S. Army as a topographic surveyor and a technical illustrator I was privileged to participate at length in two major excavations, first at the site of Mendes in the Nile delta and later in the Precinct of the Goddess Mut at Karnak. Those activities, my lengthy museum experience of dealing firsthand with a wide range of Egyptian artifacts, and an early involvement with the investigation of mummies as a founding member and participant in the just-emerging Paleopathology Society have given me a series of varied and immediate experiences in the art and objects that make up the material world of ancient Egypt.

Introduction: Herodotus, Histories, Book II, 35, trans. A. D. Godley, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, 1920

1. Geography and Geology: The Land: Diodorus Siculus, Histories, Book I, 36, trans. C. H. Oldfather, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, 1968

2. Brief Outline of Egyptian History: Sir Alan Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford, 1964

3. Study of The Material World of Ancient Egypt: Adolf Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, trans. H. M. Tirard, London and New York, 1894

4. Dress and Personal Adornment: “The Prayers of Paheri,” M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. 2, p. 16, Berkeley, 1976“The Instruction of Amenemope,” M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. 2, p. 157, Berkeley, 1976

5. Housing and Furniture: From the tomb of Rekhmire in Thebes, quoted in T. G. H. James, Pharaoh’s People, London, 1984

6. Food and Drink: From a memorandum of payment owed, quoted in T. G. H. James, Pharaoh’s People, London, 1984

7. Hygiene and Medicine: From a letter, quoted in T. G. H. James, Pharaoh’s People, London, 1984

8. Containers of Clay and Stone: From the “Satire of the Trades,” M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. 1, p. 186, Berkeley, 1973

9. Tools and Weapons: From the “Satire of the Trades,” T. G. H. James, Pharaoh’s People, London, 1984

10. Basketry, Rope, Matting: From a letter, Edward Wente, Letters from Ancient Egypt (No. 231, Dynasty Nineteen), Atlanta, 1990

11. Faience and Glass: From a stela dated to early Dynasty Nineteen, catalog No. 166, in Gifts of the Nile: Ancient Egyptian Faience, Providence, 1998

12. Transportation: Caption to a tomb scene, Nigel C. Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, p. 417, Atlanta, 2005

13. Sport and Games: Excerpt from the “Sphinx Stela,” M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. 2, p. 41, Berkeley, 1976

Bibliographical Note

There have been many attempts to describe daily life in ancient Egypt. Sir John Gardner Wilkinson’s Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (1837–41) and Adolf Erman’s Life in Ancient Egypt, translated into English in 1894, were among the first attempts to approach the subject in depth, and both have had a lasting influence on the modern appreciation of life in the land of the Pharaohs.

1. Clasping his shield he treads under foot,

2. No second blow needed to kill

3. None can escape his arrow,

4. None turn aside his bow.

5. From the story of Sinuhe

Weapons of combat and self-defense developed side by side with the tools of the farmer and craftsman. As a result, at times some examples of tools and weapons are indistinguishable from each other. It is often difficult to decide whether a hatchet was meant as a carpentry tool or as a hand-to-hand weapon, just as a spear or javelin could equally be used in hunting or in battle. Even so, the weapons of the Egyptian military were basically simple and practical in design. From the prehistoric and Predynastic periods the only evidence that has been preserved of what may be classified as weapons are stone axes and projectile points. The blades of axes are much like those found in every prehistoric culture, simple, near ovoid, and originally handheld but later meant to be bound to a wooden handle with leather thongs or cord. Some of the early points for spears and arrows eventually exhibit a higher technology and have convex curves in the butt end, to allow a better fit and more secure attachment to a wooden or reed shaft.

Egyptian weapons can be divided into two general classes on the basis of how they were used and what the distance was between combatants. The first class includes the direct-contact hand-to-hand weapons for clubbing, stabbing, and cutting. The second is made up of those that function at a distance, including the spear or javelin, and others that aid in the launch of a projectile, such as the sling for pellets and bow for arrows. Clubbing and stabbing weapons were probably among the first to be developed, because they were simple and immediate. These were gradually supplemented but not replaced by the development of more advanced armament such as the sling and the bow (Fig. 92).

Boats and Ships

The ancient Egyptians were blessed with a reliable and accessible means of transportation from the beginning of their civilization. The Nile River that made the region habitable also made easy communication possible and ultimately assisted in the development of a unified country and culture. The use of the Nile for both transport and communication was facilitated by the combination of two factors. The river current flows from the south to the north, and the prevailing wind is from the north to south. This meant that boats, barges, and other rivercraft could travel northward with the current using oars and against the current to the south with the assistance of sails. The Egyptians demonstrated the importance of this simple rule of river navigation even for the spirit in the next life by representations in the tombs illustrating boats with sails both furled and deployed.

The earliest evidence for water transport can be found in a series of crude clay models of a canoe-like craft that are dated to the early Badarian Period (5500–4000 BCE). More complete representations of complicated vessels are shown in designs on later Predynastic pottery (3500–3150 BCE) (Fig. 56). These early drawings and paintings depict boats complete with cabins, with many oars, flagpoles, and standards. Although the oarsmen are not shown, there are sometimes male and female figures standing on the roofs of the cabins. These images have caused a good deal of speculation as to their meaning and symbolism. They may have religious significance, and there are several suggested interpretations, but it is not possible to completely explain them. In any case, the boats depicted seem to be large and need to be propelled by large bodies of oarsmen. Often on the prow and on the cabins there are decorations in the form of tree branches and totem-like emblems. These branches and emblems may have religious or even geographical meanings, but these are also not completely understood. It is thought that some of the totems refer to clans, tribes, or regions and home ports, all interesting ideas but difficult to prove. It is enough to say that we have good evidence that the advantages of river transport were utilized early in the prehistoric period and that the construction and use of rivercraft is documented during the formative period of the Egyptian state and even before the development of writing.

Sport

In the world of the ancient Egyptian one of the most human insights available to us is provided by the knowledge we have of the types of leisure activities and competitions they engaged in. The importance of “pastimes” to the Egyptians is amply demonstrated by the extensive and varied evidence preserved that reflects traditions that lasted over most of the history of the ancient culture. Almost all of the activities that can be described as “sport” in ancient Egypt were directly rooted in masculine behavior that had developed out of the early survival activities of defense and the hunt. These included the typical sporting occupations of running, throwing, wrestling, and other kinds of specialized types of combat, as well as the more productive activities of hunting and fishing (Fig. 79).

The foot race must have been originally an informal challenge to prove strength and stamina. The first formal race that we have a record of was not a competition, however. It was a ceremonial race carried out by the king as part of a festival of rejuvenation. Early in Egyptian history it became a custom for the ruler to enact this symbolic race to demonstrate that he was physically sound and still capable of ruling. This was an important part of the heb sed festival that took place after the first thirty years of the king’s reign. One of the earliest records we have of the heb sed is preserved on a small ebony plaque from the Early Dynastic Period. However, in the Step Pyramid complex of King Djoser, of Dynasty Three, there are more complete depictions of the king in relief carvings in the act of running the race. Evidence of the markers of the course is still in place in the courtyard where the ceremony was held.

For many people today any mention of Egypt brings to mind images of pyramids and mummies, the products of an ancient and mysterious civilization so old as to defy imagination. The modern fascination with ancient Egypt and its monuments is seemingly without end and never seems to be satisfied. The land of Egypt and its culture provide the material for countless films, special presentations on television, and sensational news articles about recent excavations. Every new archaeological discovery is hailed as “the greatest find since King Tut.” So many misconceptions and misunderstandings abound concerning the history and archaeology of Egypt that it is often difficult to separate simple fact from romantic fiction. However, it is still possible even after so many centuries to know a great deal about how the Egyptians really lived, how they conducted their affairs, and the kinds of objects and materials they used.

The allure of the great monuments and the secrets of mummification cannot take away from the obvious fact that these ancient peoples were human beings. They lived their lives in a culture that seems foreign in many ways to us today, but they had many of the same basic needs that we do. Certainly there are differences in the ways many things were done, but this is more a matter of the long progress of developing technology rather than differences in culture. It is always amazing to see how many of the ordinary aspects of life have not changed from the way that the Egyptians carried them out thousands of years ago. We have excellent evidence of many aspects of their life to prove this, from the dwellings they lived in and the clothes they wore to the food they ate and even the games they played.

“The land of Egypt is the gift of the river,” one of the most often quoted observations about ancient Egypt, was made by Herodotus, the fifth-century BCE Greek historian. It was not an original idea of his, and he may have even borrowed it from another ancient author, but it was a common way in his time to describe the dependence that the country had on the life-giving renewal brought by the annual inundation, or flooding, of the river Nile. His statement also emphasized the fact that the fertile Nile delta had been built up over centuries by the silt carried downstream each year by that flood, and it was fundamentally the delta that the world of the Greeks and Romans knew best.

The landscape of Egypt as seen from space has been compared to a lotus flower on a long stalk, with only one large leaf on one side. In a satellite image the long ribbon of the Nile and the narrow cultivated area along its banks terminates in the fan-shaped delta, the “flower.” The “leaf” is the Fayum depression on the west, with its large lake. Although it is obviously a coincidence, the visual comparison of Egypt to the lotus is an apt one because the ancient Egyptians had a strong belief in the symbolism of the flower as an image of rebirth or resurrection.