The
land of the pharaohs is famous for its huge pyramids, its bandaged mummies and
its golden treasures. But how much do you really know about ancient Egypt?
Here, Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley shares 10 lesser-known facts…
1)
They did not ride camels
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| Fresco on the Tomb of Iti showing the transportation of wheat by donkey.
Donkeys were more commonly used by the Ancient Egyptians than camels. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images) |
The
River Nile flowed through the centre of their fertile land, creating a natural
highway (and sewer!). The current helped those who needed to row from south to
north, while the wind made life easy for those who wished to sail in the
opposite direction. The river was linked to settlements, quarries and building
sites by canals. Huge wooden barges were used to transport grain and heavy
stone blocks; light papyrus boats ferried people about their daily business.
And every day, high above the river, the sun god Ra was believed to sail across
the sky in his solar boat.
2)
Not everyone was mummified
The
mummy – an eviscerated, dried and bandaged corpse – has become a defining
Egyptian artefact. Yet mummification was an expensive and time-consuming
process, reserved for the more wealthy members of society. The vast majority of
Egypt’s dead were buried in simple pits in the desert.
So
why did the elite feel the need to mummify their dead? They believed that it
was possible to live again after death, but only if the body retained a
recognisable human form. Ironically, this could have been achieved quite easily
by burying the dead in direct contact with the hot and sterile desert sand; a
natural desiccation would then have occurred. But the elite wanted to be buried
in coffins within tombs, and this meant that their corpses, no longer in direct
contact with the sand, started to rot. The twin requirements of elaborate
burial equipment plus a recognisable body led to the science of artificial
mummification.
3)
The living shared food with the dead
The
tomb was designed as an eternal home for the mummified body and the ka spirit
that lived beside it. An accessible tomb-chapel allowed families, well-wishers
and priests to visit the deceased and leave the regular offerings that the ka
required, while a hidden burial chamber protected the mummy from harm.
Within
the tomb-chapel, food and drink were offered on a regular basis. Having been
spiritually consumed by the ka, they were then physically consumed by the
living. During the ‘feast of the valley’, an annual festival of death and
renewal, many families spent the night in the tomb-chapels of their ancestors.
The hours of darkness were spent drinking and feasting by torchlight as the
living celebrated their reunion with the dead.
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| Food offerings to the dead. From a decorative detail from the Sarcophagus of Irinimenpu. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images) |
In
Egypt, men and women of equivalent social status were treated as equals in the
eyes of the law. This meant that women could own, earn, buy, sell and inherit
property. They could live unprotected by male guardians and, if widowed or
divorced, could raise their own children. They could bring cases before, and be
punished by, the law courts. And they were expected to deputise for an absent
husband in matters of business.
Everyone
in Ancient Egypt was expected to marry, with husbands and wives being allocated
complementary but opposite roles within the marriage. The wife, the ‘mistress
of the house’, was responsible for all internal, domestic matters. She raised
the children and ran the household while her husband, the dominant partner in
the marriage, played the external, wage-earning role.
5)
Scribes rarely wrote in hieroglyphs
Hieroglyphic
writing – a script consisting of many hundreds of intricate images – was
beautiful to look at, but time-consuming to create. It was therefore reserved
for the most important texts; the writings decorating tomb and temple walls,
and texts recording royal achievements.
As
they went about their daily business, Egypt’s scribes routinely used hieratic –
a simplified or shorthand form of hieroglyphic writing. Towards the end of the
dynastic period they used demotic, an even more simplified version of hieratic.
All three scripts were used to write the same ancient Egyptian language.
Few
of the ancients would have been able to read either hieroglyphs or hieratic: it
is estimated that no more than 10 per cent (and perhaps considerably less) of
the population was literate.
 |
| Legal text on parchment, written in hieratic: a list of witnesses
during the settlement of a quarrel, 1000 BC. (Photo by DEA / G Dagli Orti/De Agostini/Getty Images) |
Ideally
the king of Egypt would be the son of the previous king. But this was not
always possible, and the coronation ceremony had the power to convert the most
unlikely candidate into an unassailable king.
On
at least three occasions women took the throne, ruling in their own right as
female kings and using the full king’s titulary. The most successful of these
female rulers, Hatshepsut, ruled Egypt for more than 20 prosperous years.
In
the English language, where ‘king’ is gender-specific, we might classify
Sobeknefru, Hatshepsut and Tausret as queens regnant. In Egyptian, however, the
phrase that we conventionally translate as ‘queen’ literally means ‘king’s
wife’, and is entirely inappropriate for these women.
7)
Few Egyptian men married their sisters
Some
of Egypt’s kings married their sisters or half-sisters. These incestuous
marriages ensured that the queen was trained in her duties from birth, and that
she remained entirely loyal to her husband and their children. They provided
appropriate husbands for princesses who might otherwise remain unwed, while
restricting the number of potential claimants for the throne. They even
provided a link with the gods, several of whom (like Isis and Osiris) enjoyed
incestuous unions. However, brother-sister marriages were never compulsory, and
some of Egypt’s most prominent queens – including Nefertiti – were of non-royal
birth.
Incestuous
marriages were not common outside the royal family until the very end of the
dynastic age. The restricted Egyptian kingship terminology (‘father’, ‘mother’,
‘brother’, ‘sister’, ‘son’ and ‘daughter’ being the only terms used), and the
tendency to apply these words loosely so that ‘sister’ could with equal
validity describe an actual sister, a wife or a lover, has led to a lot of
confusion over this issue.
8)
Not all pharaohs built pyramids
Almost
all the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom (c2686–2125 BC) and Middle Kingdom
(c2055–1650 BC) built pyramid-tombs in Egypt’s northern deserts. These highly
conspicuous monuments linked the kings with the sun god Ra while replicating
the mound of creation that emerged from the waters of chaos at the beginning of
time.
But
by the start of the New Kingdom (c1550 BC) pyramid building was out of fashion.
Kings would now build two entirely separate funerary monuments. Their mummies
would be buried in hidden rock-cut tombs in the Valley of the Kings on the west
bank of the Nile at the southern city of Thebes, while a highly visible
memorial temple, situated on the border between the cultivated land (home of
the living), and the sterile desert (home of the dead), would serve as the
focus of the royal mortuary cult.
Following
the collapse of the New Kingdom, subsequent kings were buried in tombs in
northern Egypt: some of their burials have never been discovered.
9)
The Great Pyramid was not built by slaves
The
classical historian Herodotus believed that the Great Pyramid had been built by
100,000 slaves. His image of men, women and children desperately toiling in the
harshest of conditions has proved remarkably popular with modern film
producers. It is, however, wrong.
Archaeological
evidence indicates that the Great Pyramid was in fact built by a workforce of
5,000 permanent, salaried employees and up to 20,000 temporary workers. These workers
were free men, summoned under the corvée system of national service to put in a
three- or four-month shift on the building site before returning home. They
were housed in a temporary camp near the pyramid, where they received payment
in the form of food, drink, medical attention and, for those who died on duty,
burial in the nearby cemetery.
10)
Cleopatra many not have been beautiful
Cleopatra
VII, last queen of ancient Egypt, won the hearts of Julius Caesar and Mark
Antony, two of Rome’s most important men. Surely, then, she must have been an
outstanding beauty?
Her
coins suggest that this was probably not the case. All show her in profile with
a prominent nose, pronounced chin and deep-set eyes. Of course, Cleopatra’s
coins reflect the skills of their makers, and it is entirely possible that the
queen did not want to appear too feminine on the tokens that represented her
sovereignty within and outside Egypt.
Unfortunately we have no eyewitness description
of the queen. However the classical historian Plutarch – who never actually met
Cleopatra – tells us that her charm lay in her demeanour, and in her beautiful
voice.
