PEOPLE AND SOCIETY OF ANCIENT EGYPT

Population

The population of ancient Egypt varied greatly during its history. Some scholars estimate that only a few hundred thousand people lived in Egypt during the Predynastic period (about 5000-3000 bc). Others believe, based on archaeological evidence and reevaluations of how many people the floodplains could support at the time, that the area had a much higher population. In any case, the population had probably risen to close to 2 million during the Old Kingdom (about 2575-2134 bc). It increased during the Middle Kingdom (about 2040-1640 bc), and by the New Kingdom (about 1550-1070 bc) the population had grown to between 3 and 4 million. This figure almost doubled under Hellenistic rule (332-30 bc), with perhaps as many as 7 million people inhabiting the country at the time it was annexed to the Roman Empire.

Egypt’s increasing population could only have been sustained if the land and the economy could support it. As agricultural techniques became increasingly more efficient, the Egyptians developed systems to deal with fluctuations in the height of the annual flood of the Nile. Early on, they also learned the value of maintaining order both at home and externally, for peaceful conditions helped promote a good economy. Moreover, by the Middle Kingdom, they had learned to reclaim previously unused and unusable land for agricultural purposes. Each period brought growth in the populations of existing cities and the founding of new cities. As Egypt extended its borders and took control of external areas, populations began to shift. In the New Kingdom, captives, slaves, and immigrants entered the country. During the periods when foreign rulers controlled Egypt, such as the Second Intermediate Period (about 1640-1550 bc) and the Third Intermediate Period (1070-712 bc), people from those rulers’ home areas added to the growing melting pot in Egypt.

Egyptian society was confined almost exclusively to the Nile Valley and Delta. Most settlements were located on or close to the banks of the Nile. Since ancient Egypt was an agricultural society, its densest population was on the floodplains. Only a small fraction of the population lived in cities and towns. Major cities contained most of the urban population, and the ranks of major cities changed over time. Centers such as Memphis, Thebes, and certain provincial capitals, however, maintained their importance for extremely long periods of time. A major city generally had a densely populated center, and the density of population decreased as distance from the center increased.

Social Structure

For all their numbers and quality, the architectural monuments, statues, jewelry, and elaborate burial places of ancient Egypt reveal only a small part of Egyptian society. Much of what the early excavators uncovered and much of what appears in museums and popular publications today relates only to the ruling elite, the highest of several levels of society in ancient Egypt. Different social classes existed even in the earliest cities. Scholars who study mummies and their burials have noticed class differences in terms of the type and quantity of grave goods, the quality of a tomb’s construction and decoration, the technique of preservation used on the mummy, and the physical condition of the body. Some cemeteries had areas that were restricted for certain classes of burial. Apparently several levels of mummification existed. The way a mummy was preserved and wrapped, its age, the types of disease the person may have had, and the condition of the teeth also indicate the existence of different social strata.

Urban archaeology, or the examination of town sites, also establishes the existence of different social classes. The sizes of houses differed among the various classes. Some towns even zoned different areas for residential and commercial use.

For much of its existence, ancient Egyptian society probably had at least three social levels. Each of these had further subdivisions. At the highest level were the royalty and high administrative officials. Within this level, but considered a bit lower, were the provincial nobility and officials. The second level, a sort of middle class, consisted of many lower-level members of the bureaucracy, certain priests, very high-ranking scribes, officers of the army, wealthy landowners, and exceptional artisans. The lowest class was the largest. In it were low-ranking bureaucrats, scribes, craftspeople, priests, and farmers. Within this level, but even lower, were servants, serfs, and laborers. Slaves, mostly captured enemies and their families, made up the lowest rung of the social ladder.

Class distinctions are also indicated in “The Satire on Trades,” a Middle Kingdom text that extols the roles and life of a scribe while eschewing most other professions. Since some offices were hereditary, it was difficult for individuals to be socially mobile, or to rise to a higher class. Nevertheless, biographical texts that the elite often had inscribed on the walls of their tomb chapels sometimes recount an individual’s rise in the administration during the course of a career.

Way of Life

In ancient Egypt the family was important. Its importance is demonstrated in part through the many references to the family in a variety of texts and documents, numerous depictions of it in statues and paintings, and the large number of familial relationships among the gods and goddesses. A representation of an elite family, with a father, a mother, and children, usually portrays the father as the largest figure, and therefore the most important. The mother, who is generally smaller, stands or sits beside him, and the two often embrace or hold hands. Children, if at all present, are much smaller and off to the side. Representations of royalty are more formal, depicting the pharaoh and his wife or, rarely, the pharaoh and his son. During the reign of Akhenaton, however, the pharaoh and his wife appear with their daughters.

As the head of the household, the father worked outside the home. His wife ran the domestic operations. In wealthy families, the wife’s authority extended over a staff of servants, while in poorer ones, she participated directly in chores such as preparing food and making clothes. In the lowest classes women sometimes worked outside the home, but depictions limit such work mainly to farm labor in the fields. The role of women as mothers was essential. Although unequal to men in other areas, in the eyes of the law, women were treated the same and could, for example, own property, conduct business, and file lawsuits.

Children were expected to care properly for and support their parents during old age. They were also responsible for giving their parents a proper burial and for maintaining a mortuary cult, both of which were considered necessary for ensuring the afterlife of their parents. Contact between the living and the dead took place through ancestor cults within the home and through visits to a funerary chapel. Apparently, it was believed that those in one domain could provide benefit or cause harm for those in the other, as illustrated in the “Letters to the Dead.” In such correspondence the living sought assistance from departed relatives for various problems and situations. (For more information about the Egyptians’ belief in the afterlife, see the Religion and the Afterlife section of this article.)

Pharaohs sometimes had more than one wife, a practice that was adopted apparently to guarantee an heir. However, one spouse was the general rule in ancient Egypt, at least in the earlier periods. Straying from a marriage was not condoned. By the time of the Old Kingdom, adultery was considered an impure act, and it became one of the few acceptable reasons for divorce. Couples who established households together generally remained together, and sometimes they had written contracts specifying particular financial arrangements. These contracts were similar in many ways to today’s prenuptial agreements.

The houses of the ancient Egyptians varied in style, shape, and size, depending on factors such as the wealth of the owner and the location of the house. Houses in cities tended to be smaller, taller, and more clustered together than were rural residences. The residences on the estates of the elite were large and might contain more than two dozen rooms. The dwellings of professionals or craftspeople in the same occupation were sometimes located in the same area in a city.

The Egyptians used many types of wooden furniture, including tables, chairs, stools, chests, and beds. They wore linen garments, woven from flax, and occasionally crafted some clothing from animal skins. They ate a variety of fruits (grapes, figs, and dates, for example), vegetables (tubers, leaves, and seeds), and grains (wheat and barley). Occasionally they also dined on fish, fowl, or game, and they drank water, beer, wine, and milk. For the most part they used pottery dishes and vessels, but wealthier people used ware made from stone, copper, bronze, gold, or—less commonly—silver. For sport, the ancient Egyptians apparently went fishing and hunted birds. They also enjoyed boating, listening to music, watching dance performances, and playing board games.

Education and Writing

Education and writing were interdependent in ancient Egypt. Literacy was the first step in attaining knowledge. However, reading and writing were limited to a small number of people, primarily the elite, the scribes, and those entering the upper levels of the bureaucracy. Children of royalty and the wealthy were educated at the palace. Children of other people learned in temple schools, through apprenticeships, or at home. Boys received a formal education, but girls had to learn to read and write at home.

Teachers were strict. The harshness of their methods can perhaps be inferred from the Egyptian verb seba, which means both “to teach” and “to beat.” Scribes learned first how to read, write, and compose letters. Those studying to become scribes had to recopy and memorize model letters as well as other types of texts, such as literary works. Some schoolboy copies with the instructor’s corrections of his pupil’s work still survive today. Instructional papyri (scrolls made of papyrus) in subjects such as mathematics and medicine have been discovered. All types of manuscripts tended to be stored in a “house of life,” a repository found in most temples. These repositories were somewhat similar to modern libraries.

Learned people in ancient Egypt studied mathematics and medicine. In mathematics they developed basic concepts in arithmetic and geometry. The ancient Egyptians understood the idea of fractions and knew how to add them. Egyptian scholars wrote some of the earliest known medical texts. These texts deal with topics such as internal medicine, surgery, pharmaceutical remedies, dentistry, and veterinary medicine.

Scribes were essential to all aspects of ancient Egyptian civilization. They kept all records and wrote all correspondence. They copied and edited all religious and literary texts. They even compiled economic reports.

The Egyptians used several scripts to record their language. Around 3300 to 3200 bc, a formal script known as hieroglyphs came into being. The word hieroglyphs comes from the Greek term hieroglyphikos, meaning “sacred carving.” In this script, symbols called glyphs were used originally to denote objects and concepts. Eventually the symbols came to represent primarily sounds. Hieroglyphs took the form of recognizable images drawn from the Egyptian environment. Some of the earliest examples of writing in Egypt appear to be names and also the number and origin of certain commodities. Generally, in the time of the pharaohs, the Egyptians used hieroglyphs to carve or paint monumental and religious texts on the walls of tombs, palaces, and temples, as well as on the surfaces of statues and stelae (carved stone slabs, sometimes painted wooden slabs). Hieroglyphs were the longest-lived system of writing, being used until the end of the 4th century ad.

A second script, called hieratic, was based on hieroglyphs but was simplified and more abbreviated. The hieratic script was adapted to the more rapid writing necessary to prepare letters and legal and administrative documents. For the most part, these documents were written in ink on papyri, as were literary, instructional, funerary, and mythological texts. The hieratic script was used until a more cursive script, called demotic, or “popular,” supplanted it in the 7th century bc. The demotic script was used at first to keep the more mundane records of daily life, but later it was used for everything, including monumental inscriptions. It survived hieroglyphs by a century. The last script the Egyptians developed was the Coptic alphabet, which dates to the early 2nd century ad. The term Coptic is derived from the Greek word for Egypt. Unlike its predecessors, which were partially alphabetical and recorded only the sounds of consonants, the Coptic script was a true alphabet and included vowels. It used the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet plus 6 additional characters derived from demotic for sounds that did not exist in Greek. See also Coptic Language; Egyptian Language.

The Egyptians created a calendar at a very early stage, based on their observations of the movements of the Sun and the stars. They used their calendar for many purposes, including the recording of historical events and royal decrees and the scheduling of festivals and other activities. Perhaps representing one of the first attempts at making a calendar are the remnants of stone circles from around 8000 bc in the southwestern corner of modern Egypt. These stone circles may have been used to map the movement of the heavenly bodies. The Egyptians probably created a calendar because it was so important for their survival to know when the Nile’s flood would come. They divided each day into 24 hours, 12 for the daytime and 12 for the night. A period of ten days made up a week, and one month included three such weeks, or 30 days. A year comprised 12 months and was divided into three seasons of four months each. To the 360 days of the 12 months in a year, the Egyptians added 5 more days, which they referred to as the birthdays of several gods. Thus, an Egyptian year totaled 365 days, remarkably close to the 365¼ days it takes the Earth to go around the Sun. There was no concept of leap year (accounting for the extra ¼ day a year), so the calendar fell behind by one day every four years.

Religion and the Afterlife

Excavations of ancient settlements have uncovered traces of religious practices and beliefs in Egypt from as early as 6000 bc. Some sites near the modern border between Egypt and Sudan include areas that were devoted to rituals and festivals, as well as sections for burials. Little is known about the early religious practices and beliefs. Graves of cattle have been found, indicating some degree of veneration of those animals. Human graves dating to Predynastic times include artifacts, weapons, vessels, and other materials. The inclusion of these objects in graves indicates a belief in some type of afterlife during which the items would be put to use.

By the time Egypt was unified, the early religious practices had developed into a formal religion involving the worship of many gods and goddesses. The environment played a significant role in shaping the nature of the deities the Egyptians worshiped. Their gods and goddesses took the form of humans, animals, or combinations of humans and animals. These forms represented the forces of nature and the elements of the Egyptians’ physical world. By picturing the natural powers as recognizable entities and creating mythological stories about them, the Egyptians tried to reach an understanding of the complicated interactions within their universe.

The deities of ancient Egypt can be organized into several groups, but the boundaries are not fixed, and some deities may belong to several groups. Some of the divinities associated with aspects of the Sun were Ra, Horus, Atum, and Khepri. Those identified with the Moon were Thoth and Khonsu. Geb was associated with the Earth. Nut was the goddess of the sky. Shu and Tefnut were identified with the air and moisture. Osiris and Isis were the rulers of the underworld. Many of these deities were also part of myths of creation, of which there are several versions. Each story has a primary deity, such as Amun, Ptah, Atum, or Khnum, as well as several lesser divinities. Amon and Ra became combined into a composite form, Amon-Ra. As king of the gods, Amon-Ra was revered on a national basis. A few other deities also attained this status. Most, however, had a local origin and were worshiped only in the provincial area where they originated. The concept of order and balance, Maat, had as its counterpart Seth, who personified chaos and disorder. A large group, including Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Selket, Anubis, and Thoth, fell into the class of funerary deities, who figured prominently in funerary rituals. In addition, on a more individual level, there were local, personal, and household gods, and even patron deities for certain professions. Deities of foreign origin were sometimes included among the Egyptian gods. See also Egyptian Mythology.

Statues and other images of the deities represented the abstract powers of the gods in concrete form. The ancient Egyptians believed that their gods occasionally resided in the statues. They maintained that the essence of a god could inhabit a statue and then a ritual could complete the process of animating the image. Such a ritual would include recitation of sacred text and all sorts of attention paid to the statue, such as cleansing, dressing, feeding, and anointing.

In the temple the king was in theory the high priest. In practice, his participation in temple rituals occurred primarily on specific festivals, while the priests performed the daily obligations at other times. Ordinary people had immediate access to their personal gods, but they could not enter the temple at will. However, many Egyptians served as lay priests in the temple when they were not working in the fields. During their service as lay priests, they could enter certain areas of the temple. On some holidays, such as the Feast of the Valley, a portable shrine housing the image of a deity was paraded around outside the confines of the temple at Thebes. The people could then express their piety.

Religion permeated life in ancient Egypt. Many of the daily activities of the people related in some way to their beliefs. The afterlife and preparations for it are a good example. To achieve eternal life after death, an individual had to do many things while he or she existed in this world. One of the most important was to live a just and moral life. In addition, some practical preparations were necessary, including making and furnishing a tomb, providing appropriate tomb decorations and texts, and establishing a mortuary cult to guarantee perpetual care and offerings. After death, the individual had to be carefully preserved as a mummy. Mummification was a process performed by an embalmer, who would carefully remove the internal organs, subject the body to different ointments and resins, dry it out with salts, and then wrap it with linen. Amulets, or charms, were often interspersed among the layers of linen, and other amulets might be placed in the coffin along with the mummy. Magical texts were sometimes written on the wrappings themselves, and they could also be written on papyri or inscribed on the walls of the coffin or of the tomb. These texts served as protection and as a guide for the deceased on the way to and in the afterlife.

Arts

The ancient Egyptians produced a large body of creative works in areas such as music, literature, painting, sculpture, drama, and architecture. Often the purpose of their artistic output was not recreation or cultural enrichment, but the communication of some sort of message or theme. See also Egyptian Art and Architecture.

Religion, which was extremely important in Egyptian thought, society, and life, had a great influence on the arts. For example, biographical texts that appear on the walls of funerary chapels make up an interesting body of literature. Their main purpose was to reaffirm the accomplishments and moral character of the deceased, so that he or she would pass successfully to the afterlife. On another level, these texts indirectly provide information about the activities of the pharaoh, since they often refer to the deceased's role in relation to the ruler.

Paintings, carvings, and other representations of figures in two dimensions appear on the walls of temples, tombs, coffins, and sarcophagi, as well as on papyri, textiles, and cartonnage (form-fitting coffins made of a papier-mâché-like substance). By convention, the artists portrayed the most characteristic features of the individual in one harmonious image. The resulting representations could then function on many levels simultaneously. For example, the typical depiction of a tomb owner was meant to portray that individual outside the limits of both time and space—an image for eternity. This representation might also relate to the hieroglyphs that accompany it, and it may even be an integral part of the text.

Sculptures served a variety of purposes. Carved statues of deities were worshiped in temples. The actual worship took place after appropriate rituals were completed. The rituals were believed to animate the image and insure that the deity had taken up residence in the statue. Statues of royal persons and ordinary people were also produced. The ancient Egyptians believed that these statues, too, could serve occasionally as residences for the personality of the individual after death. Sometimes, such a figure represented the final hieroglyph of the individual's name, which would be carved on the side or base of the statue. The ancient Egyptians also placed statues of themselves in temples as a demonstration of their piety. They also put figurines in human form, called shabtis, in tombs to be substitutes for the tomb owner when he or she was called to perform labor in the afterlife. Other statues placed in tombs were meant to be residences for an aspect of the deceased's personality in case of damage to the mummy.

The pyramids are the best-known examples of Egyptian architecture. These huge tombs have four triangular sides that meet in a point at the top. To the ancient Egyptians they might have represented the primeval mound that was the origin of life in their creation myths or they might have represented the solidified rays of the Sun. The Egyptians built more than 100 pyramids as final resting places for their rulers.

Egyptian temples were rectangular in shape and intended to be oriented in an east-west direction, that is, in line with the rising and setting of the Sun. In temple architecture, a huge gateway called a pylon stood at the entrance to the temple area and led into an open court. The pylon often took the form of the hieroglyph for the word horizon, a character in which the disk of the sun appears over a design representing the physical horizon. When the Sun rose in the morning and passed over the entrance to the temple, the resulting image reproduced the hieroglyph, symbolizing that the gateway was indeed the horizon. To the Egyptians, the temple, a structure built by humans, could be a cosmic environment fit for the gods.

Carved and brightly painted scenes adorned the walls of temples and tombs. Some of the representations showed the interaction of the kings and gods. Others depicted symbolic scenes that related to the cosmos or the afterlife. Painted decoration was also used on household items such as pottery vessels and furniture, and it was often applied to the interior walls of houses.

The ancient Egyptians wrote various kinds of literature. These included epic stories about wandering heroes, tales of pharaohs and magicians, wisdom literature that advised proper behavior (selections from which are the ancestors of some biblical proverbs), and comic stories about their deities. They wrote political propaganda, satire, and what may have been the world's first fairy tale. They also crafted love poetry that is beautifully evocative and meant to express the feelings of two individuals toward each other. Their dramas were primarily associated with religious literature and rituals. Performances apparently accompanied some burials. In addition, performers reenacted, in the temple, battles between the gods Horus and Seth that related to the royal succession.

No written music survives from ancient Egypt, but musical instruments were included in several burials, and musicians accompanying ritual dancers are often depicted on the walls of tombs and some temples. Some scenes of musicians and dancers represent entertainment at parties, while others portray religious activity. Musical instruments used in ancient Egypt include trumpets, flutes, harps, and various percussion instruments.

Many types of artifacts from ancient Egypt were not created for religious purposes. For example, in the category of minor arts, the Egyptians manufactured exquisite jewelry, cosmetic dishes, utensils, dishes, containers, furniture, and other objects. The beauty of these items seems to have been dictated by the ability of the artisan and the desire and perhaps wealth of the purchaser. Faience, an inexpensive nonclay ceramic material with a glaze made from quartz, was used in pottery, tiles, jewelry, and amulets.

Works of art were generally unsigned, but the names of particular artists are known because many texts record a title, such as line draftsman (one who draws the outlines of images to be painted or sculpted), sculptor, architect, or musician, before the name of a particular person. Two of the most important architects known are Imhotep, who designed Djoser's Step Pyramid, and Senenmut, who conceived the mortuary temple for the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. The royal temples, palaces, and tombs were state-sponsored projects involving several hundred anonymous artisans. Carving the reliefs on the walls of most structures was apparently a group effort, but certain areas of the decoration may reveal the distinctive style of a particular artist. The royal workshops often set the standards for statues, reliefs, and paintings created for others among the elite.