The Culture Of Ancient Egypt By Group 5: Cody Walsh, Christopher Evans, Samantha Thorp, and Samantha Rockey

Thinking About Ancient Egypt Before our group began working on our project we asked ourselves questions about Ancient Egyptian culture. We got a lot of our information from answering these questions. Did they go to school? If they did what was it like? Did they worship? If they did what did they worship? What did they do for entertainment? What was their language? What was it called? What did they do for a living? What were their different jobs? What did the pharaoh have to do with their culture? What did their homes look like? What did their diet consist of?

Education Most Egyptian education centered on reading and writing. Even though school centered on reading and writing, most Egyptians could not do both of these. Only the smartest children were chosen to go to school, so they could get jobs as scribes and obtain good jobs in the government. The best scribes of the school would move on to the House of Life. The House of Life was a place where scribes would be trained to become priests.

Entertainment The Egyptians had many different ways to entertain themselves. There activities ranged from board games to hunting. One of their favorite board games was called Senet. Senet today is now thought to be the ancestor of backgammon. To the Egyptians Senet was even thought to be religious. Also, Senet was a favorite pastime of King Tut. The Egyptians also enjoyed many other forms of entertainment, such as; sailing, fishing, hunting ducks, and hunting gazelles in the dessert. The Egyptians used many things for hunting tools. These consisted of bows and arrows, boomerang sticks, and harpoons.

Religion To the Ancient Egyptians religion was very important. The way they lived revolved around pleasing the gods. Also, the Ancient Egyptians believed in a life after death; the afterlife. The Egyptians believed that when they died, to live in the afterlife, their heart would be measured. If it showed that they lived a good life and had a good heart, they were granted life in the afterlife. Though, if it showed they lived a life of bad deeds, they would be devoured by a beast. The Egyptians believed that there were gods. The gods were a very important part of the their religion. The Egyptians would go to temples to worship and praise the gods. Some of the very important gods were; Amun-Re the sun god, Horus the sky god, and Anubis the god of the dead. The Egyptians believed that if they put the belongings of that person with their sarcophagus they would have it in the afterlife.

Hieroglyphics The Egyptians like other ancient civilizations had their own languages. Their writings were called hieroglyphics. We don’t know quite how they spoke their language, but we can now understand it. The way we know most of the Egyptian history is because of all the hieroglyphics that told about past events, even past lives. Hieroglyphics were used in many parts of the Egyptian civilization. Hieroglyphics were found all over the walls of the pyramids, monuments, temples, etc..

Ancient Egyptian Occupations The Ancient Egyptians had many jobs. A few of their jobs were scribes, priests, farmers, craft workers, mummifiers, and merchants. Some of the very important jobs were scribes, priests, and mummifiers. To become a scribe a person would have to be a successful student at school. Now to become a priest it was much more complicated. First, you would have to be at the top of your class to make it into the house of life. After you have endured both school and the house of life you would become a priest. You would also be near the top of the social pyramid! If neither of these jobs were enough of a challenge to you, you might want to be a mummifier. In this job you would have to go through the gruesome process of removing a body’s organs, (Except the heart, it was believed you would need your heart in the afterlife.) put on oils and salt to help preserve the body, and then you would have to wrap the body. Jobs like a merchant or a farmer worked together to raise money. A job like a craft worker would be like an architect, because they designed and supervised the building of buildings.

Ancient Egyptian Homes The Ancient Egyptians had a homes different from the ones we have today. The Ancient Egyptians depended on their wealth; the higher the wealth the better the home. An average Egyptian home was a high walled rectangular closure with a door facing north, to get the advantage of prevailing breezes. Inside, a pool irrigated trees and shrubs. For entertainment they had a roofed porch. In the back of the house there were rooms where the owner and his family lived. On the walls of the house (Like many other Egyptian buildings) hieroglyphics were written.

The Pharaohs The pharaohs were a very important part of the Egyptian civilization. They made it rich and strong, and they were even thought to be gods. The pharaohs were thought to be the reincarnation of the sky god Horus. Most pharaohs were men; only a few were women. The pharaohs always wanted to show their wealth and power, so they would display their possessions to the public. They would do this in processions and receptions.

Ancient Egyptian Diet The diet of most Ancient Egyptians consisted of fruits and vegetables. The kinds of fruits and vegetables they ate were figs, grapes, onions and beans. Sometimes they would have fish and bread. Only the upper class would eat meat regularly though. They would use spices a lot to add more flavor to food. Some of the spices they used were cumin, thyme, dill and sage. The most popular beverage was beer. Which is thought to may have been invented by them.

FUN FACTS!!! Since Egyptian hieroglyphics do not represent vowels it is difficult to find out how King Tutankhamen’s name was pronounced. The best estimate is it was pronounced “Toot-ank-amoon” Nearly 145 beautiful amulets were in his coffin with him. This included his royal diadem and his golden dagger. There were 31 dynasties in Ancient Egypt. There were so many pharaohs, nobody is quite sure how much there were. King Tut died at 19 in mid-January. He was later discovered by Howard Carter, and Lord Carnarvon. The Sphinx was thought of as a monster from the Greeks’ point of view. The word Hieroglyphics means “Sacred carvings” In the Egyptian writing there were two kinds of writing. One of these was called religious writing. This was written from the Book of the Dead on the walls of tombs. This writing was supposedly supposed to lead the dead into the afterlife. The pyramids were one of the Seven Wonders of the World.