Amarna Period The era of Egyptian history centering on the pharaoh Akhenaten (1352–1336 BCE), who established a new royal city at Akhetaten (“Horizon of the Aten”) at what is now the site of Amarna in Middle Egypt.
chariotry The introduction of chariotry as a military unit and weapon in ancient Egypt, whereby chariots (light, open, two-wheel carriages pulled by horses) were used to carry riders into battle occurred during the Hyksos Period at the end of the Middle Kingdom. Chariots were effective for high speed, strength, and mobility in warfare and hunting.
evil eye In many cultures, the evil eye is a look believed to cause misfortune or injury to whom it is directed. In ancient Egypt, the chaotic snake god Apophis was thought to cause harm by his evil glance. Talismans and amulets were created to protect against the evil eye and its effects.
Hittite The Hittites were an ancient people stemming from Anatolia (present-day Turkey) who established a capital at Hattusa. During the reign of the Hittite king Shuppiluliuma I (1400 BCE), territorial expansion created conflict with New Kingdom Egyptians. The most famous conflict occurred at the Battle of Kadesh (a site in Syria, on the Orontes River) fought during the reign of Ramesses II.
instructional literature Also called Wisdom Texts or didactic literature. A genre of texts (called sebayt in Egyptian) that often incorporates the teachings of a father for his son. Such texts advise on all aspects of personal and professional behavior.
Levant The geographic and cultural region of the Eastern Mediterranean stretching between Anatolia and Egypt that today comprises Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Israel, and southern Turkey.
maat The ancient Egyptian concept for truth, justice, and cosmic order that was also personified as a goddess represented as a female wearing a tall feather on her head, or by the feather alone. It was the king’s duty to uphold maat for the entire country, so much so that the value and legitimization of the king’s reign depended upon how well he maintained maat.
Macedonia An ancient Greek kingdom that dominated the Hellenistic world under Philip II (359–336 BCE).
nomarch The title given to the ruler or governor of a nome. Nomarchs had regional control over their district, but were responsible for answering to the vizier and central administration of Egypt.
nome A Greek term used to denote a province or administrative division in ancient Egypt. Since early times, the country was divided into separate nomes or districts, each ruled by a nomarch who could collect taxes and administer justice. There were 42 traditional provinces of Egypt: 22 in Upper Egypt and 20 in Lower Egypt.
Nubia A region extending from southern Egypt to northern Sudan. Egypt sought to exploit quantities of gold from this region, as well as to import incense, ebony, ivory, exotic animals, and dwarfs through trade.
offering list A list of items (food, drink, etc.) commonly found on funerary stelae, false doors, tomb walls, and coffins, which allowed the deceased to partake in receiving symbolic sustenance for the afterlife.
oracle The Egyptian consultation of oracles involved requesting a deity to answer a question posed to its public image. In the Ramesside Period, oracles began to be accessed by ordinary individuals who wanted to consult the gods on all kinds of everyday affairs.
Ptolemaic Dynasty (305 BCE–30 BCE; Ptolemy I to Ptolemy XV) The period of history when the Ptolemies ruled in Egypt. Ptolemy I was a general under Alexander the Great, who was allocated control over Egypt as a satrap (governor) after Alexander’s death.
qenbet The ancient Egyptian term for a type of administrative council that was concerned with judicial activities.
scribe Considered one of the noblest professions in Egypt, the office of the scribe consisted of composing, writing, and copying documents of all types.
Sea People A number of different cultural groups that were involved in a great migration across the Mediterranean Sea. According to Egyptian sources, they invaded and fought with Egypt twice: Year 5 of Merneptah’s reign and year 8 of Ramesses III’s reign during the 19th and 20th Dynasties.
vizier The highest executive official of the land in service under the pharaoh. The vizier (ancient name tjaty) served the king and acted on his behalf to supervise the running of the country.
A woman in labor was attended by her female family members or a midwife. Children may have been breast-fed for up to three years, either by the mother or a wet nurse. In artistic representations, children were rendered naked and with shaved heads, save for a side lock of hair that was sometimes braided. They could be shown with pet dogs or cats, or holding a favorite bird or even a duck. Young boys from the lower classes learned their trade by accompanying their fathers to the fields or workshops, while young girls apprenticed in the home at their mothers’ side. Wealthier children were educated in local schools, the most common subjects being rhetoric, mathematics, geography, and even foreign languages. The age at which the transition to adulthood occurred is not known, although ceremonies, such as “tying the headband” or circumcising young boys, may have marked the occasion. When they were deemed old enough, young men and women were expected to marry. The union, considered more of a social than a legal contract, seems to have been arranged by the families and no marriage ceremonies are known from ancient Egypt. The main purpose for marrying was to produce children, although both images and texts show evidence of genuine affection between married couples.
Celebrated in numerous artistic representations and texts from all periods, the nuclear family was the most important social unit in ancient Egypt.
“He who makes love to a married woman is killed on her doorstep.” This warning from ancient Egyptian instructional literature is characteristic of such teachings, with popular stories also predicting lethal consequences for adultery. The reality was more benign. Legal records indicate that unfaithfulness was viewed as a personal matter between husband and wife, with the state acting more in a conciliatory rather than punitive capacity and the punishment was usually a financial one.
PTAHHOTEP
ca. 2400 BCE
Ancient Egyptian sage
Ronald J. Leprohon
In family portraits, children were represented on a much smaller scale than adults; they were usually naked, with a side lock of hair to show their youth.
Gender played a major role in the essentially rural economy of ancient Egypt. Men worked in the fields, tended herds and flocks, fished, trapped, and hunted. Women winnowed grain at the harvest; otherwise their place was in the home with domestic responsibilities, including rearing the children. On larger estates women worked alongside men making bread and beer, but weaving was the only craft practiced by women. Professionals traditionally claimed to be “self-made” men; in fact, most followed in their fathers’ footsteps. Men ran the government and the temples. Women could serve as priestesses in the service of goddesses. Both sexes trained as musicians and dancers in the cult, as well as in the households of the elite; women were also professional mourners. Kingship was reserved for men; the few women who ruled before Ptolemaic times ascended the throne despite their gender, when there was no surviving royal male or when he was too young to rule. The most influential role attainable for a nonroyal woman was wet nurse of the king’s children. There was but one, svelte ideal of ageless female beauty. Men, by contrast, were broad-shouldered athletic types when young; with advancing age, increasing girth indicated prosperity, while, at least in art, a receding hairline apparently affected only manual laborers.
A person’s role was largely biologically determined; even if a woman’s choice of career was limited, she nevertheless enjoyed considerable personal freedom in everyday life.
The “Satire of the Trades,” composed early in the Middle Kingdom, was one of the most popular texts read and copied in ancient Egypt. It glorified the scribal profession above all others: only the scribe was his own boss. Scribal training was the first step on the ladder of success. Egyptian women did not learn to read and write, but they were legally privileged, by contrast to their sisters in contemporaneous cultures.
HATSHEPSUT
reigned ca. 1473–1458 BCE
One of the very few female “kings” of Egypt, known today thanks to her trading expedition and building projects at Thebes
M. Eaton-Krauss
Artists followed conventions in the way they represented men and women. Careers were determined by gender, with men undertaking more active roles.
Egyptian subsistence centered on such grains as emmer wheat and barley. Payments, wages, and taxes were measured in grain or grain products, such as bread and beer. These two essential staples were produced in tandem in homes or bakery-brewery facilities. Egyptian beer had the consistency of porridge and was fairly nutritious. Alongside these carbohydrates, average Egyptians ate mostly vegetables and fruits. The popularity of garlic and onions probably made for pungent mealtime chat. Legumes, such as chickpeas and lentils provided extra protein, while lesser-known vegetables included parts of the lotus, papyrus, and sedge plants. Fresh or dried, dates and figs were favored fruits. Wine made from grapes, dates, and figs was a luxury drink. Drunkenness was acknowledged and, for certain religious festivals, desired. For sweet cakes needing more than fruit, the rich obtained honey. Income determined the amount of meat in one’s diet, with prime cuts of cattle, sheep, and goat going mainly to the elite. Geese and ducks were primary choices for poultry and eggs, sometimes joined on the grill by pigeons and quail. Egyptians also hunted wild game, such as gazelle, oryx, and ibex, and caught numerous species of Nile fish by net, hook, or spear. Contrary to popular belief, the Egyptian menu sometimes included pork.
Although the ancient Egyptians didn’t invent the “food pyramid,” all the ingredients for a well-balanced diet were readily available.
Along with tomb scenes of agriculture, food-preparation, and hunting, offering lists provide information about the Egyptians’ food options. Standard phrases preface the offerings as coming from the king and at least one deity, but ask that passersby read the list aloud to magically render them real for the deceased in the next world. Almost always, the first two requests are bread and beer, often in batches of a thousand each to signify an endless supply.
Nicholas Picardo
Grains were the key ingredients in the Egyptian diet, forming the basis for staples, such as bread and beer. Other foods, such as meat, were more commonly eaten by the wealthy.
If modern paperwork seems at times overwhelming, ancient Egyptian “papyrus-work” was at least as cumbersome—there were thousands of administrative job titles. About three weeks were required to send dispatches from north to south; six weeks altogether to receive an answer. Literary papyri extol the virtues of scribal literacy, while other professions are denounced as filthy, back-breaking, lower-class endeavors. The pharaoh relied on “mayors” (haty-a) of national and local capitals to collect taxes, organize conscripted labor, and implement royal decrees. In addition, there were the qenbet councils: two great qenbets, in Memphis and in Thebes, each headed by a vizier overseeing priests, bureaucrats, and military personnel. They handled civil cases, while the lesser qenbets dealt with criminal cases, claims over property rights, and other disputes. Administering burial complexes took effort, too; the Fifth Dynasty Abusir Papyri describe personnel, work shifts, and payments for royal mortuary temple functions. Major players in the administration, after the vizier, included the treasurer, the military general, the royal documents scribe, and the chief lector priest. But specialization was looser; the Sixth Dynasty official Weni commanded the army, resolved a harem conspiracy, and led an expedition to buy his pharaoh’s sarcophagus.
Hierarchical organization, starting with the pharaoh, and relying on the literate elites, controlled resource allocation, collected taxes, implemented royal commands, and settled disputes of all kinds.
As Egyptian bureaucracy expanded, new positions were created. Old Kingdom rulers created the “overseer of Upper Egypt” position. The Middle Kingdom saw “nomarchs” (nome governors) rise in power. And in the New Kingdom, a “king’s son of Kush” or Nubian viceroy, supervised Egypt’s interests in the south. Ramesses III’s “Papyrus Harris” records huge donations to his own temple cult; it’s the longest Egyptian manuscript and is dedicated to bureaucracy and administration.
WENI
fl. from 2323 BCE
Court official of the Sixth Dynasty
Peter Der Manuelian
The pharaoh required countless administrators to assist him in managing the large and complex Egyptian society.
Ancient Egyptians of all classes and ages enjoyed games of skill and chance, both athletic pursuits (hunting, racing, dancing, fencing, wrestling) and less physically active pastimes (board games, marbles, ball games). Egyptian art often depicts individuals, their families, and households engaged in these recreations. Archaeologists have found objects that were employed in such activities (including wooden game boards, leather or woven balls, fencing sticks, and swords) in both funerary and domestic contexts. Kings displayed their physical prowess and fitness to rule by performing a ritual run before their subjects and the gods during royal jubilee celebrations, a rite known since earliest pharaonic times. The elite hunted wild game in the deserts and fish and fowl in the marshes, recreational activities that also symbolized the triumph of civilized order over untamed natural chaos. The lower classes enjoyed racing (on foot and in boats), wrestling, bare-knuckle boxing, and fencing with wooden sticks or swords. Egyptians, both high born and low, played a number of different board games, the most popular of which was called senet, a race game that became so popular that it took on an increasingly mythologized dimension and, by the New Kingdom, came to represent the deceased’s progression through the afterlife.
Recreational sports in ancient Egypt included many activities still practiced in some form today. They encouraged religious piety and national pride while providing widespread enjoyment.
Egyptian rulers are shown on temple walls in the New Kingdom and later performing a ritual where they strike balls with wooden bats or clubs. The balls, symbolically representing the “evil eye” of the gods’ enemy, are then caught or retrieved by temple priests and offered to the deities. Evidence exists that this sacred act may have had its roots in a children’s sport, which could, perhaps, have shared some affinities with modern ball games.
AMENHOTEP II
reigned ca. 1427–1400 BCE
Archer, hunter, and “sportsman” pharaoh
Rachel Aronin
The ancient Egyptians enjoyed physical sports, such as hunting and wrestling, as well as more tranquil pastimes, like board games.
Egypt’s military changed significantly over the 2,500 years of its history. No standing army existed in the Old Kingdom when soldiers were conscripted for defense, military raids, and to procure raw materials. After 2000 BCE, Egypt established Nubia as a colony, secured by forts on the Second Cataract. The backbone of warfare at this time was the navy. The full-fledged military system of the New Kingdom comprised a standing army of infantry, navy, and chariotry, creating new careers and benefiting from advances in military technology. Kings Thutmose I and III established a large empire from southern Syria to the Fourth Cataract; their armies may have comprised 20,000 soldiers and 2,000 chariots. In 1275 BCE, Ramesses II was defeated by the Hittites, Egypt’s rivals in Syria. Prior to the collapse of the Bronze Age around 1100 BCE, Egypt lost its possessions in the Levant and Nubia and had to counter incursions by Libyans and the Sea People to the Nile Delta. Periods of foreign occupation marked the first millennium, when a mercenary army was created, which was later glorified in epics. Rare military triumphs occurred in the sixth century BCE (warding the Babylonians off Egypt’s border, followed by the conquest of Syria, Cyprus, and the Sudan) and against the Persians in the fourth century BCE.
Egypt’s military evolved from a militia system through a professional armed force based on a strong navy to a large imperial force and, after the New Kingdom, a mercenary army.
Significant material evidence on warfare has been preserved, including 11 chariots, 6 of which were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. Fieldwork in the capital city of Piramesse/Qantir in the eastern Nile Delta has uncovered weaponry workshops (including Hittite shield molds), and stone and metal implements from chariots. The excavations also uncovered an oval arena for the training of charioteers, where chariots were driven around octagonal pillars placed in the two focal points of the oval.
PIANKHY
ca. 747–716 BCE
King of the Kushite (Nubian) empire, he conquered Egypt in 733 BCE, documented in the longest Egyptian narrative account of warfare
Thomas Schneider
The introduction of the chariot transformed the nature of warfare; at center right is a reconstruction of one of the chariots discovered in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
Cleopatra, the best known of the few ruling queens of Egypt, was the last pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Her fame derives in no small measure from her role in the demise of the Roman Republic.
Cleopatra was born in 69 BCE, one of six children of Ptolemy XII Auletes (“the flutist”). She may have accompanied her father when he traveled to Rome in 58 BCE to seek help to end an uprising in Alexandria. After his death, she acceded to the throne in 51 BCE as Cleopatra VII to rule jointly with her brother, Ptolemy XIII. Factions in Alexandria fostered antipathy between the siblings. In 48 BCE, when Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria after defeating Pompey the Great at Pharsalus, he was charmed by her. The ruse she used to gain an initial audience with him in defiance of her brother (a trusted attendant carried her rolled up in a carpet into his presence) is legendary. Their liaison apparently resulted in the birth of Caesarion, Caesar’s only son, in 47 BCE. On the occasion of her visit to Rome (46–44 BCE) with the child and Ptolemy XIV (her coregent after Ptolemy XIII drowned), Caesar commissioned a gold statue of her for the temple of his putative divine ancestress Venus Genetrix. It depicted Cleopatra as the Egyptian goddess Isis, whose incarnation she claimed to be. (When Caesar’s heir Octavian—later Emperor Augustus—emerged victorious over his rivals, he had Caesarion put to death, but left the statue standing in the temple.)
Civil war in Rome followed Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE, pitting Octavian against Marc Antony, who also fell victim to Cleopatra’s charms. Their twins (a boy and a girl) were joined by another son in 36 BCE. The civil war spread to include Egypt in 32 BCE. After the defeat of the combined fleet of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BCE and the suicides of them both in 30 BCE, Egypt became a Roman province.
The only Ptolemaic ruler who spoke Egyptian (as well as other languages), Cleopatra was reputedly very intelligent. The intrigues she survived document wiliness at the very least. Was she beautiful? Egyptian representations of her—for example, reliefs in Hathor’s temple at Dendera—conform to the idealizing norm. The only indisputable portraits of Cleopatra are rather unflattering profiles on coins, which, like all coin portraits, are “less than half a face.”
M. Eaton-Krauss
Archaeology has uncovered no ancient Egyptian law code. In theory, all conduct was based on the principle of maat (“righteousness”), although few legal documents mention the word. The king or high officials only involved themselves in critical matters of state, such as the assassination attempt against King Ramesses III or when the royal tombs were being plundered in the late Ramesside Period. Minor cases were handled by a local council of elders, who relied on precedents to settle matters. Contracts and deeds of conveyance were registered in governmental offices, duly witnessed by peers, and could be consulted. A three-century-old case of disputed land ownership was settled when the plaintiffs searched older deeds and proved some were forgeries. Severe penalties, such as cutting off the nose and ears, could be meted out for crimes against the state; for minor offenses, such as theft, the punishment was usually full restitution and reparation of two to three times the value of the goods. During hard times, when people had lost faith in the state, justice was sometimes handled by divine oracles. Questions were asked to the god, in the guise of a statue held aloft by priests, who answered Yes or No, with the statue moving forward or backward for a positive or a negative answer.
Ancient Egyptian law was based on precedents and was mostly administered by local courts consisting of a council of elders.
Wills were drawn up to protect widows. A man who left his belongings to his wife added that she was not to be expelled from the family house after his death, presupposing that such evictions did occur. Another stipulation was that his wife could subsequently bequeath her goods to “whomsoever of her children she chose, whom she bore to me,” implying that her children from a later husband could not inherit the first husband’s goods.
ARISTIDE THÉODORIDES
1911–1994
Belgian Egyptologist and specialist in ancient law
Ronald J. Leprohon
Maat was the Egyptian code of righteousness and justice, personified as a goddess. Here, peasants seized for nonpayment of taxes feel the full force of the Egyptian law.
Decorum discouraged especially intimate visual depictions of this quintessentially human emotion. Love—emotional or physical—was instead usually couched in artistic convention or indirect symbolism. In both twoand three-dimensional art, even married couples, shown embracing or holding hands, assume poses that seem as rigid as the stone from which they were sculpted. Striking exceptions are Amarna Period scenes of the royal family, showing King Akhenaten, Queen Nefertiti, and their young daughters touching affectionately. There is also the so-called “Erotic Papyrus,” which comically illustrates an array of sexual positions reminiscent of the Kama Sutra. The words “love/to love” were formed on the hieroglyphic sign of the agricultural hoe. One might thus muse that the Egyptians knew that love requires dedicated cultivation to thrive. Whether the objects of romantic or familial love, close intimates were called “brother” or “sister,” irrespective of actual family ties, or more generally just “beloved.” Egyptian poetry captured the gamut of love’s experiences most evocatively, often emphasizing the passionate, spontaneous aspects. Some narrators profess admiration for a lover’s features. Others yearn for rendezvous, anxiously await their beloved’s return home, or lament having to leave a lover’s bed.
Ancient Egyptian expressions of love encompass all the timeless, familiar variations of this emotion: heart-warming and endearing, lustful and consuming, playful and saucy.
Four major collections of ancient Egyptian love poems have survived, three written on papyri and one inscribed on a pottery vessel. All compositions date from the New Kingdom. Most poems are voiced in the first person, which suggests that these “songs,” or “utterances” as the Egyptians called them, were intended to be spoken or sung to musical accompaniment. Interestingly, the word “love” does not appear frequently in these compositions.
Nicholas Picardo
Most married couples were represented in formal poses, but scenes of Akhenaten and his family display physical affection.
