10 Thing You Didn't Know About Egypt
1) They failed to ride camels
The artiodactyl mammal wasn't used frequently in Egypt till the terribly finish of the family age. Instead, the Egyptians used donkeys as beasts of burden, and boats as a extremely convenient suggests that of transport.
The river nile flowed through the centre of their fertile land, making a natural road (and sewer!). this helped those thatrequired to row from south to north, whereas the wind created life straightforward for those that wanted to sail within the wrong way. The stream was joined to settlements, quarries and building sites by canals. vast picket barges were wont to transport grain and significant stone blocks; light-weight papyrus boats ferried individuals regardingtheir daily business. and each day, high higher than the stream, the sun god Ra was believed to sail across the sky in his star boat.
2) Not everybody was mummified
The mummy – associate degree eviscerated, dried and bound body – has become a process Egyptian artifact. nevertheless mummification was an upscale and long method, reserved for the a lot of rich members of society. The overwhelming majority of Egypt’s dead were buried in straightforward pits within the desert.
So why did the elite feel the requirement to mummify their dead? They believed that it had been potential to measureonce more when death, however given that the body maintained a recognizable human kind. Ironically, this mightare achieved quite simply by hiding the dead in direct contact with the new and sterile desert sand; a natural desiccation would then have occurred. however the elite needed to be buried in coffins at intervals tombs, and this meant that their corpses, now not in direct contact with the sand, began to rot. the dual necessities of elaborate burial instrumentation and a recognizable body crystal rectifier to the science of artificial mummification.
3) The living shared food with the dead
The place was designed as never-ending home for the mummified body and also the ka spirit that lived beside it. associate degree accessible tomb-chapel allowed families, well-wishers and monks to go to the deceased and leave the regular offerings that the Hindu deity needed, whereas a hidden sepulchre protected the mum from damage.
Within the tomb-chapel, food and drink were offered on a daily basis. Having been spiritually consumed by the Hindu deity, they were then physically consumed by the living. throughout the ‘feast of the valley’, associate degree annual competition of death and renewal, several families spent the night within the tomb-chapels of their ancestors. The hours of darkness were spent drinking and feeding by visible radiation because the living celebrated their reunion with the dead.
Food offerings to the dead. From an ornamental detail from the coffin of Irinimenpu.
4) Egyptian girls had equal rights with men
In Egypt, men and girls of equivalent rank were treated as equals within the eyes of the law. This meant that girls mayown, earn, buy, sell and inherit property. they may live unprotected by male guardians and, if unmarried or single, mayraise their own youngsters. they may bring cases before, and be tortured by, the law courts. and that they were expected to deputise for associate degree absent husband in matters of business.
Everyone in Ancient Egypt was expected to marry, with husbands and wives being allotted complementary howeveropposite roles at intervals the wedding. The wife, the ‘mistress of the house’, was chargeable for all internal, domestic matters. She raised the kids and ran the unit whereas her husband, the dominant partner within the wedding, contend the external, wage-earning role.
5) Scribes seldom wrote in hieroglyphs
Hieroglyphic writing - a script consisting of the many many involved pictures – was lovely to seem at, however longto make. it had been thus reserved for the foremost vital texts; the writings decorating place and temple walls, and texts recording royal achievements.
As they went regarding their daily business, Egypt’s scribes habitually used hieratic – a simplified or shorthand kind ofhieroglyphic writing. Towards the tip of the family amount they used demotic, a good a lot of simplified version of hieratic. All 3 scripts were wont to write identical ancient Egyptian language.
Few of the people would are ready to browse either hieroglyphs or hieratic: it's calculable that no over ten per cent (and maybe significantly less) of the population was literate.
Legal text on parchment, written in hieratic: a listing of witnesses throughout the settlement of a quarrel, 1000 BC. (Photo by DEA / G Dagli Orti/De Agostini/Getty Images)
6) The king of Egypt may well be a girl
Ideally the king of Egypt would be the son of the previous king. however this wasn't continually potential, and also the installation ceremony had the facility to convert the foremost unlikely candidate into associate degreeunassailable king.
On a minimum of 3 occasions girls took the throne, ruling in their claim as feminine kings and victimisation the complete king’s titular. the foremost booming of those feminine rulers, Hatshepsut, dominated Egypt for overtwenty prosperous years.
In the West Germanic, wherever ‘king’ is gender-specific, we'd classify Sobeknefru, Hatshepsut and Tausret as queens reigning. In Egyptian, however, the phrase that we tend to conventionally translate as ‘queen’ virtually suggests that‘king’s wife’, and is entirely inappropriate for these girls.
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, which she remained entirely loyal to her husband and their youngsters. They provided applicable husbands for princesses WHO may otherwise stay single, whereas limiting the amount of potential claimants for the throne. They even provided a link with the gods, many of whom (like Isis and Osiris) enjoyed incestuous unions. However, brother-sister marriages were ne'er mandatory, and a few of Egypt’s most outstandingqueens – as well as Nefertiti – were of non-royal birth.
Incestuous marriages weren't common outside the house till the terribly finish of the family age. The restricted Egyptian rank nomenclature (‘father’, ‘mother’, ‘brother’, ‘sister’, ‘son’ and ‘daughter’ being the sole terms used), and also the tendency to use these words loosely so ‘sister’ may with equal validity describe associate degree actual sister, a better half or an exponent, has crystal rectifier to lots of confusion over this issue.
8) Not all pharaohs designed pyramids
Almost all the pharaohs of the previous Kingdom (c2686–2125 BC) and Middle Kingdom (c2055–1650 BC) designedpyramid-tombs in Egypt’s northern deserts. These extremely conspicuous monuments joined the kings with the sun god Ra whereas replicating the mound of creation that emerged from the waters of chaos at the start of your time.
But by the beginning of the New Kingdom (c1550 BC) pyramid building was out of fashion. Kings would currently build 2 entirely separate ceremonial monuments. Their mummies would be buried in hidden rock-cut tombs within thedepression of the Kings on the geographical area of the Nile at the southern town of Thebes, whereas a extremelyvisible memorial temple, located on the border between the farmland (home of the living), and also the sterile desert (home of the dead), would function the main target of the royal mortuary cult.
Following the collapse of the New Kingdom, consequent kings were buried in tombs in northern Egypt: a number oftheir burials haven't been discovered.
9) the nice Pyramid wasn't designed by slaves
The classical student historian believed that the nice Pyramid had been designed by one hundred,000 slaves. His image of men, girls and kids urgently labouring within the harshest of conditions has verified remarkably popularfashionable film producers. It is, however, wrong.
Archaeological proof indicates that the nice Pyramid was really designed by a men of five,000 permanent, salaried staff and up to twenty,000 temporary staff. These staff were free men, summoned beneath the corvée system of service to place in an exceedingly three- or four-month shift on the vacant lot before returning home. They were housed in an exceedingly temporary camp close to the pyramid, wherever they received payment within the kind offood, drink, medical attention and, for those that died on duty, burial within the near necropolis.
Great Pyramid of Cheops at El Giza, that wasn't, as several believe, designed by slaves.
10) female monarch might not are lovely
Cleopatra VII, last queen of ancient Egypt, won the hearts of statesman and Antonius, 2 of Rome’s most vital men. Surely, then, she should are an excellent beauty?
Her coins counsel that this was in all probability not the case. All show her in profile with a outstanding nose, pronounced chin and sunken eyes. Of course, Cleopatra’s coins mirror the talents of their manufacturers, and it'sentirely potential that the queen failed to need to look too female on the tokens that delineate her sovereignty at intervals and out of doors Egypt.
Unfortunately we've no witness description of the queen. but the classical student biographer – WHO ne'er truly met female monarch – tells United States of America that her charm lay in her demeanour, and in her lovely voice.