Lost Voices of the Nile: Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt

by Charlotte Booth

  In the First Intermediate Period the game of choice was hounds and jackals, or the shield game. The shield-shaped board consisted of a box or block of wood with sixty small holes drilled into it: twenty-nine for each player and a large central hole which both players shared. Into these the pieces were placed. Some of the holes had inscriptions next to them which identified positive or negative places to land. For example, the word nfr (good) is inscribed next to holes fifteen, twenty-six and twenty-seven.19 Howard Carter believed the dancers or gaming pieces for this game were in fact hairpins due to their shape, which was long and stick-like with a decorative top. There were ten pieces in total, half with dog heads and half with jackal heads, making five pieces each.

  The most popular game in ancient Egypt, however, was senet, a game played on thirty squares and thought to be similar to backgammon. The game was known before the first dynasty (2686–2613 BCE) and continued in popularity throughout the dynastic period; more than 120 gaming boards have been found throughout the ancient Near East and Egypt.20

  It was known as Thirty Field Game or the Game of Thirty, in reference to the number of squares on the board. It was a game of strategy played by two players, with seven or five dancers. There were two different styles (cones or reels) in two colours, usually white and black, making it easy to identify each player’s pieces. The objective of the game was to move all the dancers through the thirty squares to the end. Some of the squares were marked with a hieroglyph indicating whether it was considered a lucky or unlucky square, and there was likely some penalty or reward for landing on them. On some of the boards all thirty squares were inscribed, but on others only square fifteen, the House of Rebirth; square twenty-six, the Beautiful House; and square twenty-seven, the Field of Water, which was a negative square to land on, were inscribed.21

  By the time of the New Kingdom the game had also taken on spiritual meaning and is represented in tombs, with the deceased playing an unseen opponent. If they won, the deceased continued into the afterlife, and presumably if they lost – although no one did – they were cast into oblivion and denied rebirth. This scene is used to represent chapter seventeen of the Book of the Dead and a senet board was an essential part of the funerary assemblage.

  The Egyptians were not really very different to modern people, passing the time by playing games, drinking and chatting with their friends, and images of senet playing in tombs as a pastime rather than a representation of the Book of the Dead is accompanied by the inscription, ‘You sit in the hall; you play the senet board game; you have wine, you have beer.’22 It seems like a very civilised way to spend an evening.

  Members of Egyptian society who were talented (or sometimes not-so-talented) artists sketched on ostraca and papyri, sometimes simply for the sake of drawing. Such sketches have revealed the Egyptian sense of humour and, to a certain extent, their cruelty. Many of the drawings involve poking fun at people – individuals and royalty – and religious practices. Like many people in ancient Egypt, these artists are anonymous and we can only imagine what they were thinking as they sketched these things. However, sometimes we are given little glimpses of individual moments in these anonymous artists’ lives. One such moment was discovered in 1991–92 at Dra Abu el Naga. In the New Kingdom an artist decided to pack away his paints for a few moments, perhaps to take a break, have lunch or a nap. He dug a small hole in the ground and stacked his bowls of paint one on top of the other, with a little paintbrush laid gently in each pot. Three large pots were turned upside down to cover the stack, perhaps to prevent the paint from drying out or to prevent flies and dust getting into the paint. It seems he was only planning to be gone a short time, but he never returned.23 What had he been painting? A tomb scene, a portable object, or a small sketch on an ostracon to entertain his friends and family? And what is more intriguing, why did he never return?

  Most of the surviving drawings are not captioned, so what exactly is being presented it not always clear. However, one caricature is labelled as belonging to Pay and his wife Mereseger. Pay is shown drinking beer through a straw and wearing a knee-length kilt. He is depicted as tall and thin, whereas in contrast his wife is plump, depicted naked and without a wig, showing a short, stubbly hair style.24 It is a less than flattering depiction of Pay’s wife and could indicate she was not popular among his friends and colleagues.

  Another stylised image of a woman with a wig, lotus flower and perfume cone on her head was amended by another artist, who added a small monkey pulling on her nose. Who the woman is ­– if she was in fact a known individual rather than a generic study of a woman ­– we will never know.

  Even the king is sometimes shown in unflattering ways, with stubble or even shedding tears. Perhaps these were means of making the king seem less majestic than the divine being he was thought to be, or they may have been images of the king in mourning. The Queen of Punt was an interesting subject for one Deir el-Medina workman, who had seen the image in the temple of Hatshepsut and copied it onto an ostracon,25 perhaps to show his friends and colleagues. By the time this sketch was drawn the original on the temple wall was more than two centuries old. It is intriguing to think of this artist showing his friends the sketch in the same manner as a modern person showing their holiday photographs.

  Even religion was not off-limits to these satirical artists; they were not only drawn on ostraca but actually on the walls of the temple at Nag el Medamud, just north of Luxor. A banquet is depicted being held in the papyrus marshes and the noblewoman on her throne is actually a mouse holding a flower, attended by a cat servant. A figure stands before her which some believe to be a monkey and could even represent the king. The noblewoman is entertained by a crocodile playing a lute, with a naked woman on his back playing a harp. Why such an unusual scene is depicted in a temple is a mystery. The imagery of animals playing instruments, however, was not a new theme when this temple was decorated in the twenty-fifth dynasty. The much earlier Two Dog Palette from the Naqada III period shows a jackal playing a flute. This indicates that perhaps this imagery had a deeper significance than a ‘reverse world’.

  The subversion of the natural world was, however, a particularly popular theme and there are numerous images showing animals carrying out human activities. Popular animal pairs include lions and gazelles, cats and mice, and crows and hippos. The two former pairings are clear to understand due to the nature of these animals and their natural conflict. The Satirical Papyrus in the British Museum shows, for example, a lion playing senet with an antelope, a rather more mundane version of their normal predator–prey relationship. The lion looks particularly jovial and is probably winning the game. Another scene on the papyrus shows a lion having sexual intercourse with an animal which could be a donkey or an antelope, and it has been suggested that the scene depicts the same animals later in the day.26

  A scene repeated in numerous places is that of a mouse judge who oversees the trial of some criminals and administers their punishments. One fragment shows a young boy being beaten by a cat, whereas there is another where the role is reversed and the boy is beating the cat. Another ostracon shows a fight between crows and monkeys over some dom nuts, perhaps a representation of a possible conflict that arose in the villages. The pairing of crows and hippos, however, is not so easy to explain. A rather peculiar ostracon shows a crow climbing a ladder to reach the branches of a sycamore fig tree. The branches of the tree are already occupied by a hippopotamus.

  While the meaning of these images on the ostraca – if indeed there was one – is unknown, it has been suggested that they represented scenes from popular folk stories which were part of an oral tradition. Evidence suggests the Egyptians liked to tell stories and there are some elaborate Middle Kingdom tales which were popular. The most popular story seems to be the Shipwrecked Sailor, in which a sailor tells a rather farfetched tale of being shipwrecked on an island inhabited by a giant divine snake that disappeared, along with the island, once he left, meaning no one could return.

&
nbsp; A. Cartoon on the satirical/erotic papyrus, Turin, showing a crow and a hippopotamus in a sycamore fig tree. (Drawing after Houlihan, 2001, fig. 68).

  Another popular tale can be found on Papyrus Westcar, also known as Three Tales of Wonder, in which King Khufu is in need of entertainment and his sons all try to appease him. In one story he decides to go on a river trip. The boats are rowed by young, scantily clad girls, until one of them drops her fish pendant into the water. She refuses to continue rowing until it has been retrieved and so Khufu has to call upon his magician to help, who divides the water to retrieve the pendant. In the second story the king is entertained by a magician who can decapitate a goose and an ox and reattach the heads. The third story tells of the fantastic birth of the next dynasty of kings, aided by a group of deities. Although the final story may have been one of propaganda to legitimise the divinity of the kings of the fifth dynasty, these stories may have already been familiar to the Egyptian population in some form.

  It is easy to imagine the ancient Egyptian workmen seated around a fire in the evening telling such stories, or mothers entertaining their children at bedtime with fanciful tales of magic and monsters in exactly the same way people do in the modern world.

  Whatever the Egyptians were doing, if the tomb scenes are to be believed, they looked remarkably well turned out while they were doing it. Such tomb and even temple images provide clues to the fashions of the time, although it must be considered that these images were stylised and only represented the dress of the upper classes. Even if the scenes are of the middle classes from Deir el-Medina, they could represent clothes they wanted to own rather than those they actually had.27 Therefore it can be difficult to ascertain from the tomb scenes alone what the ordinary Egyptian wore on a daily basis. Luckily, clothes have been discovered in tombs, which indicate that most people dressed simply in a short kilt or loincloth28 or long linen tunics.

  Even with the limited resources available it is possible to identify changing fashions in the elite society. In the Old Kingdom it was fashionable to wear tight sheath dresses with two shoulder straps. They would have proven difficult to move in and some take this as evidence that elite women were expected to be ornamental rather than useful. Although this dress style remained in fashion until the New Kingdom, as time progressed the dresses became more transparent and fuller, with large volumes of fabric. A very fine, transparent dress with dozens of folds and pleats was an indication of great wealth, although the artistic images bear no resemblance to the clothes discovered in elite tombs. These include the royal tombs of Tutankhamun, Thutmosis IV and Ramses II and the Deir el-Medina tomb of Kha, in addition to texts from Deir el-Medina describing the average wardrobe via messages to the dressmakers and laundry lists detailing garments and their quantities.29

  The majority of ancient Egyptian clothes were made of linen, and for the most part were left undyed as it was expensive and difficult to make the dye colourfast. Linen came in various shades, from white to golden brown, depending on the maturity of the flax. Tutankhamun, as king, had a number of coloured garments heavy with embellishment, including woven decoration, beads, discs and needlework. One shawl was striped with bands of red and blue and a row of ankhs along the edge in brocade.30 Royalty also had tapestry decoration and a tunic from the tomb of Thutmosis IV shows elaborate tapestry images of open and closed lotus flowers, birds and purple mandrakes.31

  Tunics were the most commonly worn garment in ancient Egypt and were similar to the modern gallabeya worn by Egyptians today. They are mentioned most frequently in the laundry lists, and they also appear in lists of market values. They were relatively cheap, at 5 deben each (1 deben is 91 grams of copper). In New Kingdom love songs women are described as wearing tunics32 and children also wore them from the Middle Kingdom onwards. They were made of a single piece of rectangular linen folded in half and sewn up the side, leaving a gap for the arms. They came in two lengths, either reaching to the floor or waist length to be worn with a short kilt. There were different ways of wearing the tunic, which included tucking the bottom hem into a girdle underneath creating a puff-ball effect.33

  Tunics formed part of a set with a triangular loincloth that was worn beneath as underwear. However, in the tomb of Tutankhamun over 145 loincloths were found and only 10 tunics, indicating either the ancient robbers stole a number of the linen tunics34 or a tunic was worn for many days. In the Deir el-Medina tomb of Kha, he had what was considered a large number of garments for an ordinary citizen and this wardrobe included fifty triangular loincloths.

  Tying a loincloth was simple; the two corners at the base of the triangle tied around the waist and the third point was pulled between the legs and tucked into the waist band, with the end hanging down the front as a flap. These loincloths were worn by men, women and children. Tutankhamun’s examples were made of two triangular pieces of linen sewn together in the centre and were shaped at the waist to ensure a snug fit, whereas other examples were made of one piece of linen with a straight waistband.

  Manual workers such as laundry men, fishermen, brick makers and wine pressers, as well as the more elegant dancing girls,35 simply wore the loincloth on its own, as this prevented them from getting too hot and produced minimal amounts of washing. People performing such low-grade jobs may also have been unable to afford many other pieces of clothing.

  Kilts were another staple to any wardrobe, and were worn as underwear beneath a tunic or over the loincloth as an overskirt. These were rectangular pieces of linen which wrapped around the waist. Over time the fashionable kilt length changed from covering the chest to the ankles to just the waist to the knees. Kilts were worn throughout the pharaonic period by rich and poor alike. They were wrapped around the waist and bunched and tucked up at the front making the front of the kilt shorter than the back. In images of men wearing kilts there are lines incised that denote pleats or folds. The kilt was held in place by a metal belt or a sash.36 The more pleats there were on a kilt the greater the wealth of the individual, as this showed the kilt was made with a larger piece of fabric and was therefore more expensive.

  In general the Egyptians loved the layered look, as the more layers of linen worn the wealthier you appeared. This led to the popularity of shawls, which were rectangular strips of linen approximately two metres long and one metre wide. These were tied over the torso, wrapped from left to right and tied under the breast. These were often worn over tunics and went some way to producing wide, draping sleeves.

  All of these layers were tied in place using a sash and most people would have owned at least one. They varied in length to accommodate different waist sizes and were often sold in the market together with loincloths and kilts, as without one the kilt was at risk of falling down. Sashes were on the whole plain pieces of linen, sometimes with a fringe on the short end, although the wealthy may have possessed tapestry sashes decorated with geometric patterns. In the Amarna Period the sashes were wider at the back than the front and were tied under the stomach, giving the distinctive Amarna profile.

  Even the poorer members of society dressed in a similar fashion. Labourers wore plain, knee-length kilts, no doubt made of a relatively short piece of low-quality material, a sash over their chest to catch sweat and a kerchief over their heads.37 These headdresses were particularly important in order to protect their heads from the sun. It is likely that most Egyptians wore headdresses for this very reason, the most common of which was the kerchief. Even Tutankhamun was buried wearing a linen kerchief decorated with an appliquéd vulture on the crown, showing that this item of clothing was for all classes.38

  Kerchiefs were made of linen which varied in length. In the marketplace the price varied between 7 and 25 deben,39 demonstrating a variance in linen quality. Another common headdress was the khat-headdress and twenty-four examples were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. A khat was a semi-circular piece of material with the curved end left hanging over the neck and held in place with a headband. The khat-headdress is also depicted in
non-royal tombs, such as the fishing scene in the tomb of Ipuy (TT217), indicating it was another item of clothing worn by all levels of society.

  No outfit was complete without a pair of shoes, and the shoes of choice in Egypt were sandals very close in design to the modern flip-flop. In the ancient Egyptian marketplace male sandals were twice the price of female sandals, presumably due to the size difference. There were varying qualities of sandals, with leather or papyrus shoes being stronger than the reed or grass sandals that most people wore. Examples of leather and papyrus sandals found at Qasr Ibrim show they were made up of layers of material to give them extra strength. Shoes were a valuable commodity, and should they break they were repaired rather than disposed of. At the market, buying the sandal thongs to repair them cost half of the price of a new pair. Making shoes was a relatively straightforward activity in the pharaonic period and did not require a specialist shoemaker;40 some families produced them in the home to sell in the marketplace in order to boost their household income.

  The people in ancient Egypt had the same attitude to clothes as we do today, even though they did not have clothes in anything like the quantities of a modern wardrobe. A letter, on an ostracon from Deir el-Medina, was written by a lady called Ese to her dressmaker, Nubemnu, regarding a shawl she had commissioned for the next procession of the deified Amenhotep I through the village. She pleads, ‘Please weave for me that shawl, very very quickly, before the god Amenhotep comes, for I am completely naked. Make one for my backside because I am naked.’41 Most western women today have uttered the same plea: ‘I have nothing to wear!’

  The festival of Amenhotep I was an important one in the village, when the statue of the deified king was taken from his shrine and carried around the village in a sedan chair, and even on occasion taken to the Valley of the Kings. This festival took place six times a year and was one of drinking and merriment: ‘The gang rejoiced before him for four solid days of drinking together with their children and wives.’42 Normally in processions of divine statues they were hidden from view, but Amenhotep I was visible to all. Many of the villagers approached the statue as an oracle and the god was able to answer directly.43 It is clear Ese wanted the god to see her at her best.