Quick answer
Most ancient Egyptians were farmers who lived in mud-brick houses in Nile villages, wore simple linen, ate bread, onions and fish, drank beer, and worked to the rhythm of the annual flood. Paid in grain rather than coins, they still found time for board games such as senet, music and great religious festivals. Painted private tombs at Luxor and Saqqara and the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina show their world in detail.
What was everyday life like for most ancient Egyptians?
For the great majority it meant farming: ploughing, sowing and harvesting land owned by the crown, a temple or an official, and handing over a large share of the crop as tax or rent. Life followed the river's year. During the flood, from roughly July to October, fields lay under water and men could be called up for state labour on canals, quarries or royal building projects. Sowing followed as the water fell, and the harvest came in spring.
There was no coinage until the last centuries BC. Wages and taxes were counted in grain, beer, bread, oil and cloth, and prices were reckoned in weights of copper called deben, so a goat or a coffin could be valued and swapped for other goods of equal worth. Remember that most of what we know comes from the tombs and texts of the literate elite; a farmer's own voice is rarely heard.
What were ancient Egyptian houses like?
Ordinary houses were built of sun-dried mud brick, plastered and whitewashed, with small high windows to keep out the heat and flat roofs where families slept, worked and stored food in summer. Stone was for temples and tombs, which is why villages and palaces have mostly melted away while temples survive.
A typical town house had a front room, a main living room with a column supporting the roof, small bedrooms and a kitchen at the back, partly open to the sky, with a clay oven and grinding stones. Furniture was sparse: low stools, mats, wooden chests, and beds with a curved headrest in place of a pillow. Wealthy officials at Akhenaten's city of Amarna had spacious villas with gardens, wells, granaries and even simple bathrooms with a stone slab for washing. The best place to walk through real house plans is the village of the royal tomb-builders at Deir el-Medina, where you can still trace the main street and rooms.
What did ancient Egyptians wear?
Linen, woven from flax, in white or natural tones: men wore a wrapped kilt and women a close-fitting sheath dress, while small children often wore nothing at all. Fashions changed slowly. By the New Kingdom wealthy men and women wore fine, almost transparent pleated linen robes, and labourers still worked in a simple loincloth.
- Hair: both sexes often kept their hair short or shaved and wore wigs for special occasions; priests shaved their heads completely for purity.
- Make-up: men and women lined their eyes with kohl made from green malachite or grey galena, which also helped against glare and flies.
- Hygiene: people washed often, used natron as a cleanser, and had bronze razors, tweezers and polished copper mirrors.
- Feet: many went barefoot; sandals were of woven papyrus or leather.
What were family and childhood like?
The household was the centre of life: a married couple, their children and often an aged parent, with the wife running the home and the husband usually working outside it. Marriage needed no religious ceremony; a couple set up house together, sometimes with a property agreement. Children were wanted and loved, but many died young, and childbirth was dangerous for mothers. Our guide to women in ancient Egypt covers marriage, property and divorce.
Children played with balls, spinning tops, rag dolls and wooden animals with moving jaws. Boys were usually trained in their father's trade, and only a few, mostly from official families, went to scribal school. Wisdom texts urged sons to respect their mothers and look after their parents in old age. Families kept cats, dogs with names, and monkeys, and tomb paintings show pets sitting under their owners' chairs.
What jobs did people do?
Besides farming, Egyptians worked as herders, fishermen, potters, weavers, brewers, bakers, carpenters, metalworkers, stonemasons, soldiers, priests and, at the top, scribes. Writing was the passport to an official career, and only a small minority, perhaps a few per cent, could read and write. A Middle Kingdom text known as the Satire of the Trades mocks every other job, from the smelly fisherman to the exhausted reed-cutter, to persuade a boy to stick at his studies.
Many jobs were part-time. Most temple priests served one month in four on a rota and lived ordinary lives the rest of the year. The tomb-builders of Deir el-Medina worked a ten-day week with rest days, and their attendance registers record reasons for absence: illness, a scorpion sting, brewing beer or a family funeral.
What did ancient Egyptians do for fun?
They played board games, made music, hunted in the marshes, wrestled, and joined the great religious festivals, which were the closest thing to public holidays.
- Board games: senet, a race game on a board of 30 squares, was played for more than 2,000 years; Tutankhamun was buried with several sets. Mehen, played on a coiled-snake board, was popular in early times.
- Music and dance: harps, flutes, lutes, clappers and the rattle-like sistrum accompanied banquets and temple rites.
- Sport: wrestling, stick-fighting and swimming. The Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni Hasan show hundreds of wrestling holds.
- Festivals: at Thebes, the Opet festival carried Amun's statue from Karnak to Luxor Temple, and the Beautiful Festival of the Valley took him across to the West Bank, where families picnicked at the tombs of their relatives.
Where to see daily life in ancient Egypt today
Private tombs, not royal ones, are where daily life comes alive, because officials wanted their everyday world to continue in the afterlife.
- The Tombs of the Nobles, Luxor: Nakht and Menna for harvests, fishing and banquets; Rekhmire for craftsmen at work.
- Deir el-Medina, Luxor: the workmen's village and their brightly painted tombs.
- Saqqara: Old Kingdom mastaba tombs such as those of Ti and Mereruka, with carved scenes of farming, boat-building, markets and children's games.
- Beni Hasan, Middle Egypt: wrestlers, weavers and acrobats.
- Museums in Cairo: Tutankhamun's beds, chairs, clothes, sandals and game boxes at the Grand Egyptian Museum, and wooden models of bakeries, breweries and boats from Middle Kingdom tombs. Displays move between museums, so ask your guide what is on show.
What people ate and drank is covered in our guide to food and beer in ancient Egypt.
Frequently asked questions
What did ancient Egyptians do every day?
Most farmed, following the cycle of the Nile flood, while others worked as craftsmen, labourers, priests or scribes. Women ran households, ground grain, baked, brewed and wove.
Did ancient Egyptians use money?
Not coins, until the last centuries BC. They paid wages in grain and goods and valued items against weights of copper called deben.
What games did ancient Egyptians play?
Senet was the favourite, along with mehen and a game now called hounds and jackals. Children played with balls, tops, dolls and toy animals.
Could ancient Egyptians read?
Only a small minority, mostly scribes, officials and priests. Literacy was unusually high at the tomb-builders' village of Deir el-Medina.
Where can I see scenes of daily life in Egypt?
The Tombs of the Nobles and Deir el-Medina in Luxor, the mastaba tombs at Saqqara and the rock tombs of Beni Hasan have the richest scenes.
