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Ancient History Encyclopedia - Law in Ancient Egypt

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Ancient History Encyclopedia - Law in Ancient Egypt

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Ancient Egyptian culture flourished through adherence to tradition and their legal system followed this same paradigm. Basic laws and legal proscriptions were in place in Egypt as early as the Predynastic Period (c. 6000- c. 3150 BCE) and would continue, and develop, until Egypt was annexed by Rome in 30 BCE. Egyptian law was based on the central cultural value of ma'at (harmony) which had been instituted at the beginning of time by the gods. In order to be at peace with oneself, one's community, and the gods, all one had to do was live a life of consideration, mindfulness, and balance in accordance withma'at.

Humans are not always considerate or mindful, however, and history illustrates well how poorly they maintain balance; and so laws were created to encourage people on the desired path. Since the law was founded on so simple a divine principle, and since it seemed clear that adhering to that principle was beneficial to all, transgressors were often punished severely. Although there are certainly cases of leniency shown to criminal suspects, the operative legal opinion was that one was guilty until proven innocent since, otherwise, one would not have been accused in the first place.

The law in ancient Egypt functioned just as it does in any country today: there was a set of agreed-upon rules which had been formulated by men who were considered experts in the field, a judicial system which weighed evidence of infractions of those rules, and police officers who enforced those rules and brought transgressors to justice.

At the top of the Egyptian judicial hierarchy was the pharaoh, the representative of the gods & their divine justice, and just beneath him was his vizier.

No Egyptian law code has as of yet been found which corresponds to Mesopotamian documents like the Code of Ur-Nammu or Hammurabi's Code but it is clear that one must have existed because precedent in deciding legal cases was set by the time of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150- c. 2613 BCE) as evidenced by their established use in the early years of the Old Kingdom (c. 2613-2181 BCE). These precedents were then used in judging cases during the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) and onward through the rest of the country's history.

Structure of the Legal System

Even if the specifics of their law code are unknown, the principles it derived from are clear. Egyptologist Rosalie David comments on this:

Compared with other ancient civilizations, Egyptian law has yielded little evidence for its institutions. It was, however, clearly governed by religious principles: Law was believed to have been handed down to mankind by the gods on the First Occasion (the moment of creation), and the gods were held responsible for establishing and perpetuating the law. (93).

At the top of the judicial hierarchy was the king, the representative of the gods and their divine justice, and just beneath him was his vizier. The Egyptian vizier had many responsibilities and one of them was the practical administration of justice. The vizier heard court cases himself but also appointed lower magistrates and, sometimes, involved himself with local courts if circumstances required it.

The legal system formed regionally at first, in the individual districts (called nomes) and was presided over by the governor ( nomarch) and his steward. During the Old Kingdom, these regional courts were firmly consolidated under the king's vizier but, as David notes, the judicial system in some form had existed previously:

Inscriptions in tombs and on stelae and papyri, which provide the earliest extant legal transactions, can be dated to the Old Kingdom. They indicate that the legal system was well developed by this date and suggest that there must have been a long period of experimentation beforehand. Egyptian law ranks with Sumerian as the world's oldest surviving legal system and its complexity and state of development are on a level with ancient Greek and medieval law. (93).

The earliest form of the law at the regional level was probably quite simple but became more bureaucratic during the Old Kingdom. Even so, at this time, judges were often priests who conferred with their god to reach a verdict rather than weighing the evidence and listening to testimonies.

It was only during the Middle Kingdom that professional judges were installed to preside over courts and the judicial system operated on a more rational, recognizable paradigm. This period also saw the creation of the first professional police force which enforced the law, took suspects into custody, and testified in court.

Administration of Law

The courts which administered the law were the seru (a group of elders in a rural community), the kenbet (a court on the regional and national level) and the djadjat (the imperial court). If a crime were committed in a village and the serucould not reach a verdict the case would go up to the kenbet and then possibly the djadjat but this seems a rare occurrence. Usually, whatever happened in a village was handled by the seru of that town. The kenbet is thought to have been the body which made the laws and meted out punishments on a regional (district) level as well as a national level and the djadjat made the final ruling on whether a law was legal and binding in accordance with ma'at.

In general, ancient Egyptians seem to have been law-abiding citizens throughout most of the culture's history but, still, there were arguments concerning land and water rights and disputes over ownership of livestock or the rights to a certain hereditary job or title. Bunson notes how:

Egyptians waited in line each day to give the judges their testimony or their petitions. The decisions concerning such matters were based on traditional legal practices, although there must have been written codes available for study. (145).

The judges Bunson references were the members of the kenbet and every capital of each district had one in session daily.

The vizier was ultimately the supreme judge but most court cases were handled by lower magistrates. Many of the cases heard involved disputes over property following the death of the patriarch or matriarch of a family. There were no wills in ancient Egypt but a person could write out a transfer document making clear who should receive which portions of property or valuables. Then as now, however, these documents were often disputed by family members who took each other to court.

There were also instances of domestic abuse, divorce, and infidelity. Women could sue for divorce as easily as men and could also bring suits regarding land sales and business arrangements. Cases involving infidelity were filed by both sexes and the punishment for the guilty was severe.

Crime & Punishment

Infidelity was considered a serious offense only if the individuals involved made it one. A husband whose wife had an affair could forgive her and let the matter go or he could prosecute. If he chose to take his wife to court, and she were found guilty, the punishment could be divorce and amputation of her nose or death by burning. An unfaithful husband who was prosecuted by his wife could receive up to 1,000 blows but did not face the death penalty. As the nuclear family was considered the basis for a stable community, adultery was a serious offense but, again, only if those involved brought it to the attention of the authorities or, in some cases, if a neighbor informed against them.

In Egyptian courts, a person who had been charged was guilty until proven innocent, so witnesses were often beaten to make sure they were telling the truth.

This same model seems to have been followed in other areas as well. It was the duty of the family to provide tomb offerings for their deceased loved ones and, if they did not have the time, they could hire someone else to do it. These replacements were known as ka-priests who, for a price, would provide daily food and drink offerings at a tomb. As long as the family kept paying, a ka-priest was supposed to keep his position and even hand it down to his son. If a family stopped paying, the priest could simply move on or could sue the family for the continuance of the position and back pay. A family might also take a ka-priest to court for not fulfilling his sworn duties.

There were no lawyers in ancient Egypt. A suspect was interrogated by the police and the judge in court and witnesses were brought in to testify for or against the accused. Since the prevailing belief was that a person who had been charged was guilty until proven innocent, witnesses were often beaten to make sure they were telling the truth. Once one had been charged with a crime, even if one were finally found innocent, one's name was kept on record as having been a suspect. As such, public disgrace seems to have been as great a deterrent as any other punishment. Even if one were completely exonerated of all wrong-doing, one would still be known in one's community as a former suspect.

It was because of this that people's testimony regarding one's character - as well as one's alibi - was so important and why false witnesses were treated so harshly. One might falsely accuse a neighbor of infidelity for any number of personal reasons and, even if the accused were found innocent, they would still be disgraced.

A false charge, therefore, was considered a grave offense and not only because it disgraced an innocent citizen but because it called into question the efficacy of the law. If an innocent person could be punished by a system which claimed divine origin then either the system was wrong or the gods were, and the authorities were not interested in having people debate those points. A false witness, therefore, was dealt with harshly: anyone who purposefully and knowingly lied to the court about a crime could expect any kind of punishment from amputation to death by drowning. Because of this situation, on the whole it seems every attempt was made to determine the guilt of a suspect and mete out the proper punishment.

In general, if the crime was serious - such as rape, murder, theft on a large scale, or tomb robbing - the penalty was death or disfigurement. Men found guilty of rape were castrated or had their penis amputated. Murderers were beaten and then fed to crocodiles, burned to death, or executed in other unpleasant ways. Thieves usually suffered amputation of the nose, hands, or feet. David notes the punishment for those who killed members of their own family:

Children who killed their parents underwent an ordeal in which pieces of their flesh were cut out with reeds before they were placed on a bed of thorns and burnt alive. However, parents who killed their children were not put to death but were instead forced to hold the dead child's body for three days and nights. (94).

Decline of the System

The problem of false witnesses was not so prevalent in the early centuries of the civilization but became more frequent with the decline of the Egyptian Empire and a loss of faith in the concepts which had regulated Egyptian society and culture for thousands of years. During the latter part of the reign of Ramesses III (1186-1155 BCE), belief in the primacy of ma'at began to break down when the pharaoh seemed less concerned with the welfare of his people than with his life at court.

The tomb worker's strike at Deir el-Medina in 1159 BCE is the clearest evidence of the fracturing of a bureaucracy which had served the society for millennia. These workers were regularly paid in grain, beer, and other necessary items for which they relied on the government since they lived - at the government's discretion - in an isolated valley outside of Thebes. When the wages failed to arrive, the workers went on strike and the officials were unable to handle the situation.

The pharaoh had failed to uphold and maintain ma'at and this affected everyone from the top down in the hierarchy of Egyptian social structure. Tomb robbing became more prevalent - as did false witnesses - and even law enforcement became corrupt. The testimony of a police officer was considered completely reliable but police during the latter part of the New Kingdom could accuse someone, have them sentenced, and then take whatever they wanted from the suspect's possessions.

A letter from the reign of Ramesses XI (1107-1077 BCE) discusses two policemen who are accused as false witnesses. The author of the letter, a general in the army, instructs the recipient to have the two officers brought to his house where they will be examined and, if found guilty, will be drowned in baskets in the River Nile. The general, however, is careful to remind the letter's recipient to drown the officers at night and to make sure they "do not let anybody in the land find out" (van de Mieroop, 257). This cautionary warning, and others like it, was made to try to cover up the corruption of the police and other officials. No amount of caution or cover-up could help, however, because the corruption was so widespread.

At this time, too, tomb robbers who were caught and convicted could buy their way out of jail and sentencing by bribing a police officer, bailiff, or court scribe with some part of the treasure they had stolen and then return to robbing tombs. Judges who were supposed to be handing down sentences might instead serve as fences for stolen goods. Viziers who were supposed to embody and uphold justice and balance were busy enriching themselves at the expense of others. As stated before, the pharaoh, who was supposed to be maintaining the foundation of his entire civilization, was more interested at this time in his own comfort and ego gratification than the responsibilities of his office.

Further, the final years of the New Kingdom and the succeeding era of the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1069-525 BCE) saw a return of the legal system to the Old Kingdom methodology of consulting a god regarding innocence or guilt. The Cult of Amun, regularly the most powerful in Egypt, had by this time almost eclipsed the authority of the throne. During the Third Intermediate Period, suspects would be brought before a statue of Amun and the god would render a verdict. This was accomplished by a priest either inside or behind the statue moving it one way or another to give an answer. This method of administering justice allowed for numerous abuses, obviously, since cases were now being heard by a priest hiding in a statue rather than an officially appointed judge in a court of law.

Although Egypt would see some bright moments in the return to law and order throughout the later periods, the legal system would never again function as efficiently as it had during the periods up through the New Kingdom. The Ptolemaic Dynasty (323-30 BCE) revived the practices and policies of New Kingdom administrative justice - as they did with many aspects of that period - but these initiatives did not last far beyond the first two rulers. The latter part of the Ptolemaic Dynasty is simply one long, slow, decline into chaos until the country was annexed by Rome in 30 BCE and became another province of their empire.

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Ancient Egyptian culture flourished through adherence to tradition and their legal system followed this same paradigm. Basic laws and legal proscriptions were in place in Egypt as early as the Predynastic Period (c. 6000- c. 3150 BCE) and would continue, and develop, until Egypt was annexed by Rome in 30 BCE.

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Ancient History Encyclopedia - Tour of Karnak

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Ancient History Encyclopedia - Tour of Karnak

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Ancient History Encyclopedia - The Ancient Egyptian Gods

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Ancient History Encyclopedia - The Ancient Egyptian Gods

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The gods played important roles in the daily lives of the ancient Egyptians. There were two levels of gods: local gods and national gods. People looked to the gods for help with everything from bearing children to a safe journey in the afterlife. There were daily rituals for caring for the gods and festivals celebrating specific gods.

Some of the Most Important Egyptian Gods and Goddesses

Amun was a creator god who became a national god after the pharaohs moved their capital to the city of Thebes. He was later combined with Ra, who was a sun-god, a creator god and the king of the gods. The people saw Amun-Ra as the creative power behind the existence of all life. He was primarily considered to be the god of the pharaohs and represented wind, fertility and secrets.

Ra is the ancient Egyptian sun god. He is the father of the gods and is usually depicted with the body of a human and the head of a falcon.

Hathor was a cow goddess and a cosmic goddess. She nourished all life with her milk and her name meant "House of Horus". Some legends, name Hathor as the consort of Horus and she formed a Triad with him and their son Ihi.

Horus was a sun god and the king of the gods. "The living Horus" was one of the pharaoh's titles and emphasized his right to rule Egypt like Horus ruled the gods. His emblem was the falcon and he was one of the five Osirian gods along with Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys. One of the most well known symbols associated with Egypt is the Eye of Horus, which symbolized power.

was a fertility goddess and a mother goddess. The goddess with 10,000 names was one of her titles emphasizing her many roles and names. She was the sister-wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus. One of the most famous legends involves Isis putting the body of her husband back together after he was killed by Set, impregnating herself with his body and giving birth to their son Horus.

Ma'at was the representation of moral and physical law. Some scholars consider her the most important goddess of Ancient Egypt. Ma'at's worship spread throughout Egypt because she helped judge the dead.

Osiris was the god of the dead and resurrection. He was the ruler of the Tuat and people would appeal to him to care for their departed ancestors. Osiris was the king of the gods until his brother killed him.

Seth (aka Set, Setesh, Sutekh or Setekh) was the god of evil and darkness. He was the adversary of Horus and everything that was good. Except for the red crown, people regarded the color red as an evil color because of its connection to Set. He was associated with war and strength, storms and deserts.

Anubis is the god of death and dying. He is also considered to be the god of the underworld. His image is often seen as the guardian of tombs and the bodies held within.

Sobek the crocodile god is usually seen as either a complete crocodile or as a combination between human form and crocodile, symbolizing the strength of the Egyptian pharaohs.

Click here for a list of the 30 most Famous Ancient Egyptian Gods...

© Mary Harrsch - Anubis Statue

The Appearance and Roles of the Gods

The gods filled roles that held importance to the worshipers and many deities were only worshiped in a single location. For example, women would worship Isis because she was a mother and they wanted her to bless and help them. These roles helped create a connection between the people and the god.

Many of the gods of ancient Egypt had unique appearances, but there were some common features. Most depictions show the gods in human form or as humans with animal heads. These images also used repeating symbols. It can be difficult to tell some of the gods apart because they use the same symbols.

List of Common Symbols

© Mary Harrsch - Falcon representing Horus

Animals: the animal heads given to a deity were often connected to his/her roles (i.e. hawk heads for sun gods)

Ankh: hieroglyph for life that a god held in one hand

Atef crown or headdress: crown shaped like the white crown with a small sun disk on top and feathers on each side

Double crown: the combined crown of Upper and Lower Egypt that signified its unification

God scepter: a scepter topped by Set's animal head with a forked bottom

Goddess scepter: the lotus scepter or papyrus scepter

Red crown: the crown of Lower Egypt with a long curl, it signified the vulture and the goddess Nekhbet

Sun disk: emblem of the sun worn by various deities that the uraeus might encircle

Uraeus: the divine cobra that was the symbol of the goddess Buto

Vulture goddess headdress: resembled a vulture lying on the head

White crown: crown of Upper Egypt that looks like a mitre with the uraeus on the front

Legend of the Creation of the World

At first, nothing existed except Nun, the celestial waters. Ra sprang from Nun with words on his lips and those words created the first firmament. Then he created his daughter Tefnut from his spit and his son Shu from his breath. They lived together until Tefnut and Shu wandered away and Ra missed them. He plucked out his eye and sent it to find his children. Then Ra created a new eye for himself so he would be able to see his children.

© kairoinfo4u - Ceiling at Dendera Temple, describing the creation of the world

The old eye found Tefnut and Shu and brought them back to Ra who cried with joy. His tears fell and created the first humans. The old eye was jealous of Ra's new eye, so Ra turned the old eye into the first cobra and wore it on his forehead. Tefnut and Shu mingled together and gave birth to Geb and Nut. Shu separated his children to form the sky, Nut, and the earth, Geb. Ra became a ball of fire and rolled over Nut creating the pattern of day and night. After this, all other creatures and all plants came into being.

The Importance of the Gods in Ancient Egypt's Daily Life

Daily rituals took place at the local temples to care for the gods which, the king or a high priest conducted. As part of the ritual, the king or priest washed the image of a certain god, clothed it in fresh garments, and gave it a meal. The meal consisted of various kinds of meat and vegetables which the priest shared with the temple staff after the ritual. Burnt offerings were a rarity in ancient Egypt.

Festivals were a time for everyone to worship the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt. Images of the gods progressed through the city in a barque, a small boat. The common people gathered in the outer courtyard of the temple and gave offerings. People offered flowers because they represented life, as well as food and drink. The priests gave portions of the food offerings to the common people. Many festivals to the deities took place throughout Egypt and were a public holiday.

© Daniel DeCristo - Relief of Ptolemy II with ritual rattle

Private individuals served the gods in various ways. Many private homes had shrines where the family worshiped household gods. These gods protected the home and its occupants. Common people also presented votive offerings to the gods at their local temples. Votive offerings were statuettes, steles, or carved plaques that included a prayer to the god or a hymn praising the deity. Worshipers placed these offerings in the main courtyard of the temple. When the priests needed more room to place them, they buried the votive offerings in pits. These pits have provided scholars with information about the worship of the common people. Votive offerings show the rise in personal piety among the people of ancient Egypt.

Another important part of worship involved the offerings to the dead. Relatives would offer bread, beer, oxen, birds and clothing to the god Osiris. They included prayers with these offerings so the god would share them with their dead relatives. There were special altars designed to accept these offerings.

People also interacted with the gods through oracles, prayers and hymns. During the processions of the ancient Egyptian gods, people would write a question on a piece of pottery or papyrus. A person placed the question before the god's image. The god compelled the priests carrying the barque to move forward or backward to show a yes or no answer. People wrote prayers to the gods to ask for protection or to honor the gods. Hymns honored the gods by praising their deeds or their beauty.

Specific people conducted the religious ceremonies in the temples. Many wall carvings show the king caring for the god's image and conducting ceremonies. Records state that the king did conduct ceremonies but he could not serve every deity. The High Priest of the temple would conduct ceremonies in the king's place. During the 21st Dynasty, the role of 'god's wife of Amun' became a powerful priestess position. Over time, these women came to present offerings to the gods and to conduct ceremonies.

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The gods played important roles in the daily lives of the ancient Egyptians. There were two levels of gods: local gods and national gods. People looked to the gods for help with everything from bearing children to a safe journey in the afterlife. There were daily rituals for caring for the gods and festivals celebrating specific gods.

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Ancient History Encyclopedia - Daily Life in Ancient Egypt

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Ancient History Encyclopedia - Daily Life in Ancient Egypt

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The popular view of life in ancient Egypt is often that it was a death-obsessed culture in which powerful pharaohs forced the people to labor at constructing pyramids and temples and, at an unspecified time, enslaved the Hebrews for this purpose. In reality, ancient Egyptians loved life, no matter their social class, and the ancient Egyptian government used slave labor as every other ancient culture did without regard to any particular ethnicity. The ancient Egyptians did have a well-known contempt for non-Egyptians but this was simply because they believed they were living the best life possible in the best of all possible worlds. Life in ancient Egypt was considered so perfect, in fact, that the Egyptian afterlife was imagined as an eternal continuation of life on earth. Slaves in Egypt were either criminals, those who could not pay their debts, or captives from foreign military campaigns. These people were considered to have forfeited their freedoms either by their individual choices or by military conquest and so were forced to endure a quality of existence far below that of free Egyptians.

The individuals who actually built the pyramids and other famous monuments of Egypt were Egyptians who were compensated for their labor and, in many cases, were masters of their art. These monuments were raised not in honor of death but of life and the belief that an individual life mattered enough to be remembered for eternity. Further, the Egyptian belief that one's life was an eternal journey and death only a transition inspired the people to try to make their lives worth living eternally. Far from a death-obsessed and dour culture, Egyptian daily life was focused on enjoying the time one had as much as possible and trying to make other's lives equally memorable.

Through the observance of balance & harmony people were encouraged to live at peace with others & contribute to communal happiness.

Sports, games, reading, festivals, and time with one's friends and family were as much a part of Egyptian life as toil in farming the land or erecting monuments and temples. The world of the Egyptians was imbued with magic. Magic () predated the gods and, in fact, was the underlying force which allowed the gods to perform their duties. Magic was personified in the god Heka (also the god of medicine) who had participated in the creation and sustained it afterwards. The concept of (harmony and balance) was central to the Egyptian's understanding of life and the operation of the universe and it was heka which made possible. Through the observance of balance and harmony people were encouraged to live at peace with others and contribute to communal happiness. A line from the wisdom text of Ptahhotep (the vizier to the king Djedkare Isesi, 2414-2375 BCE), admonishes a reader:

Let your face shine during the time that you live.

It is the kindliness of a man that is remembered

During the years that follow.

Letting one's face "shine" meant being happy, having a good spirit, in the belief that this would make one's own heart light and lighten those of others. Although Egyptian society was highly stratified from a very early period (as early as the Predynastic Period in Egypt of c. 6000-3150 BCE), this does not mean that the royalty and upper classes enjoyed their lives at the expense of the peasantry. The king and court are always the best-documented individuals because then, as now, people paid more attention to celebrities than their neighbors and the scribes who recorded the history of the time documented what was of greater interest. Still, reports from later Greek and Roman writers, as well as archaeological evidence and letters from different time periods, show that Egyptians of all social classes valued life and enjoyed themselves as often as they could, very like people in the modern day.

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Population & Social Classes

The population of Egypt was strictly divided into social classes from the king at the top, his vizier, the members of his court, regional governors (eventually called 'nomarchs'), the generals of the military (after the period of the New Kingdom), government overseers of worksites (supervisors), and the peasantry. Social mobility was neither encouraged nor observed for most of Egypt's history as it was thought that the gods had decreed the most perfect social order which mirrored that of the gods. The gods had given the people everything and had set the king over them as the one best-equipped to understand and implement their will. The king was the intermediary between the gods and the people from the Predynastic Period through the Old Kingdom (c. 2613-2181 BCE) when the priests of the sun god Ra began to gain more power. Even after this, however, the king was still considered god's chosen emissary. Even the latter part of the New Kingdom (1570-1069 BCE) when the priests of Amun at Thebes held greater power than the king, the monarch was still respected as divinely ordained.
Upper class
The king of Egypt (not known as a ' pharaoh' until the New Kingdom period), as the gods' chosen man, "enjoyed great wealth and status and luxuries unimaginable to the majority of the population" (Wilkinson, 91). It was the king's responsibility to rule in keeping with ma'at, and as this was a serious charge, he was thought to deserve those luxuries in keeping with his status and the weight of his duties. Historian Don Nardo writes:

The kings enjoyed an existence largely free from want. They had power and prestige, servants to do the menial work, plenty of free time to pursue leisure pursuits, fine clothes, and numerous luxuries in their homes. (10)

The king is often depicted hunting and inscriptions regularly boast of the number of large and dangerous animals a particular monarch killed during his reign. Almost without exception, though, animals like lions and elephants were caught by royal game wardens and brought to preserves where the king then "hunted" the beasts while surrounded by guards who protected him. The king would hunt in the open, for the most part, only once the area had been cleared of dangerous animals.

Members of the court lived in similar comfort, although most of them had little responsibility. The nomarchs might also live well, but this depended on how wealthy their particular district was and how important to the king. The nomarch of a district including a site such as Abydos, for example, would expect to do quite well because of the large necropolis there dedicated to the god Osiris, which brought many pilgrims to the city including the king and courtiers. A nomarch of a region which had no such attraction would expect to live more modestly. The wealth of the region and the personal success of an individual nomarch would determine whether they lived in a small palace or a modest home. This same model applied generally to scribes.
Scribes & Physicians
Scribes were valued highly in ancient Egypt as they were considered specially chosen by the god Thoth, who inspired and presided over their craft. Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson notes how "the power of the written word to render permanent a desired state of affairs lay at the heart of Egyptian belief and practice" (204). It was the scribes' responsibility to record events so they would become permanent. The words of the scribes etched daily events in the record of eternity since it was thought that Thoth and his consort Seshat kept the scribes' words in the eternal libraries of the gods. A scribe's work made him or her immortal not only because later generations would read what they wrote but because the gods themselves were aware of it. Seshat, patron goddess of libraries and librarians, carefully placed one's work on her shelves, just as librarians in her service did on earth. Most scribes were male, but there were female scribes who lived just as comfortably as their male counterparts. A popular piece of literature from the Old Kingdom, known as Duauf's Instructions, advocates a love for books and encourages young people to pursue higher learning and become scribes in order to live the best life possible.

All priests were scribes, but not all scribes became priests. The priests needed to be able to read and write to perform their duties, especially concerning mortuary rituals. As doctors needed to be literate to read medical texts, they began their training as scribes. Most diseases were thought to be inflicted by the gods as punishment for sin or to teach a lesson, and so doctors needed to be aware of which god (or evil spirit, or ghost, or other supernatural agent) might be responsible. In order to perform their duties, they had to be able to read the religious literature of the time, which includes works on dentistry, surgery, the setting of broken bones, and the treatment of various illnesses. As there was no separation between one's religious and daily life, doctors were usually priests until later in Egypt's history when there is a secularization of the profession. All of the priests of the goddess Serket were doctors and this practice continued even after the emergence of more secular physicians. As in the case of scribes, women could practice medicine, and female doctors were numerous. In the 4th century BCE, Agnodice of Athens famously traveled to Egypt to study medicine since women were held in higher regard and had more opportunity there than in Greece.

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Military
The military prior to the Middle Kingdom was made up of regional militias conscripted by nomarchs for a certain purpose, usually defense, and then sent to the king. At the beginning of the 12th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom, Amenemhat I (c. 1991-c.1962 BCE) reformed the military to create the first standing army, thus decreasing the power and prestige of the nomarchs and putting the army directly under his control.

After this, the military was made up of upper-class leaders and lower-class rank and file members. There was the possibility of advancement in the military, which was not affected by one's social class. Prior to the New Kingdom, the Egyptian military was primarily concerned with defense, but pharaohs like Tuthmose III (1458-1425 BCE) and Ramesses II (1279-1213 BCE) led campaigns beyond Egypt's borders in expanding the empire. Egyptians generally avoided travel to other lands because they feared that, if they should die there, they would have greater difficulty reaching the afterlife. This belief was a definite concern of soldiers on foreign campaigns and provisions were made to return the bodies of the dead to Egypt for burial.

There is no evidence that women served in the military or, according to some accounts, would have wanted to. The Papyrus Lansing, to give only one example, describes life in the Egyptian army as unending misery leading to an early death. It should be noted, however, that scribes (especially the author of the Papyrus Lansing) consistently depicted their job as the best and most important, and it was the scribes who left behind most of the reports on military life.
Farmers & Laborers
The lowest social class was made up of peasant farmers who did not own the land they worked or the homes they lived in. The land was owned by the king, members of the court, nomarchs, or priests. A common phrase of the peasants to start the day was "Let us work for the noble!" The peasants were almost all farmers, no matter what other trade they cultivated (ferryman, for example). They planted and harvested their crops, gave most of it to the land owner, and kept some for themselves. Most had private gardens, which women tended while the men went out to the fields. Up until the time of the Persian invasion of 525 BCE, the Egyptian economy operated on the barter system and was based on agriculture. The monetary unit of ancient Egypt was the deben, which according to historian James C. Thompson, "functioned much as the dollar does in North America today to let customers know the price of things, except that there was no deben coin" (Egyptian Economy, 1). A deben was "approximately 90 grams of copper; very expensive items could also be priced in debens of silver or gold with proportionate changes in value" (ibid). Thompson continues:

Since seventy-five litters of wheat cost one deben and a pair of sandals also cost one deben, it made perfect sense to the Egyptians that a pair of sandals could be purchased with a bag of wheat as easily as with a chunk of copper. Even if the sandal maker had more than enough wheat, she would happily accept it in payment because it could easily be exchanged for something else. The most common items used to make purchases were wheat, barley, and cooking or lamp oil, but in theory almost anything would do. (1)

The lowest class of society produced the goods used in trade and therefore provided the means for the entire culture to thrive. These peasants also made up the labor force which built the pyramids and other monuments of Egypt. When the Nile River flooded its banks, farming became impossible and the men and women would go to work on the king's projects. This work was always compensated, and the claim that any of the great structures of Egypt were built by slave labor - especially the claim of the biblical Book of Exodus that these were Hebrew slaves oppressed by Egyptian tyrants - is not supported by any literary or physical evidence at any time in Egypt's history. The claim by certain authors such as Egyptologist David Rohl that one misses the evidence of a mass enslavement of Hebrews by looking at the wrong time period is untenable since no such evidence exists no matter what period of Egyptian history one examines.

Work on monuments like the pyramids and their mortuary complexes, temples, and obelisks provided the only opportunity for upward mobility of the peasantry. Especially skilled artists and engravers were in high demand in Egypt and were better paid than unskilled laborers who simply moved the stones for the buildings from one place to another. Peasant farmers could also improve their status by practicing a craft to provide the vases, bowls, plates, and other ceramics people needed. Skilled carpenters could make a good living creating tables, desks, chairs, beds, storage chests, and painters were required for decoration of upper-class homes, palaces, tombs, and monuments.

Brewers were also highly respected, and breweries were sometimes run by women. In early Egyptian history, in fact, they seem to have been entirely operated by females. Beer was the most popular drink in ancient Egypt and was frequently used as compensation (wine was never that popular except among royalty). Workers at the Giza plateau were given a beer ration three times a day. The beverage was thought to have been given to the people by the god Osiris, and breweries were presided over by the goddess Tenenet. Beer was taken very seriously by the Egyptians as the Greek pharaoh Cleopatra VII (69-30 BCE) learned when she imposed a beer tax; her popularity plummeted more for this one tax than for her wars with Rome.

The lower class could also find opportunity through work in metals, gems, and sculpting. The exquisite jewelry of ancient Egypt, gems mounted delicately in ornate settings, was created by members of the peasantry. These people, the majority of the Egyptian population, also filled the ranks of the army, and in rare cases, could become scribes. One's job and position in society, however, was usually handed down to one's son.

Homes & Furnishings

These artists were responsible for creating the furnishings for the lavish palaces, upper-class homes, and temples of Egypt as well as the tombs which were considered a person's eternal home. The king, his queen, and family lived in a palace which was richly decorated and had their needs tended to by servants. Scribes lived in or near the mortuary or temple complexes in special apartments and worked from scriptoriums while, as noted, nomarchs lived in greater or lesser accommodations according to their level of success. The peasants who provided the food for the upper classes also helped build their homes and supply them with chests, drawers, chairs, tables, and beds while they themselves could not afford any of these things. Nardo writes:

After a hard day's work, the farmers returned to their houses, which stood near the fields or in small rural villages located nearby. An average agricultural peasant's house featured walls made of mud bricks. The ceiling was fashioned from bundles of plant stems, and the floors consistend of hard-beaten earth covered by a layer of straw or mats made from reeds. There were one or two rooms (perhaps occasionally three) in which the farmer and his wife and children (if any) lived. In many cases, the stabled some or all of their farm animals in the same rooms. Because such modest homes lacked bathrooms, the residents had to use an outside latrine (a hole in the ground) to relieve themselves. Needless to say, water had to be hauled in buckets from the river or the nearest hand-dug well. (13)

By contrast, the palace of the pharaoh Amenhotep III (1386-1353 BCE), known as Malkata today, covered over 30,000 square meters (30 hectares) and included spacious apartments, conference rooms, audience chambers, a throne room and receiving hall, a festival hall, libraries, gardens, storerooms, kitchens, a harem, and a temple to the god Amun. The palace's outer walls were painted bright white while the interior colors were vibrant blues and yellows and greens. The entire structure, of course, had to be furnished and these articles were supplied by the lower class workers. In its time the palace was known as 'the house of rejoicing' and other similar names. It is known as Malkata today from the Arabic for 'place where things are picked up' owing to the massive debris field found there from the ruined palace.

The apartments and homes of scribes, as with those of the nomarchs, were opulent or modest depending on their level of success and the region in which they lived. The author of the Papyrus Lansing, Nebmare Nakht, claimed to live in grand style and to own land and slaves on par with a great king. This claim is no doubt true, too, as it is well established that priests were able to achieve the same level of wealth and power as some rulers in Egypt, and scribes would have had that same opportunity.

Crime & Punishment

In ancient Egypt, as in every era of human history, the wealth of one person was often coveted by another who might choose to steal it, and in such cases, Egyptian law was swift. After the New Kingdom there was a police force, but even before this time, people were brought before the local official and charged with crimes ranging across the spectrum of criminal activity in the modern day. The state did not involve itself in local affairs unless the criminal had robbed or vandalized state property, such as robbing or defacing a tomb. Egyptologist Steven Snape writes:

The opportunities for criminal activity provided by the concentration of weatlth and property in towns and sities were seized upon wholeheartedly by some ancient Egyptians, just as they have been within all societies. Equally, significant centres of population and administration provided places where justice could be done and punishments meted out. However, the picture we get from ancient Egypt is that the administration of justice was pushed as far down to local lecel as possible. Villagers were expected to regulate their own affairs. (111)

Judgment and justice were ultimately the responsibility of the vizier, the king's right-hand man, who delegated that responsibility to officials beneath him, who further delegated to others. Even prior to the New Kingdom, there was an administrative building in any city called the Judgment Hall where cases were heard and verdicts rendered. In small towns and villages, these courts might be held in the market place. The local court was known as the kenbet, made up of community leaders of sound moral judgment, who would hear cases and decide on guilt or innocence. In the New Kingdom, the judgment hall and the kenbet were gradually replaced by oracular judgments in which the god Amun would be consulted directly on a verdict. This was accomplished by a priest of Amun asking the statue of the god a question and then interpreting his answer through various means. Sometimes the statue would nod its head, and other times there would be different signs given. If the defendant were found guilty, then punishment was swift.

Most punishments were fines for minor offenses, but rape, robbery, assault, murder, or tomb robbing could result in mutilation (cutting off of the nose, ears, or hands), incarceration, forced labor (essentially slavery for life in many cases), or death. The Great Prison at Thebes held convicted felons who were used for manual labor on the Temple of Amun at Karnak and other projects. There was no death row in Egyptian prisons since a person who was found guilty of a serious offense meriting the death penalty was executed immediately. There were no lawyers to argue a case and no appeals made after a verdict was rendered. The priests were entrusted by the people to give a fair and just hearing to any complaint and to judge according to the precepts of the gods, knowing that they faced a far worse fate in the afterlife should they fail in these duties.

Family & Leisure

Priests could be male or female. The chief priest of any religious cult was usually the same sex as the deity they served; the head of the Cult of Isis was female, that of the Cult of Amun, male. Priests could and did have families, and their children usually became priests after them.

Social mobility was neither encouraged nor observed for most of Egypt's history as it was thought that the gods had decreed the most perfect social order which mirrored that of the gods.

This was the paradigm for all of Egypt as far as succession went: the children carried on the occupation of the parents, usually the father. Women had almost equal rights in ancient Egypt. They could own their own businesses, their own land, and their own homes, could initiate divorce, enter into contracts with men, have abortions, and dispose of their own property as they saw fit; this was a level of sexual equality which no other ancient civilization approached and which the modern era only initiated - under duress - in the mid-20th century CE.

At least four women ruled Egypt, the best known two being Hatshepsut (1479-1458 BCE) and Cleopatra VII. This was not the norm, however, as most rulers were male. Royal women, for the most part, had slaves and servants who cared for the children and had no responsibility for cleaning or tending the home. They assisted their husbands in receiving foreign dignitaries and advancing certain policies. Women of the upper classes knew a similar lifestyle but might have taken more time caring for the children, while in the lower classes, the care of the home and children were wholly the woman's responsibility.

Marriages in ancient Egypt were more of a secular than religious affair. Most marriages, in any of the classes, were arranged by the parents. Girls were usually married around the age of 12 and boys around age 15. Royal children were often betrothed to those of foreign kings to seal treaties when they were little more than infants, though it was forbidden for women to leave Egypt as brides for foreign rulers since it was thought they would not be happy outside of their own land. Since Egypt was the best of all places, it was considered disrespectful to a young woman to send her off to some lesser place. It was perfectly acceptable for foreign-born women to come to Egypt as brides, however. Once in Egypt, these women were accorded the same respect as natives. Women of all social classes were considered on par with their husbands, even though the man was considered the head of the household. Nardo notes:

Upper-class husbands and wives dined, held parties, and went hunting together, while both well-to-do and poorer women shared many legal rights with men. In fact, ancient Egyptian women seem to have enjoyed more freedom in their private lives than women in most other ancient societies, even if men made most of the really important decisions. Egyptian men benefitted from positive, loving relationships as much as their wives did. (23)

Although the wives of farmers did not go out to the fields with their husbands (for the most part), they still had plenty of work to do keeping the house clean, tending to any animals not used in plowing, administering to the needs of the elderly in the family, and raising the children. Women and children also would tend the family garden, which was an important resource for any family. Cleanliness was an important value of the Egyptians, and one's person and home needed to reflect that. Women and men of all classes bathed frequently (priests more than any other profession) and shaved their heads to prevent lice and cut down on maintenance. When an occasion called for it, they wore wigs. Men and women also both wore makeup, especially kohl under the eyes, to help with the sun's glare and keep the skin soft. Tomb inscriptions and paintings also often show men and women plowing and harvesting in the fields together or building a home.

The life of the ancient Egyptians was hardly all work, however. They found plenty of time to enjoy themselves through sports, board games, and other activities. Ancient Egyptian sports included hockey, handball, archery, swimming, tug of war, gymnastics, rowing, and a sport known as 'water jousting,' which was a sea battle played in small boats on the Nile River in which a 'jouster' tried to knock the other out of his boat while a second team member maneuvered the craft. Children were taught to swim at an early age, and swimming was among the most popular sports, which gave rise to other water games. The board game of Senet was extremely popular, representing one's journey through life to eternity. Music, dance, choreographed gymnastics, and wrestling were also popular, and among the upper classes, hunting large or small game was a favorite pastime.

There was also a sport called 'shooting the rapids,' which is described by the Roman playwright Seneca the Younger (1st century CE) who lived in Egypt:

The people embark on small boats, two to a boat, and one rows while the other bails out water. Then they are violently tossed about in the raging rapids. At length they reach the narrowest channels and, swept along by the whole force of the river, they control the rushing boat by hand and plunge head downward to the great terror of the onlookers. You would believe sorrowfully that by now they were drowned and overwhelmed by such a mass of water when, far from the place where they fell, they shoot out as from a catapult, still sailing, and the subsiding wave does not submerge them but carries them on to smooth waters. (cited in Nardo, 20)

After or even during such events, spectators enjoyed their favorite beverage: beer. The favored recipe most often consumed was Heqet (also given as Hecht), a honey-flavored beer similar to, but lighter than, the later mead of Europe. There were many kinds of beer (generally known as zytum), and it was frequently prescribed as a medicine as it made the heart lighter and improved one's spirits. Beer was brewed commercially and at home and was especially enjoyed at the many festivals the Egyptians celebrated.

Festivals, Food & Clothing

All of the Egyptian gods had birthdays which needed to be celebrated, and then there were individual birthdays, the anniversaries of great deeds of the king, observances of acts of the gods in human history, and also funerals, wakes, house-warming events, and births. All of these and more were celebrated with a party or a festival.

The festivals of ancient Egypt were each unique in character depending on the nature of the event, but all had in common drinking and feasting. The Egyptian diet was mainly vegetarian and consisted of grains (wheat) and vegetables. Meat was very expensive, and usually only royalty was able to afford it. Meat was also difficult to keep in the arid Egyptian climate, and so animals who were ritually slaughtered had to be used quickly.

Festivals were the perfect opportunity for indulging in every kind of excess, including meat eating for those who chose to do so, though self-indulgence was not appropriate at every gathering. Each celebration or commemoration had its own unique characteristics as historian Margaret Bunson explains:

The Beautiful Feast of the Valley, in honor of the god Amun, held in Thebes, was celebrated with a procession of the barks of the gods, with music and flowers. The Feast of Hathor, celebrated at Dendera, was a time of pleasure and intoxication, in keeping with the myths of the goddesses' cult. The feast of the goddess Isis at Busiris and the celebration honoring Bastet at Bubastis were also times of revelry and intoxication. (91)

These festivals were "normally religious in nature and held in conjunction with the lunar calendar in temples" but could also "commemorate certain specific events in the daily lives of the people" (Bunson, 90). At funerals, as one would expect, people dressed in respectful black (though the priests usually wore white) while at birthdays or other celebrations one wore whatever one pleased. At the Festival of Bastet, women wore nothing but a short kilt which they often raised in honor of the goddess.

Clothing in ancient Egypt was linen woven from cotton. In the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods, women and men both wore simple linen kilts. Children went naked from birth until around the age of ten. Bunson notes that "In time women wore an empire-type long skirt that hung just below their uncovered breasts. Men kept to the simple kilts. These could be dyed in exotic colors or designs although white was probably the color used in religious rituals or court events"(67). By the time of the New Kingdom women wore linen dresses which covered their breasts and went to their ankles while men wore the short kilt and sometimes a loose shirt. Lower-class women, female slaves, and female servants are often shown wearing only a kilt through the New Kingdom period. At this same time, royal or noble women are shown wearing form-fitting dresses from the shoulder to the ankles and men are seen in sheer blouses and skirts. In the colder weather of the rainy season, cloaks and shawls were used.

Most people, of every social class, went barefoot in emulation of the gods who had no need for footwear. On special occasions, or when someone was going on a long journey or to a place where they might injure their feet or in colder weather, they wore sandals. The cheapest sandals were made of woven rushes while the most expensive were of leather or painted wood. Sandals do not seem to have a great deal of importance to the Egyptians until the Middle and New Kingdoms when they came to be seen as status symbols. A person who could afford good sandals was obviously doing well while the poorest people went barefoot. These sandals were often painted or decorated with images which could be quite elaborate.

At festival times - and there were many of them throughout the Egyptian year - the clothing of the priests was white, but people could wear anything they wanted or almost nothing at all. The Egyptians wanted to live life to its fullest, to experience all their time on earth had to give, and looked forward to its continuance after death.

One's earthly life was only a part of an eternal journey, and one's death was seen as a transition from one phase to the next. A proper burial was of the utmost importance to the ancient Egyptians of every class. The body of the deceased was washed, dressed in wrappings (mummified), and buried with those objects which they would want or need in the afterlife. The more money one had, of course, the more elaborate one's tomb and grave goods, but even the poorest people provided proper graves for their loved ones. Without a proper burial one could not hope to move on to the Hall of Truth and pass the judgment of Osiris. Further, if a family did not honor the dead properly at death, they were almost guaranteeing the return of that person's spirit, which would haunt them and cause all manner of trouble. Honoring the dead meant not only paying respects to that individual but to the individual's contributions and achievements in life, all of which were made possible by the goodness of the gods.

Living with mindfulness of kindness, harmony, balance, and gratitude toward the gods, they hoped to find their hearts lighter than the feather of truth when they came to stand in judgment before Osiris after death. Once they had been justified, they would pass on to an eternity of the very daily life they had left behind when they died. Everything in their lives which seemed lost at death was returned in the afterlife. Their emphasis, in every aspect of their lives, was to create a life worth living for an eternity. No doubt many individuals often failed at this, but the ideal was one worth striving for and imbued the daily lives of the ancient Egyptians with a meaning and purpose which infused and inspired their impressive culture.

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The popular view of life in ancient Egypt is often that it was a death-obsessed culture in which powerful pharaohs forced the people to labor at constructing pyramids and temples and, at an unspecified time, enslaved the Hebrews for this purpose.

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King Tutankhamun (Tutankhamen or simply King Tut) ruled Egypt as pharaoh for 10 years until his death at age 19, around 1324 B.C. Though his rule was notable for reversing the religious reforms of his father Akhenaten, Tutankhamun's legacy was largely negated by his successors. He was barely known to the modern world until 1922, when British archaeologist Howard Carter chiseled into the intact tomb of King Tut. The tomb's hoard of treasure, intended to accompany the king into the afterlife, revealed an incredible amount about life in ancient Egypt, and made Tutankhamun the world's most famous pharaoh.

Who Was King Tut?

Genetic testing has verified that King Tut was the grandson of the great pharaoh Amenhotep III, and almost certainly the son of Akhenaten, a controversial figure in the history of the 18th dynasty of Egypt's New Kingdom (c.1550-1295 B.C.). Akhenaten upended a centuries-old religious system to favor worship of a single deity, the sun god Aten, and moved Egypt's religious capital from Thebes to Amarna.

After Akhenaten's death, two intervening pharaohs briefly reigned before the nine-year-old prince, then called Tutankhaten, took the throne.

Did you know? Carter's patron, Lord Carnarvon, died four months after first entering the tomb, leading journalists to popularize a "Curse of the Pharaohs," claiming that hieroglyphs on the tomb walls promised swift death to those who disturbed King Tut. More than a dozen deaths have been attributed to the curse, but studies have shown that those who entered the tomb on average lived just as long as their peers who didn't enter.

Tutankhamun reversed Akhenaten's reforms early in his reign, reviving worship of the god Amun, restoring Thebes as a religious center and changing the end of his name to reflect royal allegiance to the creator god Amun. He also worked in concert with his powerful advisers Horemheb and Ay-both future pharaohs-to restore Egypt's stature in the region.

How Did King Tut Die?

There are many theories as to what killed King Tut at the age of 19. He was tall but physically frail, with a crippling bone disease in his clubbed left foot. He is the only pharaoh known to have been depicted seated while engaged in physical activities like archery. Traditional inbreeding in the Egyptian royal family also likely contributed to the boy king's poor health and early death. DNA tests published in 2010 revealed that Tutankhamun's parents were brother and sister, and that King Tut's wife Ankhesenamun was also his half-sister. Their only two daughters were stillborn.

Because Tutankhamun's remains revealed a hole in the back of the skull, some historians had concluded that the young king was assassinated, but recent tests suggest that the hole was made during mummification. CT scans in 1995 showed that the king had an infected broken left leg, while DNA from his mummy revealed evidence of multiple malaria infections, all of which may have contributed to his early death.

King Tut: Mummy and Tomb

After he died, Tutankhamun was mummified according to Egyptian religious tradition, which held that royal bodies should be preserved and provisioned for the afterlife. Embalmers removed his organs and wrapped him in resin-soaked bandages, a 24-pound solid gold portrait mask was placed over his head and shoulders and he was laid in a series of nested containers-three golden coffins, a granite sarcophagus and four gilded wooden shrines, the largest of which barely fit into the tomb's burial chamber.

Because of his tomb's small size, historians suggest King Tut's death must have been unexpected and his burial rushed by Ay, who succeeded him as pharaoh. The tomb's antechambers were packed to the ceiling with more than 5,000 artifacts, including furniture, chariots, clothes, weapons and 130 of the lame king's walking sticks.

The entrance corridor was apparently looted soon after the burial, but the inner rooms remained sealed. The pharaohs who followed King Tut chose to ignore his reign, as despite his work restoring Amun, Tutankhamun was tainted by the connection to his father's religious upheavals. Within a few generations, the tomb's entrance had been clogged with stone debris, built over by workmen's huts and forgotten.

Howard Carter

By the time he discovered Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter had been excavating Egyptian antiquities for three decades. At the time of the discovery, archaeologists believed that all the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, across the river from ancient Thebes, had already been cleared.

Excitement about the new tomb-the most intact ever found-quickly spread worldwide, igniting a global fascination with the boy pharaoh and the powerful civilization of ancient Egypt. It took Carter and his team a decade to catalogue and empty the tomb.

Grand Egyptian Museum

Artifacts from King Tut's tomb have toured the world in several blockbuster museum shows, including the worldwide 1972-79 "Treasures of Tutankhamun" exhibitions. Eight million visitors in seven U.S. cities viewed the exhibition of the golden burial mask and 50 other precious items from the tomb.

Today the most fragile artifacts, including the burial mask, no longer leave Egypt. Tutankhamun's mummy remains on display within the tomb in the Valley of the Kings in the KV62 chamber, his layered coffins replaced with a climate-controlled glass box. His golden mask is on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but the Tutankhamun collection will eventually move to the Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, located near the Pyramids of Giza.

HISTORY Vault: Ancient History

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Tutankhamun: Tomb, Mummy, Death & Howard Carter - HISTORY

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Tutankhamun, or simply King Tut, ruled Egypt as pharaoh until his early death. Howard Carter found his tomb intact, setting off a worldwide Egyptology frenzy.

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Encyclopedia Britannica - King Tutankhamun 

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Encyclopedia Britannica - King Tutankhamun 

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Tutankhamun, also spelled Tutankhamen and Tutankhamon, original name Tutankhaten, byname King Tut, (flourished 14th century bce), king of ancient Egypt (reigned 1333-23 bce), known chiefly for his intact tomb, KV 62 (tomb 62), discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922. During his reign, powerful advisers restored the traditional Egyptian religion and art, both of which had been set aside by his predecessor Akhenaten, who had led the "Amarna revolution." ( See Amarna style.)

The parentage of Tutankhaten-as he was originally known-remains uncertain, although a single black fragment originating at Akhetaton ( Tell el-Amarna), Akhenaten's capital city, names him as a king's son in a context similar to that of the princesses of Akhenaten. Medical analysis of Tutankhaten's mummy shows that he shares very close physical characteristics with the mummy discovered in KV 55 (tomb 55) of the Valley of the Kings. Some scholars identify these remains as those of Smenkhkare, who seems to have been coregent with Akhenaten in the final years of his reign; others have suggested the mummy may be Akhenaten himself.

With the death of Smenkhkare, the young Tutankhaten became king, and was married to Akhenaten's third daughter, Ankhesenpaaton (later known as Ankhesenamen), probably the eldest surviving princess of the royal family. Because at his accession he was still very young, the elderly official Ay, who had long maintained ties with the royal family, and the general of the armies, Horemheb, served as Tutankhaten's chief advisers.

By his third regnal year Tutankhaten had abandoned Akhetaton and moved his residence to Memphis, the administrative capital, near modern Cairo. He changed his name to Tutankhamun and issued a decree restoring the temples, images, personnel, and privileges of the old gods. He also began the protracted process of restoring the sacred shrines of Amon, which had been severely damaged during his father's rule. No proscription or persecution of the Aton, Akhenaten's god, was undertaken, and royal vineyards and regiments of the army were still named after the Aton.

In addition to a palace built at Karnak and a memorial temple in western Thebes, both now largely vanished, the chief extant monument of Tutankhamun is the Colonnade of the Temple of Luxor, which he decorated with reliefs depicting the Opet festival, an annual rite of renewal involving the king, the three chief deities of Karnak (Amon, Mut, and Khons), and the local form of Amon at Luxor.

Tutankhamun unexpectedly died in his 19th year. In 2010 scientists found traces of malaria parasites in his mummified remains and posited that malaria in combination with degenerative bone disease may have been the cause of death. Whatever the case, he died without designating an heir and was succeeded by Ay. He was buried in a small tomb hastily converted for his use in the Valley of the Kings (his intended sepulchre was probably taken over by Ay). Like other rulers associated with the Amarna period-Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, and Ay-he was to suffer the posthumous fate of having his name stricken from later king lists and his monuments usurped, primarily by his former general, Horemheb, who subsequently became king. Although Tutankhamun's tomb shows evidence of having been entered and briefly plundered, the location of his burial was clearly forgotten by the time of the 20th dynasty (1190-1075 bce), when craftsmen assigned to work on the nearby tomb of Ramses VI built temporary stone shelters directly over its entrance. The tomb was preserved until a systematic search of the Valley of the Kings by the English archaeologist Howard Carter revealed its location in 1922.

Inside his small tomb, the king's mummy lay within a nest of three coffins, the innermost of solid gold, the two outer ones of gold hammered over wooden frames. On the king's head was a magnificent golden portrait mask, and numerous pieces of jewelry and amulets lay upon the mummy and in its wrappings. The coffins and stone sarcophagus were surrounded by four text-covered shrines of hammered gold over wood, which practically filled the burial chamber. The other rooms were crammed with furniture, statuary, clothes, chariots, weapons, staffs, and numerous other objects. But for his tomb, Tutankhamun has little claim to fame; as it is, he is perhaps better known than any of his longer-lived and better-documented predecessors and successors. His renown was secured after the highly popular "Treasures of Tutankhamun" exhibit traveled the world in the 1960s and '70s. The treasures are housed at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt.

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Tutankhamun | Biography, Tomb, Mummy, Mask, & Facts

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Tutankhamun, king of ancient Egypt known chiefly for his intact tomb, which was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922. Having died unexpectedly in his 19th year, he achieved little aside from abandoning Akhetaton for Memphis and foregoing the cult of Aton in favor of restoring the old gods.

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History for kids - Free history network for kids

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Understanding Ancient Egypt We really hope you enjoy these fun facts about Egypt. You will learn about the Pharaoh’s who were the Kings of all the land. Did you know that the ancient Egyptians worshipped hundreds of gods and goddesses? Or that they invented things like the calendar and glass blowing…

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History for kids - Free history network for kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Understanding Ancient Egypt We really hope you enjoy these fun facts about Egypt. You will learn about the Pharaoh’s who were the Kings of all the land. Did you know that the ancient Egyptians worshipped hundreds of gods and goddesses? Or that they invented things like the calendar and glass blowing…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
History for kids - Free history network for kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Understanding Ancient Egypt We really hope you enjoy these fun facts about Egypt. You will learn about the Pharaoh’s who were the Kings of all the land. Did you know that the ancient Egyptians worshipped hundreds of gods and goddesses? Or that they invented things like the calendar and glass blowing…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
History for kids - Free history network for kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Understanding Ancient Egypt We really hope you enjoy these fun facts about Egypt. You will learn about the Pharaoh’s who were the Kings of all the land. Did you know that the ancient Egyptians worshipped hundreds of gods and goddesses? Or that they invented things like the calendar and glass blowing…

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Great Courses Daily - How Were The Pyramids Built?

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Great Courses Daily - How Were The Pyramids Built?

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Uncovering the architectural secrets hidden behind the building of pyramids: the level base, the corbeled roofs, the relieving chambers, and the methods used for carrying heavy stones atop the pyramid.

Khufu built the Pyramid of Giza in a period of 22 years.
(Image: Lua Carlos Martins/Shutterstock)

First Step: Building a Level Base

How did the Egyptians build the pyramids? First, as we know, you can't build a pyramid on the sand. Sand is unstable. It shifts; it moves. So they cleared it down to the bedrock, and then they leveled the bedrock. Now, how does one level an area of 13.5 acres? The Great Pyramid's base is 13.5 acres. The prevailing theory is that they dug channels, and they filled them with water. Wherever the water would run out, one would know that it's lower than the rest of the base.

There have been very careful surveys done recently of the Great Pyramid's base. And it never varies by more than two inches over 13.5 acres. That's precision. It's great workmanship, but it's not high tech. You don't need higher mathematics to build a pyramid.

Learn more about the rise of the Old Kingdom.

Building the Structure of the Pyramids

Now that the foundations are leveled, how did they bring all those blocks to the site? First of all, they didn't have to bring a lot of them to the site. The quarries were right around the pyramid. One can, to this day, walk around the pyramid and see the quarries.

So a lot of the stonework in the pyramid comes from right around it. The finest limestone for the casing, for that smooth outer surface, did come from farther away, it was floated across the Nile and then hauled into place.

This is a transcript from the video series History of Ancient Egypt. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

The inside of the Great Pyramid is a marvel. There are really two entrances. One entrance is a ninth-century robbers' entrance, which tourists use today. People don't go into the original entrance. That's higher up. That's sealed off. The pyramid's real entrance was covered over with the white limestone. Nobody knew where that entrance was in ancient times.

One of the blocked entrances of the pyramid of Giza, providing important inputs regarding the building of pyramids. (Image: Olaf Tausch/CC BY 3.0/Public domain)

Khufu's burial was above ground, way up in the pyramid. Now, how does one get that high up? There is a remarkable passageway to get to the burial chamber. It's called the Grand Gallery. It's a room that is still being debated as to what it was used for. It's 28 feet high. It's narrow. It has corbeled roofs.

It's 10 feet wide and it goes all the way up the pyramid inside. Nobody knows exactly why it was built. Some people think they stored blocks in that Grand Gallery which were going to be slid down to seal the entranceway.

An illustration of the Grand Gallery in the Pyramid of Giza, providing insights on how the pyramids were built. (Image: Pprevos/CC BY-SA 3.0)

You go up this Grand Gallery, and then you come to the burial chamber. There are a couple of puzzles about the burial chamber. One, inside the burial chamber, is the sarcophagus, the stone sarcophagus of Khufu, the only thing ever found inside the burial chamber. And that's all that's there. Nobody was found, no inscription in the burial chamber. And this sarcophagus is about two inches wider than the doorway that leads to the burial chamber. It's one piece of stone, the sarcophagus, but it's two inches wider than the doorway.

Now, what that means is they put the sarcophagus in the burial chamber before the pyramid was complete. It was probably an attempt to avoid tomb-robbing, so the robbers couldn't drag the sarcophagus out. They put it in, and then they built the chamber around it.

The other interesting thing about the burial chamber is the ceiling. Khufu's father, Sneferu, had already solved the problem of the roof. How does one build a roof that doesn't crack with the weight of the pyramid above it? By corbeling-steps going inward, inward, inward, all the way to the top of the ceiling.

But when you go into this burial chamber there is no corbeling. It's big slabs of granite going across the top. Why don't they crack? It's got the whole weight of the pyramid above it. Khufu found an interesting solution to this problem. It's relieving chambers.

If you can get above the burial chamber, there is a tiny chamber called a relieving chamber. It's really small. You will have to crawl and crouch. It's a chamber that's about, maybe, four feet high, and that takes some of the pressure off the ceiling. Above that is another relieving chamber, and above that's another relieving chamber. And all the way on the top, above the relieving chambers, are two huge blocks of stone forming a triangle, an inverted triangle, like a pyramid.

That takes the pressure off the relieving chambers, so all the force of the weight of the pyramid is distributed throughout the pyramid, away from the ceiling. It's a little bit like a corbeled step ceiling, only smoothed out into the form of this inverted 'V', a triangle.

Learn more about ancient Egyptian thought.

Carrying Heavy Stones Atop the Pyramid

There are some very interesting questions about the Great Pyramid. How do you get the stones all the way up to the top? It's too steep to pull up a stone weighing up to three tons? There are two theories.

One theory is the ramp theory: you build a long ramp and the stones are hauled up the ramp, and once you finish the pyramid you remove the ramp. Now, for something the size of the Great Pyramid, going 480 feet up in the air, the ramp would have to be more than a quarter of a mile long. The ramp would be a major engineering project. But we do know they used ramps because at Karnak Temple against one of the walls is a mud-brick ramp that they used to get blocks up. So perhaps they used that technique.

The other possibility is what we call a switchback. It's how, when you go up a mountain road, your car is corkscrewing up the road. It doesn't go straight up the mountain. It goes around and around and around. That's the technique they may have used for getting the blocks up to the top. They may have had the equivalent of a switchback road corkscrewing up around the pyramid until you get the blocks up and then you start filling in. These are the two theories. We don't really know which one is the correct one.

But it didn't take higher mathematics to do this, it took careful measurement. For example, another careful measurement was that the sides of the Great Pyramid were perfectly aligned on the four compass points: north, south, east, and west. Egyptians knew how to do that by carefully observing the stars. They could do that with the North Star, so one could do that.

This required great workmanship but not high-tech stuff. For example, some of the limestone casing blocks are still in place. You cannot fit a piece of paper between them, they are so perfectly fitted. That's remarkable. It's wonderful craftsmanship, especially on something that large. And think about it, all of it was done within 22 years, the reign of Khufu. A remarkable achievement.

Learn more about prehistoric Egypt.

Common Questions about How Did Egyptians Build the Pyramids

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How did the Egyptians build the pyramids? First, as we know, you can't build a pyramid on the sand. Sand is unstable. It shifts; it moves. So they cleared it down to the bedrock, and then they leveled the bedrock. Now, how does one level an area of 13.5 acres?

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Great Courses Daily - How Were The Pyramids Built?

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Great Courses Daily - How Were The Pyramids Built?

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Uncovering the architectural secrets hidden behind the building of pyramids: the level base, the corbeled roofs, the relieving chambers, and the methods used for carrying heavy stones atop the pyramid.

Khufu built the Pyramid of Giza in a period of 22 years.
(Image: Lua Carlos Martins/Shutterstock)

First Step: Building a Level Base

How did the Egyptians build the pyramids? First, as we know, you can't build a pyramid on the sand. Sand is unstable. It shifts; it moves. So they cleared it down to the bedrock, and then they leveled the bedrock. Now, how does one level an area of 13.5 acres? The Great Pyramid's base is 13.5 acres. The prevailing theory is that they dug channels, and they filled them with water. Wherever the water would run out, one would know that it's lower than the rest of the base.

There have been very careful surveys done recently of the Great Pyramid's base. And it never varies by more than two inches over 13.5 acres. That's precision. It's great workmanship, but it's not high tech. You don't need higher mathematics to build a pyramid.

Learn more about the rise of the Old Kingdom.

Building the Structure of the Pyramids

Now that the foundations are leveled, how did they bring all those blocks to the site? First of all, they didn't have to bring a lot of them to the site. The quarries were right around the pyramid. One can, to this day, walk around the pyramid and see the quarries.

So a lot of the stonework in the pyramid comes from right around it. The finest limestone for the casing, for that smooth outer surface, did come from farther away, it was floated across the Nile and then hauled into place.

This is a transcript from the video series History of Ancient Egypt. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

The inside of the Great Pyramid is a marvel. There are really two entrances. One entrance is a ninth-century robbers' entrance, which tourists use today. People don't go into the original entrance. That's higher up. That's sealed off. The pyramid's real entrance was covered over with the white limestone. Nobody knew where that entrance was in ancient times.

One of the blocked entrances of the pyramid of Giza, providing important inputs regarding the building of pyramids. (Image: Olaf Tausch/CC BY 3.0/Public domain)

Khufu's burial was above ground, way up in the pyramid. Now, how does one get that high up? There is a remarkable passageway to get to the burial chamber. It's called the Grand Gallery. It's a room that is still being debated as to what it was used for. It's 28 feet high. It's narrow. It has corbeled roofs.

It's 10 feet wide and it goes all the way up the pyramid inside. Nobody knows exactly why it was built. Some people think they stored blocks in that Grand Gallery which were going to be slid down to seal the entranceway.

An illustration of the Grand Gallery in the Pyramid of Giza, providing insights on how the pyramids were built. (Image: Pprevos/CC BY-SA 3.0)

You go up this Grand Gallery, and then you come to the burial chamber. There are a couple of puzzles about the burial chamber. One, inside the burial chamber, is the sarcophagus, the stone sarcophagus of Khufu, the only thing ever found inside the burial chamber. And that's all that's there. Nobody was found, no inscription in the burial chamber. And this sarcophagus is about two inches wider than the doorway that leads to the burial chamber. It's one piece of stone, the sarcophagus, but it's two inches wider than the doorway.

Now, what that means is they put the sarcophagus in the burial chamber before the pyramid was complete. It was probably an attempt to avoid tomb-robbing, so the robbers couldn't drag the sarcophagus out. They put it in, and then they built the chamber around it.

The other interesting thing about the burial chamber is the ceiling. Khufu's father, Sneferu, had already solved the problem of the roof. How does one build a roof that doesn't crack with the weight of the pyramid above it? By corbeling-steps going inward, inward, inward, all the way to the top of the ceiling.

But when you go into this burial chamber there is no corbeling. It's big slabs of granite going across the top. Why don't they crack? It's got the whole weight of the pyramid above it. Khufu found an interesting solution to this problem. It's relieving chambers.

If you can get above the burial chamber, there is a tiny chamber called a relieving chamber. It's really small. You will have to crawl and crouch. It's a chamber that's about, maybe, four feet high, and that takes some of the pressure off the ceiling. Above that is another relieving chamber, and above that's another relieving chamber. And all the way on the top, above the relieving chambers, are two huge blocks of stone forming a triangle, an inverted triangle, like a pyramid.

That takes the pressure off the relieving chambers, so all the force of the weight of the pyramid is distributed throughout the pyramid, away from the ceiling. It's a little bit like a corbeled step ceiling, only smoothed out into the form of this inverted 'V', a triangle.

Learn more about ancient Egyptian thought.

Carrying Heavy Stones Atop the Pyramid

There are some very interesting questions about the Great Pyramid. How do you get the stones all the way up to the top? It's too steep to pull up a stone weighing up to three tons? There are two theories.

One theory is the ramp theory: you build a long ramp and the stones are hauled up the ramp, and once you finish the pyramid you remove the ramp. Now, for something the size of the Great Pyramid, going 480 feet up in the air, the ramp would have to be more than a quarter of a mile long. The ramp would be a major engineering project. But we do know they used ramps because at Karnak Temple against one of the walls is a mud-brick ramp that they used to get blocks up. So perhaps they used that technique.

The other possibility is what we call a switchback. It's how, when you go up a mountain road, your car is corkscrewing up the road. It doesn't go straight up the mountain. It goes around and around and around. That's the technique they may have used for getting the blocks up to the top. They may have had the equivalent of a switchback road corkscrewing up around the pyramid until you get the blocks up and then you start filling in. These are the two theories. We don't really know which one is the correct one.

But it didn't take higher mathematics to do this, it took careful measurement. For example, another careful measurement was that the sides of the Great Pyramid were perfectly aligned on the four compass points: north, south, east, and west. Egyptians knew how to do that by carefully observing the stars. They could do that with the North Star, so one could do that.

This required great workmanship but not high-tech stuff. For example, some of the limestone casing blocks are still in place. You cannot fit a piece of paper between them, they are so perfectly fitted. That's remarkable. It's wonderful craftsmanship, especially on something that large. And think about it, all of it was done within 22 years, the reign of Khufu. A remarkable achievement.

Learn more about prehistoric Egypt.

Common Questions about How Did Egyptians Build the Pyramids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How did the Egyptians build the pyramids? First, as we know, you can't build a pyramid on the sand. Sand is unstable. It shifts; it moves. So they cleared it down to the bedrock, and then they leveled the bedrock. Now, how does one level an area of 13.5 acres?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient Egypt: Crash Course World History #4

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient Egypt: Crash Course World History #4

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient Egypt: Crash Course World History #4

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the civilization of ancient Egypt including the pharaohs, pyramids, art, government, geography, Nile River, mummies, religion, hieroglyphics, and clothing. Educational articles for students, schools, and teachers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the civilization of ancient Egypt including the pharaohs, pyramids, art, government, geography, Nile River, mummies, religion, hieroglyphics, and clothing. Educational articles for students, schools, and teachers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the civilization of ancient Egypt including the pharaohs, pyramids, art, government, geography, Nile River, mummies, religion, hieroglyphics, and clothing. Educational articles for students, schools, and teachers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the civilization of ancient Egypt including the pharaohs, pyramids, art, government, geography, Nile River, mummies, religion, hieroglyphics, and clothing. Educational articles for students, schools, and teachers.

# data[].attributes.headline
Virtual Tour - Tomb of Queen Meresankh III

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Virtual Tour - Tomb of Queen Meresankh III

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Tomb of Queen Meresankh III (G 7530-7540)