 In modern Egypt, a cruise on the Nile or a bus ride through
the countryside along this great river of live can be very
enlightening. One will see urban sprawl, some modern
factories, lots of traffic, but in the countryside, one will
also see people living much as they did many thousands of
years ago. There will be small mudbick buildings, Oxen pulling
archaic plows, donkeys and donkey carts laden with all manner
of produce and other agricultural products and various other
trappings of a bygone era removed from most of he modern world
by millenniums. Visually, the countryside often leaves one
with an impression of antiquity, but socially and culturally,
much of Egypt's rural population are also remains steeped in
ancient tradition, and in fact this attribute carries over
into a considerable part of the country's urban population.
Many of their traditions look back to ancient times, though
warped by a series of cultural intrusions and the influences
of our modern era. To some extent, particularly in rural
areas, modern Egyptians represent a laboratory from which we
can pick out many ancient Egyptian customs and observing them,
even from the comfort of a cruise ship swimming pool, gives
one some idea of ancient Egyptian life. Egyptology has to be considered the oldest discipline to
study ancient man. We find references to several people who
are sometimes considered to be founders of this science, such
as W. F. Petrie and
Champollion, but in reality, the study of
ancient Egyptians is much, much older. It can, in some
respects be said that Herodotus and
Strabo were
Egyptologists,
if not actually archaeologists, as was Manetho before them,
but even many of the ancient Egyptians themselves studied, and
were proud of their own history. Prince
Khaemwese, a son of
Ramesses II  (Ramesses the Great) was interested in Egyptian
history, and during many periods, particularly when times were
troubling, the ancient Egyptians looked back upon their
predecessors and took up at least some of their more ancient
traditions. Perhaps unfortunately, from ancient times into our
present day, this science has mostly focused on the grander
side of life, exploring great kings and their fabulous temples
and tombs. The life of common Egyptians has often been
ignored, and even when it was investigated, the evidence is
frequently skewed in a funerary context.
Of course, there are several reasons why the life of the
common Egyptians, and even the everyday life of the nobles has
not received the attention we might like to see. Grand temples
and tombs have offered up spectacular finds and treasures, and
indeed it is the great
pyramids, temples and tombs that most
visitors to Egypt find alluring. However, evidence of day to
day life is also more obscure, as their houses and other
objects of used in daily life were not built to withstand the
ages, or for that matter the inundations of the Nile
River.
Communities were built close to the river for access to the
water, and often of mudbrick and both of these factors
contributed to their early demise.
 Nevertheless, there have always been a few scholars that
have focused on the life of ancient Egyptians and over the
years we have come to learn a great deal about their customs
and culture, even outside of the funerary context. Ancient
workers villages on the West Bank at
Thebes
(Deir
el-Medina), at Giza,
Kahun,
and and even cities such as Akhetaten, if only their
foundations, have risen to see the light of day once more, and
from these and other sources, such as the wealth of private
tomb paintings, we find a rich source of
knowledge.
What immerges from this evidence is a people who,
fundamentally, are not unlike people today. Men and women fell
in love, united, created families that became the center of
their lives, worried about their children, worked, struggled,
sought security and had moral concerns from which some
deviated to became criminals. It is true that they sometimes
fought savage wars, but our modern society seems not yet to
have outgrown that very ancient tradition. The young played with toys,
while older children and adults played games and competed in
sports, partied, danced, sang, rejoiced on special occasions
and were sad when death took a loved one. They sued each
other, divorced, paid taxes, fought with their neighbors and
their wives, but also believed in the concept of our modern
Bible's golden rule, to love thy neighbor. Some common
Egyptians excelled in life, rising to become great officials,
while others failed miserably, but in general they survived
and lead ordinary lives for their time. They adapted to their
landscape, and appear to have been patriots of their
country.
 The ancient Egyptians showed most of the traits of modern
man, though in an ancient context and with ancient pressures.
Rather than putting locks on their doors, they built walls and
surrounded themselves with fellow countryman for security.
Rather than central refrigerated air conditioning, they built
fountains and naturally cooled houses for their comfort.
Though lacking huge motorized cranes and heavy trucks, they
nevertheless managed to build monuments that even today are
very impressive to us, using ancient technology that has
sometimes become lost in the tracks of time. And like today,
many of these large, public programs such as the building of
the great pyramids spawned technology that was useful in
everyday life, such as geometry, which was used both to plot
the foundation of Khufu's
monument, but also to lay out and
mark small tracks of farm land. Yet, while it would be fun to
report that they held ancient and almost supernaturally
mysterious knowledge, a belief often held by our more recent
ancestors, they functioned much as we do today and most of our
investigations center around small details of their lives
which, in the end, have little bearing on their overall
humanity.
In fact, if one could walk into a typical ancient Egyptian
home, he or she would find many of the trappings of modern life,
recognizable yet ancient. There would be mirrors and makeup,
pots and pans, ovens and shelves for storage, beds and
comfortable sitting areas, lighting to ward of the darkness of
night and heat to chase away the cold of winter. It is
easy to forget how recent our modern world is, with our
computers, televisions, stereo systems, refrigerators and
cars, but one need only look back a hundred years are so to
find a similar way of life to the ancient Egyptians, when
people had to contend themselves with social activities and
live performances for entertainment and animals for
transportation. While the ancient Egyptians may seem far
removed from our modern world, in reality, we are fooled by
our own recent and rapid technical advances. Actually, the
early Egyptologists
such as Champollion
who sailed to Egypt,
rode donkeys to visit the ruins, recorded their investigations
using pen and paper rather than a laptop computer and cooked their food while
there on an open fire rather than a butane burner lived in a
society closer to that of the ancient Egyptians than to our
modern world today.
With technology, our modern era has indeed ushered in
cultural changes. It would seem that our elders are no longer
as respected as they were a hundred years ago, or four
thousand years ago in ancient
Egypt. Marriages fall apart, children move to far corners
of the world, alienating family units, we communicate at
lightning speeds and with people throughout the world while
national and international news arrives at our doorsteps with
ease. But all of these changes have occurred very, very
recently relative to the history of mankind.
So finally, when we study the ancient Egyptians' way of
life, we examine their clothing, which differs from our own,
but was nevertheless clothing, we investigate how they
worshipped their gods, which are different than our god, but
they were nevertheless worshipped, we want to see how they
married and raised their kids, though we know they did unite in
love, have sex and struggled with the resulting children. We
want to know about their health care, their education and what
they considered humorous, but we know that they had doctors,
educators and a since of humor. Only the details vary from our
modern way of life, and sometimes even the details are the
same. Women wore perfume which is still used today, wore
makeup not so very different than makeup of today, and had
their hair done in fashions that sometimes look completely
modern.
See Also Tour Egypt Monthly article:
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