Lost Voices of the Nile: Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt
Page 3
In addition to the human inhabitants, many households also had cats for rodent control, a guard or hunting dog, some ducks or geese (for eggs and meat) and goats (for milk). The stela of Wah-Ankh Intef II (eleventh dynasty) lists and names five of his dogs, immortalising them for eternity. Although it is not clear exactly when the Egyptians domesticated the hunting dog, they appear in graves with humans from the Pre-Dynastic Period; the first dynasty queen Herneith had her pet dog buried at the entrance to her tomb, protecting her for eternity.42 Royalty continued to have dogs throughout the pharaonic period and a mummified dog found in the Valley of the Kings is thought to have belonged to Amenhotep II. Tutankhamun is also depicted hunting with his hounds on the side of the painted chest discovered in his tomb.
Furthermore, dogs were the pet of choice for many officials in the New Kingdom. Maiheperi, the Nubian solider buried in the Valley of the Kings, had numerous decorated dog collars in his tomb, one inscribed with the name Taentniwet (She of the Town (Thebes)). The chief of police under Akhenaten, Mahu, is depicted in his tomb next to his pet dog. The discovery of a veterinary papyrus from El-Lahun shows just how common dogs were in the households of ancient Egyptian villages.43 While hunting was the main purpose of having a dog, they were also used to guard flocks and crops from wild animals.44 In total the names of seventy-seven dogs are known, and sometimes their name gives a clue about their role. A twelfth dynasty dog from Asyut was called He Is a Shepherd, and others were called The Good Watcher, The Little Woofer,45 Ebony and Brave One.46
The domestic cat was equally common in ancient Egypt and the ancient Egyptian word for cat was miw, in reference to the noise they make. Egyptians were possibly the first nation to domesticate cats, and this could be why Egypt is often synonymous with them. The earliest evidence of a cat being buried with a human is from the Badarian Period (4000 BCE), although it is thought it was a tame wildcat rather than a fully domesticated pet.47 However, more compelling evidence was discovered at Hierakonpolis, where two adults and four kittens were buried together in a pit dated 3800–3600 BCE.48 Investigations of the mandible and cranium size have led scholars to believe they were domestic cats. Additionally, the kittens were not from the same litter, and the adult female cat was not old enough to have given birth, indicating they were not a family unit. However, the relationship of the male adult cat to the rest is unknown, and his being the father of the kittens cannot be eliminated. In order for all six of them to be sacrificed at the same time, at least four captures were made – adult male and female and two lots of kittens – in a short space of time, indicating they were more than likely already in captivity. Furthermore, the pit where the cats were buried was near other, contemporary pits containing a juvenile baboon and nine dogs, both adult and sub-adult, indicating they were all domesticated or at least living in captivity.
The first evidence in a tomb painting of a fully domesticated cat is from the eleventh dynasty. A twelfth-dynasty burial has the skeletons of seventeen cats and a number of jars which may have contained milk offerings for them, indicating they were expected to survive the afterlife. They were no doubt attracted to the villages and then tolerated in the home as rat- and mouse-catchers; in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus a problem starts with ‘seven houses, forty-nine cats, 343 mice’.49 There is also the suggestion that cats were trained to help their master hunt in the marshes by fetching the birds that he had felled with his throw-stick. However, this is pure conjecture and anyone who has tried to train a cat to fetch knows it would be easier to fetch the birds yourself.
Most of the cat owners, identified in the tombs by a cat seated beneath their chair, nibbling a fish, eating fruit or sleeping, were women. The tomb of Ipuy (TT17), however, shows a young kitten seated on the tomb owner’s lap, pawing at the sleeve of his tunic, while its mother is beneath the chair of his wife. Unlike dogs, most cats do not seem to have had proper names, although perhaps this is down the archaeological record rather than social practice. There is only one New Kingdom incident where the cat’s name, The Pleasant One, is known.
Early evidence at Deir el-Medina shows cattle also lived within the village enclosure wall. Even in the palatial houses at El-Lahun, enclosed areas and feeding troughs indicate livestock were housed near the large, central courtyards. Rich houses, therefore, no doubt smelt as bad as the poorer ones. Large cattle, or oxen, were primarily kept for milk; small cattle, sheep and goats were kept for their milk and fleece. When they became too old, they were slaughtered for meat.
Palatial houses were not present at Deir el-Medina but can be found at all other villages. These houses were often north-facing to take advantage of the cooling northern winds. However, if this was not possible a corridor led from the less-than-ideal entrance to a second, north-facing entrance. The interiors of these houses were often complicated, with numerous rooms and corridors designed to confuse visitors and therefore impress them by the size and complexity of the house. The house of Nakht, the overseer of public works at Tell el-Amarna, for example, had thirty rooms, a large columned reception hall and a garden with an offering table to make open-air offerings to the Aten. Columns were a sign of wealth and villas at Tell el-Amarna and El-Lahun had large, columned rooms designed to impress. Even in small workman houses they often had a wooden column painted to look like stone in the second room.
Large houses were divided into suites, often comprising small, three-roomed apartments with a reception room, bedroom and side-room, perhaps used as a dressing room or storeroom. These suites housed the women, guests and administrative staff. All the suites were centred round an open courtyard with a southern, covered colonnade. It is possible these courtyards may also have had trees or a central pool for bathing and may have contained fish and ducks. Some New Kingdom tomb images show the tomb owner seated by one of these pools with a small fishing rod, passing the time in a relaxing manner. It is even thought that fruit trees and vegetables may have been grown in planters and pots in this area, providing fresh food for the family that they could consume or sell. It is near these courtyards that animal pens have been discovered.
At Tell el-Amarna the main difference between a worker’s house and an elite villa, other than size, was the inclusion of specific rooms designated as bedrooms, some with ensuite bathrooms. In Deir el-Medina the living spaces were used as sleeping spaces at night, and people washed in the Nile or with a bowl of water. Large houses at Tell el-Amarna, however, had purpose-built beds, whereas smaller homes used bedrolls to sleep on. As beds were expensive and a sign of status it was perhaps unheard of to share one, and indeed only single beds have been discovered.50 Most people used headrests made of wood, stone or clay in place of pillows or cushions. These were T-shaped structures with a slightly curved edge on the T-bar, into which the neck was placed. They were often decorated with images of Bes and Taweret, who protected the sleeper throughout the night. In ancient Egypt, sleeping was considered a dangerous time when individuals were vulnerable and open to attack from demons and the restless dead, so the protection of household deities was considered essential.
Dreams were considered important as they were believed to be messages from the gods. The Dream Interpretation Book by the scribe Kenherkhopshef from Deir el-Medina gives a wonderful insight into the concerns of the ancient Egyptian villagers. Their dreams covered a number of activities: seeing something or eating and drinking (either too much or not enough) were the most common dreams; others dreamt of everyday activities, from weaving, brewing and pickling to copulation.51 Gain and loss was a particular theme, such as receiving a house, wealth or a wife, or losing something through robbery, taxation or the calamity of being an orphan.52 The Egyptians were also concerned with starvation or violent deaths, indicating this was perhaps something that was a distinct possibility in their world. On the other hand, other dreams reflected aspects of life which were thought to be pleasant, such as ‘sitting with the villagers’ or having ‘gossip about you cease’, something almost everyone can relate to.
Many houses, regardless of size, had a doorkeeper’s room, ensuring all visitors were vetted and announced. In the smaller houses it is likely that a child or elder sat here, rather than a paid member of staff, and instead of a designated room it may have simply been a low stool. This would have stood as the first line of home security. Door bolts and keys have been found at El-Lahun, suggesting it was possible to lock your home, but security was still clearly a concern. A letter from a woman at Deir el-Medina requests her friend house-sit while she is away: ‘Please have Amenemwia dwell in my house so he can keep an eye on it.’54
For the majority of people, the home was the central place in their lives, and not just somewhere where they slept at the end of the day. Although in Deir el-Medina the workmen were away for days at a time, for the women, children, elderly and infirm the home was essentially their world. These homes were places for food preparation, dining, sleeping, workshop production, cottage farming and worship. The houses were busy hubs, with people coming and going. A woman spent the majority of the time in the rear of the house producing food for the family and for market, and it is possible that for laborious jobs like grinding grain friends got together and worked as a group to help the time pass more quickly.
As houses varied according to status and wealth, so did the daily diet of the ancient Egyptians. Archaeological, written and artistic evidence makes it possible to identify the food available. Food left in tombs for the deceased to enjoy was often in a raw, uncooked state, so we can only guess at how these ingredients were combined to make a meal. Moreover, food left in a funerary context was not the same quality or quantity consumed on a daily basis, which is evidenced by the absence of fish and pork in these contexts. It is well attested that both were eaten in the villages on a regular basis.
The staple food of the Egyptian diet was bread made from emmer wheat or barley, and there were over forty types of bread available.55 The finer bread was made from wheat and is generally found in tombs. There were different-shaped loaves, indicating different ingredients. For example, sticky fruit bread in the Dokki Agricultural Museum, Cairo, was made with mashed dates between two layers of dough. Other loaves were rolled in cumin or sesame seeds, and could be coarse, fine, olive or fruit bread; often the dough was enriched with fat, milk, and eggs. Many loaves appear to have a hole in the centre, which could be to fill with jam or paste, or could simply be where the bread was pushed into the oven using a stick. Palm fruit or dates were made into a type of jam and used for flavouring or was spread on festival bread – a fine quality bread for special occasions.
Some bread was made in clay moulds which were put in the oven to cook. Often these broke when the loaf was removed, leaving only fragments in the archaeological record. Some complete moulds, however, were found in foundation deposits of temples, enabling the shape of the bread to be identified. The most common was a type of flatbread which is still made in Egypt today, and is made in the same way without the need for moulds.
Egyptian bread was very bad for the teeth, as the grain from which it was made was ground in sandstone querns and contained lots of stone grit and dust, which filled the air in Egypt at all times. This could enter the bread at any stage of production. All mummies have very worn teeth and this is often blamed on high grit levels in the bread (see chapter eight). In 1972, Leek carried out experiments on thirteen loaves of bread and discovered there were numerous inorganic particles embedded in the crumb. These were primarily desert quartzite sand, but also included other minerals, some several millimetres wide. It was suggested that as the bread that has survived in the archaeological record is from a funerary context, less care was taken in production as it was not intended for human consumption.56 The general grain process included many levels of sieving, which eliminated any large inclusions, but this was clearly not carried out for the funerary bread. The sand present in the bread is likely to be wind-blown or from the querns when grinding flour,57 and it has been demonstrated there was no need to add sand to the flour to aid grinding.
The other main staple was beer, made from the previous day’s stale bread or partially cooked, fresh bread. The water in Egypt was unsafe to drink, so weak beer was drunk by everyone, including children. The beer was thicker and more nourishing than modern beer and needed to be strained through a sieve before consuming. It was often flavoured with fruit, primarily dates.
Wine was also popular in ancient Egypt. Egyptian wine was best drunk young, only a year or two after the grape harvest. A receipt from Deir el-Medina shows that the scribe Neferhotep paid twice the cost of barley beer for a jug of wine, showing it was an expensive commodity.58 Studies carried out on six of the twenty-six wine jars from Tutankhamun’s tomb by a Spanish team in 2006 showed all of them contained tartaric acid, a chemical produced by grapes. Five jars, however, did not contain syringic acid, which develops in aged red wine, suggesting they were white wine. This was unusual as white wine is not recorded in Egypt until the third century CE, indicating these were very special jars.
There were different quality wines, such as wine for offerings, wine for taxes, wine for merrymaking and a very popular heated wine called shedeh, which is often said to have been made from pomegranates flavoured with spices. However, analysis on residues in amphorae labelled as shedeh show it was in fact red grape based, although classified as separate from wine.59 What the difference was is not yet clear.
Some wine and beer was flavoured with dom palm fruit, which tastes of gingerbread. These fruits are hard and woody and need to be soaked in order to extract the flavour. A label on a jar from the Malkata vineyard claims the wine within was ‘blended’, indicating they were also combining different grapes to produce different-flavoured wines.
The Theban region in the New Kingdom was well known for wine production and many tombs from the Valley of the Nobles show the vineyards and wine production in action. The Delta region and the Fayuum were also famous for their vineyards.
With such alcohol consumption Egyptians were known to get drunk, and in year 40 of Ramses III the absentee record from Deir el-Medina shows a man called Pendua took a day off work because he was drinking with Khons. Iyerniutef simply said he was ‘drinking’ and could not attend work on the royal tomb that day.
One notorious Deir el-Medina inhabitant, Paneb, was accused of behaving badly when drunk. On one occasion, just after Sety II’s mummy had been placed in the sarcophagus, Paneb, drunk, climbed atop the sarcophagus – a shocking action as the king was considered to be a god incarnate. He was also accused of falling into rages and was threatening to kill not only his adopted father, Neferhotep, but also the foreman, Hay.
Charge concerning his [Paneb] running after the Chief workman, Neferhotep, although it was him who reared him. And he [Neferhotep] closed his doors before him, and he [Paneb] took a stone and broke his doors. And they caused men to watch over Neferhotep because he [Paneb] said ‘I will kill him in the night.’60
It took a number of guards to drag the enraged Paneb away from his adopted father’s door, and they stood watch just in case he returned. Unfortunately what the argument was about will remain a mystery. He also made a similar death threat to another foreman, Hay, by saying, ‘I will get you in the mountains and kill you.’ However, yet again he does not appear to have carried out the threat and this may also have been the result of a drinki
ng binge. A further accusation against him was actually of murder, although he was not charged with it: ‘He is keeping well although he is like a madman. Yet it was he who killed those men that they might not bring a message to pharaoh. Lo, I have caused the vizier to know about his way of life.’61 Unfortunately the papyrus cuts off at this point, so if any more information was available about this murder it is lost to us.
The ‘Instruction of Ani’ (twenty-first or twenty-second dynasty) warns against such behaviour. ‘Don’t indulge in drinking beer, lest you utter evil speech and don’t know what you are saying.’62 However, being drunk was considered a part of daily life for both men and women and the consumption of alcohol was regularly depicted in tomb scenes. In the tomb of Paheri at El Kab, a female cousin demands of the servant, ‘Give me 18 cups of wine; I want to drink to drunkenness; my throat is dry as straw.’63
While bread and beer were staples, the majority of people had very little meat in their diet, surviving primarily on vegetables and fish. Those fortunate enough to eat fowl enjoyed wildfowl, duck, geese, pigeon, egret and squab, all of which were roasted. Sometimes the birds were captured alive and fattened up at home before being eaten, and scenes in the tomb of Mereruka (sixth dynasty) depict geese and cranes being force-fed on grain. It is unknown whether the Egyptians just liked fatty fowl or whether they had a taste for pate de foie gras.
Beef was rarely eaten by anyone other than the elite. However, when it was eaten every part of the animal was used; the blood was made into a type of black pudding, the offal was dried and the bones were boiled up for stock and soups. Ox heads were often depicted on offering tables, indicating that this was the best cut of meat; a suitable meal for a god, in fact. Other meats included pork, goat and desert game,64 although these were also expensive and reserved for special occasions.