How Did Ancient Egyptians Spend Their Entire Day?

It is an hour before sunrise, roughly 1200 BC, and you are asleep on a roof. Below you is a village of sixty eight mud houses. You are not a pharaoh. Statistically you are a farmer, and you have to be at work in ninety minutes. We know an enormous amount about ancient Egypt. We know the recipe for embalming fluid and the weight of the feather your soul was measured against. And yet almost nobody can tell you what an Egyptian did on a Tuesday. That is what this is. Not the tombs and not the gold. The Tuesday. Breakfast, the commute, arguing with your boss, the reason your teeth were destroyed by thirty, the letters people wrote to their dead relatives to settle family arguments, the statue that decided your court cases, the world's first recorded labour strike, and a logbook kept by a middle manager named Merer who was building the Great Pyramid and complaining about the boat schedule. The reason Egypt looks like a death cult is simple and has nothing to do with Egypt. Tombs and temples were built of stone because they were meant to last. Houses, markets, workshops and granaries were built of mud brick, and mud brick goes back to being dirt. We inherited a civilisation's funeral wing and mistook it for the whole building. CHAPTERS 0:00 An hour before sunrise, on a roof 2:13 Why every image you have of Egypt is from a tomb 3:48 The river is the clock 5:27 Three seasons, three job descriptions 6:44 Hours that stretched and shrank with the sun 7:35 The morning, and the box by the door 8:52 Bread and beer as one food system 9:36 Why Egyptian teeth were destroyed by thirty 10:59 The day splits: the farmer 12:39 The day splits: the tomb workman 14:09 The day splits: the scribe 15:23 The day splits: the woman, and Naunakhte's will 17:43 Midday, food and the truth about kohl 20:17 Senet, love poetry and children's toys 22:09 The rubbish pit that gave Egypt back 23:19 The statue that settled your court case 24:26 Letters to the dead SOURCES AND FURTHER READING The excavated workmen's village at Deir el-Medina and its ostraca The tomb of Menna, showing field surveying and estate discipline The Instruction of Dua-Kheti, also known as the Satire of the Trades The will of Naunakhte, Deir el-Medina Oracle procedures using the deified Amenhotep I Letters to the dead, written on pottery bowls and cloth Tapsoba et al. (2010), on lead compounds in Egyptian kohl The Turin Strike Papyrus The Wadi al-Jarf papyri, including the logbook of the inspector Merer A note on the kohl study. The medical reading is genuinely not settled, and I have said so in the video rather than presenting it as fact. ancient egypt daily life, what did ancient egyptians do all day, life in ancient egypt, ancient egyptian farmers, deir el medina, ancient egyptian workers, egyptian ostraca, first labour strike in history, ancient egyptian women's rights, ancient egyptian food, egyptian bread and beer, ancient egypt explained #AncientEgypt #DailyLife #History