What was life like for the ancient Egyptians?

Farmers, bakers, priests, craftspeople, merchants (a person who trades goods), scribes (a person who wrote hieroglyphs or documents) and doctors were some of the jobs they had in Ancient Egypt.

Jobs were usually inherited (something passed on to the next generation) from parents, so if your father was a farmer, it was likely you would become a farmer too.

Important words on what life was like in Ancient Egypt

Watch the video to learn more about what life was like for the Ancient Egyptians.

Women had special rights and were able to own property, work in trade and run farms alongside their husbands.

Marriage was important and women were respected as mothers and wives.

People divorced and remarried.

There weren’t schools like the ones we have today, but ancient Egyptians did have apprenticeships (learning a trade, skill or job by working with someone experienced).

This meant that many children had jobs or were learning a trade.

Enslaved people (someone who is a slave) worked as forced labour but also traded goods as a job. Surprisingly, some slaves were able to own property and were paid in food not wages.

After Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered in 1922, work began excavating (digging up) an entire village at Deir-el Medina, near the Valley of the Kings.

This gave us the most detailed information we have of life in an Ancient Egypt from 1500 BC.

There were around 68 houses, made of mud-brick and built on stone foundations.

Letters, legal documents, statues and tombs we've found there tell us about family and working life.

From the evidence found in the ruins we know that:

• Many of the men and women could read.
• Women baked bread and brewed beer.
• The village had a court of law and everyone had a right to a trial.
• There was a local police, the Medjay, to keep order.
• The people of Deir-el Medina also had medical treatment.
• They could get prescriptions of ingredients, prayers and spells from the physicians (doctors).

Not many examples of ancient Egyptian houses have survived because they were built a very long time ago.

Houses would have been built of mud-bricks with floors made from earth.

They had living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms.

Many of the large objects that we can move around in our modern-day homes (like seats and ovens) were built into the house.

There was no gas or electricity, meaning that food was cooked in stone ovens, using a fire for heat.

To keep food and drinks cool, pits were dug and food was stored below ground level.

Click through the slideshow to see the kinds of things Ancient Egyptians had in their homes.

The area around the River Nile was fertile (the soil was easy to grow things), due to the annual flood.

This meant that lots of different foods could be grown and harvested (gathering the crops).

Foods that we eat today, like tomatoes, bananas and potatoes were not eaten in Ancient Egypt because they had not been discovered yet!

Like many civilisations, the food you ate depended on your class.

Richer people, like Pharaohs and priests, ate meat, eggs, figs and grapes.

Poorer people, like farmers, ate bread, onions and garlic.

Have a look at the thinking points below and think about your answer to the questions. You could even write it down on a piece of paper or discuss it with somebody else if you want to.

• How has the discovery of the Deir-el Medina helped historians learn about Ancient Egyptian life?

• How did living near the River Nile affect the types of jobs people could do?

Click the labels below to find out about life in Ancient Egypt.

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