Ancient Egyptian Culture and Arts

Pharaonic Egypt, from about 3100 to 332 BCE, relied on skilled builders, artists, scribes and surveyors. Their work served royal and religious institutions, estates and private patrons. The Old Kingdom (about 2686–2181 BCE), Middle Kingdom (about 2025–1700 BCE) and New Kingdom (about 1550–1069 BCE) each left distinctive buildings and texts. Old Kingdom pyramid projects drew stone and provisions to Giza; Middle Kingdom literary works continued to be copied in later settings; and New Kingdom temples and tombs at Thebes and Amarna show other arrangements of space and image.

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Architecture and construction

Builders used mudbrick extensively for homes, enclosures and working buildings, while stone was chosen for many monuments. Workers mixed Nile mud, sometimes with straw, pressed it into moulds and dried the bricks in the sun. Stone construction required different teams to quarry, dress and move blocks, then set them into walls, columns or roofs.

Merer’s journal from late in Khufu’s reign shows how a royal building project depended on transport and provisions as well as masonry. His team moved Tura limestone by boat toward the pyramid works at Giza. The log records work at Tura North and South in alternating ten-day periods, with blocks gathered near loading places for shipment. Entries also record food deliveries from Heliopolis. Quarry workers, boat crews and supply officials thus formed part of the building operation, alongside those who placed and finished stone.

New Kingdom temples combined courts, halls and sanctuaries in different arrangements. At Amarna, temples for the Aten, the sun disk worshipped under Akhenaten, had open courts with altars for offerings beneath the sky.

Art, materials and use

Egyptian makers worked in stone, wood, metal, pigment, textiles and faience, a glazed material made from silica-rich paste. Workshop production could proceed in stages. A draftsman laid out a scene and drew its outlines; sculptors carved raised or sunk relief; painters then added color. Foremen and experienced craftsmen instructed and corrected less experienced workers, while institutions and patrons supplied materials and set the subject.

Images served particular places and purposes. Temple reliefs showed rulers presenting offerings to gods, while tomb scenes placed the deceased among family, servants, food and activities expected to continue in the afterlife. Around 1350 BCE, Nebamun’s tomb chapel at Thebes was decorated with scenes of marsh hunting, feasting and offerings. Scale, pose and the placement of figures made status and action legible within these settings.

Writing, literature and books

Hieroglyphs and cursive scripts served different written settings. Hieroglyphs appeared on monuments and formal objects; the faster hieratic script was suited to many documents written with ink. Scribes also wrote on pottery or limestone flakes for short notes and exercises. Papyrus required more preparation: makers cut the plant’s pith into strips, laid one layer across another, pressed or beat the layers together, and dried the sheet. Overlapping sheets, probably joined with glue, formed a roll.

A cache found in a tomb beneath the Ramesseum at Thebes illustrates this range. One papyrus, Berlin 10499, carries the story of Sinuhe on one side and the Eloquent Peasant on the other. Sinuhe, a palace official, flees Egypt during succession turmoil, builds a life in exile in Syria, and returns in old age to be buried at home. The Eloquent Peasant follows Khuninpu, whose goods are stolen on the way to market; official Rensi hears his petitions and reports them to the king. The same cache included dispatches, rituals, medical prescriptions and word lists. Literary works therefore sat within a working world of copying, administration, teaching and ritual use.

Mathematics, astronomy and calendars

Mathematical texts include both procedure problems and tables. A procedure text explains a calculation, while a table supplies values a scribe can use in carrying one out. Middle Kingdom fragments from Lahun preserve both kinds. Egyptian fraction reckoning used unit fractions, with 1 as the numerator: a table represented 2/5 as 1/3 plus 1/15. A cubit, an ancient measure roughly the length of forearm and hand, helped measure land; an Old Kingdom setjat was an area of 100 cubits by 100 cubits.

Egypt’s civil calendar divided the year into twelve months of thirty days, then added five extra days, making 365. Because it had no leap-day correction, calendar dates gradually shifted against the solar seasons. Festivals fixed to civil dates could therefore fall in different seasons over time. Star clocks used decans, star groups that rose successively through the night, to mark its hours. A New Kingdom water clock let water drain through a small opening in a marked bowl; the changing water level helped keep time. Scribes also used calculation to allocate provisions and maintain records.