Daily Life in the Old Kingdom of Egypt

The daily life of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BCE) is one of the best-documented periods in Egyptian history, thanks to the surviving tombs of officials, the workers’ town at Giza, and the “Instructions” literature (Ptahhotep, Kagemni).

What was life like for an Egyptian of the Old Kingdom? The answer comes from a combination of tomb paintings, surviving objects, and the workers’ settlements near the pyramid sites. The picture is incomplete (most of what we know comes from the tombs of the elite) but it is rich enough to give a clear sense of the rhythms of daily life.

The Nile and the Calendar

Almost everything in Egyptian life traced back to the Nile. The annual flood, the akhet, was the most important event of the year. The floodwaters rose between June and September, depositing a thin layer of dark silt over the fields. When the waters receded, the farmers planted their crops. The Egyptians divided their year into three seasons: akhet (inundation), peret (growing), and shemu (harvest). Beyond the green strip was desert, which the Egyptians thought of as the realm of chaos and death.

Food and Drink

The Egyptian diet was simple but, by ancient standards, varied. The staples were bread and beer, eaten at every meal by virtually everyone. Egyptian bread was dense and gritty, made from emmer wheat or barley and baked in conical molds. Egyptian beer, called ḥenqet, was a thick, nutritious, slightly sour drink that modern taste would not recognize as beer. Wine was reserved for the wealthy.

Vegetables included onions, garlic, leeks, lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, lentils, chickpeas, and beans. Fruit was a luxury but not unknown: dates, figs, pomegranates, melons, and grapes. Meat was less common in the diet of the poor. Fish was a major source of protein, and excavations at the Giza workers’ town have uncovered thousands of fish bones (mostly Nile tilapia and catfish, by the species identifications that have been published). The wealthy ate beef, pork, goat, mutton, geese, ducks, quail, and pigeons.

Clothing

Old Kingdom Egyptians of all classes dressed simply, in white linen. The most common item was the kilt or shendyt, a wrapped piece of linen tied at the waist. Women wore long, tight-fitting sheath dresses, often held up by one or two shoulder straps. Both men and women often went barefoot or wore simple sandals of woven papyrus or palm fiber.

Children typically went naked until puberty, when they were dressed in adult clothing. Headdresses, wigs, and jewelry were reserved for adults, and the most elaborate wigs (long, thick, carefully arranged braids) were worn by the wealthy.

Work

The vast majority of Old Kingdom Egyptians were farmers. They worked the land along the Nile, growing wheat, barley, flax, and vegetables, and raising cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs. The work was organized by the state, and the overseer of the granary was one of the most important local officials.

In addition to farming, ordinary Egyptians had a wide range of trades. Stonemasons, copper smiths, goldsmiths, weavers, potters, carpenters, leather workers, basket makers, and brewers all appear in the surviving records. A major source of employment was the royal building program. The construction of a single pyramid required a permanent workforce of several thousand skilled workers, plus tens of thousands of seasonal laborers. The workers at Giza lived in a planned town called Heit el-Ghurab, with workshops, bakeries, breweries, and copper-working facilities. To learn more, see our guides to how the pyramids were built and workers vs. slaves.

A small but important class were the scribes, who could read and write (a rare and valuable skill) and served the state as accountants, tax collectors, record keepers, and letter writers. For more on the writing system, see our guide to Egyptian hieroglyphs and writing.

Egyptian family life was centered on the household, which usually included the extended family of a man, his wife, and their children. Marriage was the norm, and there is no evidence of celibacy. The legal status of Egyptian women was, by ancient standards, remarkably high: they could own property, initiate divorce, and engage in business transactions in their own names. Some women of the Old Kingdom held high office, including the title of God’s Wife. For the broader role of women in Egyptian civilization, see our long-tail page on the queens of the New Kingdom.

Children were valued members of the household, and tomb paintings show parents playing with their children. The presence of toys (clay animals, balls, dolls, and spinning tops) in Old Kingdom graves suggests a rich material culture of their own.

Religion and Daily Life

Religion was not separate from daily life; it was daily life. The Egyptians believed the gods were present in the rising sun, the flowing Nile, the harvest, and the breath of every living being. Most Egyptians had a household shrine. Major festivals (for Ra, for Osiris, for Hathor, for Bastet) were celebrated with feasting, music, and ritual drama.

The Egyptians believed the soul survived death, and they spent considerable time on the preparation of tombs. For ordinary Egyptians, this meant a simple pit grave with a few grave goods. For the elite, it meant a stone mastaba. For the king, it meant a pyramid. To explore the broader religious framework, see our guides to Egyptian mythology and beliefs and Egyptian gods and goddesses.

Entertainment and Leisure

The Egyptians had a wide range of leisure activities. The elite hunted in the desert, fished in the marshes, and held banquets with music, dancing, and wine. Both men and women attended these banquets, and tomb paintings show guests wearing elaborate wigs, jewelry, and garlands of flowers. Children played with knucklebones, carved wooden animals, and simple board games. The most popular board game was senet, played on a 3-by-10 grid; senet boards have been found in many Old Kingdom tombs. The Egyptians also played mehen, a spiral-shaped board game. Music was an important part of both religious and secular life, with harps, flutes, lyres, lutes, and percussion.

Health and Medicine

The Egyptians were, by ancient standards, relatively healthy. The Nile Valley was a productive region with a varied diet, and the population was largely protected from the worst diseases of the desert. The main health problems were probably dental (the gritty bread wore down tooth enamel) and parasites, contracted from the river water and the fields. Egyptian medicine was a sophisticated system, with doctors specializing in particular parts of the body. The famous Imhotep, designer of the Step Pyramid, was deified as a god of medicine after his death.

The Collapse

The Old Kingdom collapsed around 2181 BCE (the accession of the 8th Dynasty), after a series of low Nile floods and political upheavals weakened the central government. The 4.2 kiloyear climate event (c. 2200–1900 BCE) was a real and severe aridification episode, well documented in marine and lake cores; the question of how much of the political collapse to attribute to it is the subject of real disagreement among Egyptologists, and the argument I make on the Old Kingdom page is that the climate shock was a contributing cause rather than a sufficient one. The literature of the period is full of laments: “The land is turned round as a potter’s wheel,” one text mourns.

It would take the Theban kings of the Middle Kingdom to restore order. The people of the Old Kingdom had laid the foundation for everything that followed, and one of the more striking things, when you stand in front of a Fourth Dynasty tomb at Giza, is how recognizable the daily-life objects on the wall paintings still are. A man carrying a load of bread on a yoke, a woman winnowing grain, a child playing with a hoop: these are recognizably human, four and a half thousand years later, in a way that the religious imagery usually is not.