A Tale of Three Cities - Daily Life in Ancient Egypt

Take a walk through the three ancient Egyptian cities of Elephantine, Deir el Medina, and Piramesse. From the architecture of houses, to diet, occupation and recreation, administration, and personal letters, we will explore the lived experiences of their ancient occupants. We will also consider why settlement sites are difficult to excavate in Egypt, what other evidence we might draw on to understand the lives of ordinary people such as daily life scenes depicted in tombs, and challenge the stereotype that the ancient Egyptians were preoccupied with death.

DELIVERY MODE

• Hybrid (F2F & Online simultaneously)

SUGGESTED READING

• A.G. McDowell, Village life in ancient Egypt: laundry lists and love songs (Oxford University Press, 1999), ISBN: 0198149980
• K. Szpakowska, Daily life in ancient Egypt: recreating Lahun (Blackwell, 2008), ISBN: 9781405118569

COURSE OUTLINE

• Limitations of settlement archaeology and indirect evidence for daily life in ancient Egypt
• The settlement on Elephantine Island
• The worker’s village of Deir el Medina
• The city of Piramesse

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Have a broad knowledge of three Egyptian settlement sites
2. Understand the difficulties of settlement archaeology in Egypt
3. Develop an understanding of the lived experience of ordinary people in ancient Egypt through material and written culture