Here are the most amazing facts you probably didn’t know about ancient egypt!
9 – Equality has been around, I told you!
Seems like the society of ancient Egypt was well ahead of its time on this issue, because
men and women were equal under the law!
That meant women were free to live without a legal male guardian and could make their
own decisions.
There were however, certain limits in occupations.
For example, a woman wouldn’t be allowed to hold a position in the army nor would a
man be expected to be in charge of a household.
However, everything else was equal.
For example, women could marry whomever they wanted and later on divorce if things didn’t
work out.
Women could also buy and manage their own property, meaning a woman could inherit things
down the female line in her family.
Another fun fact was that neither six was favored when it came to childbearing, as both
sixes were seen as equal.
The Ancient Egyptian gods and goddess are another proof of how far the equality went,
as each six was determined to be as important as the other, and that each six had a unique
set of skills.
Hey, that makes total sense to me, I KNEW men and women are different!
Also, you might be surprised to learn that both sixes wore make-up, something that was
more of a social norm rather than gender right.
8 – Who really built the pyramids?
The pyramids are as grand and mesmerizing as they can be.
Majestic establishments of up to 455 feet built in order to offer shelter for the part
of the dad king’s soul that stayed behind.
Let’s just keep in mind the different technology available at the time, so it’s just utterly
amazing how these structures were built.
Having structures as grand as pyramids proves just how advanced of a civilization existed
on earth back in those times.
If you try and think about the construction process, you probably get instant flashes
of that Cleopatra movie where sloves are laboring their lives away while a supervisor slashes
his whip on their backs.
As it turns out, that is an extremely common misconception, and the one responsible for
conjuring the myth is the Greek historian Herodotus, all the way back in the fifth century
BC.
While it is true that there were sloves in ancient Egyptian society, they were mostly
used for domestic labors or for field work, tasks fairly easier compared to the tiring
construction of the pyramids.
Actual construction workers who were rather skilled were used for the pyramids – it
was considered a huge honor to work on the pyramids and workers took pride in their work.
Most of them were paid workers who took two or three-month shifts at the construction
site and used to sleep and eat near the building area.
In fact, they were entitled to so many rights, that they actually could do labor strikes
if they didn’t get paid on time.
One method of payment included beer, meaning that a day of work was worth almost a gallon
and a half of beer!
Hey, I think I know a few people nowadays who’d still sign up for this agreement!
7 – Hair?!
Get outta here!!
In many paintings and hieroglyphs dating back from Ancient Egypt, Egyptians are depicted
with thick black shoulder-length hair, very often garnished with some golden details.
However, don’t get it twisted, because it turns out that they actually despised hair!
In fact, they hated hair so much that they removed every single hair on their bodyes
except for their eyebrows.
Fun fact, they even removed their eyebrows in times of great grief, such as the occasion
of a beloved pet cat dying!
Ancient Egyptians, especially those in the upper layers, shaved off their heads and wore
wigs instead.
A pharaoh didn’t allow for anyone to see him without his what are called ‘nemes’
on, a headpiece that covered his hair.
Some data suggests that Egyptians shaved off their hair and opted for wigs instead in order
to protect their head from the blazing sun.
Wigs acted as hats and were made either from natural human or horse hair – how did a
wig made from other’s people hair make them feel less hot rather than their own hair is
still a mystery to me, so I’m not quite sure I’m buying this one.
What do you guys think?
Anyways, hair removal from the body was also connected with maintaining a good level of
hygiene and protection against lice, which gives lice less surface to move around, right?
Young children would wear their hair tied up and once they’d reached a certain age,
their hair would be cut off.
As a matter of fact, anyone with hair was associated with the lower levels of society
and with poor personal hygiene.
Well then!
6 – I’ll take 2 dabs on top please While today there are a variety of birth control
methods, I’d think that a good majority of you guys know that that wasn’t the case
in the ancient world.
I hope.
Anyways, since the birth control issue was a burning topic even millenniums ago, ancient
Egyptians took the problem in their own hands!
In order to avoid pregnancy, various solutions were used.
One extremely popular method was the following recipe: a bit of mud, honey, and mix it all
up with a tad of crocodile sh*t!
Then, this was to be inserted into the woman’s vajayjay right before the actual uhhh….work
in that bedroom took place.
Supposedly the crocodile poo acted as a powerful spermicide…..uhhh do we have anyone in the
audyence that wanna test that theory now?
They also found a way to test for pregnancy as well.
A woman would be told to urinate on a sample of barley and wheat every day for a certain
period of time – if pregnant, barley and wheat would grow.
Modern science was actually able to confirm this to some extent apparently; barley can’t
grow if watered with the urine of a non-pregnant woman.
Holy f*ck, how the h*ll did they figure that out?!
Seriously guys, this is a real scientific paper that can be found in the journals of
National Institute of Health.
5 – Hieroglyphs?!
Hieroglyphs are probably the first thing that comes to mind whenever Ancient Egypt is mentioned,
as there are walls and walls covered with colorful pictures of people and animals, with
each telling a different story.
The hieroglyphs are definitely fascinating to look at, and you may wonder how they managed
to use letters like that every single day.
Well, the truth is….they didn’t!
They only used the hieroglyphs when the writing was supposed to be pretty to look at, such
as for example the pyramid walls.
Actually, the majority of the population in Ancient Egypt didn’t even know how to write
hieroglyphs because they were extremely complicated.
Instead, there were writing specialists known as scribes who did all the hieroglyphic writing.
Those men were chosen as kids and were most often from the upper levels of society.
They would train for years before even reaching a decent level of writing!
Other literate members of ancient Egyptian society used the Hieratic script and the Demotic
script, which are simplified versions of the hieroglyphs, where the letters are actually
in the shape of letters and not objects.
Hieratic script was used mainly for everyday writings, such as accounting and letters,
while Demotic script was favored for court and document use.
Makes sense, since it wouldn’t be very practical to have to draw a goddamn picture each time
you wanted to write something down, now would it?!
4 – How You Like Me Meow?
Cats were highly appreciated in ancient Egypt, and were literally almost on the rank of a
God, and almost EVERY family had a pet cat.
Their love for cats was so strong, that if you happened to harm or skill a cat, even
on accident, you’d be facing a harsh sentence and maybe even death!
So naturally, when a cat dyed, the whole family would go into mourning, and as said before,
this was a deeply tragic event that required some eyebrow shaving.
It wasn’t that uncommon to have your pet mummified as well!
They’d be beried in special tombs alongside mice and milk for the, you know, dat kitty
cat afterlife.
Before you think that cat mummification happened in rare instances, hear this: In Beni Hasan,
an ancient Egyptian cemetery site, a cat tomb was discovered with more than 80,000 feline
berials inside.
Really?
Just 80,000?
Pfffffffffffffft!!!!
3 – Snippity Snip Snip Let’s just snip right into it.
A circumcision is a procedure in which the foreskin of a pinis is removed so the head
of the pinis is exposed.
While the procedure itself seems a bit unusual and unnecessary for some to say the least,
others still practice it today for a variety of reasons.
You might be surprised to find out where its roots go back to – it was first practiced
in Ancient Egypt!
It’s still not clear why the Egyptians started doing this, many scripts point out that it
was mostly done because it was thought it would keep good hygiene levels for men.
Considering the living conditions of the ancient world, as well as the ways of the not-so-safe
six practicing, they might’ve been right.
Let’s just say that there wasn’t a lot of antibacterial soap to be found around.
Others depict the circumcision as an official passage from childhood into adulthood, to
prove a boy were to become a man by stoically surviving through the pain.
The procedure itself was mostly done in public and in large groups; up to 100-150 boys at
a time and the more silent you managed to stay, the braver you were.
It was performed by priests who used stone blades.
Are you f*cking kidding me?!?!
It goes without saying that there were zero pain-killers involved.
However, circumcision was far from mandatory in Egypt, not everyone had to go through with
it and it was mostly aimed towards the upper classes of the society and especially towards
the priests.
It is worth mentioning that there were exceptions even in this case – some mummies of kings
with exceptionally well-preserved genitals have been examined and it was more than obvious
that their foreskins were been left intact.
2 – Paint around my gut could ya?
There’s a common saying that history is oftentimes told by the winners, or in this
particular case, by the rich and powerful.
If I know one thing to be true, it’s that.
Well, that and taxes.
And oh yeah, death.
Anyways, remember how all of the hieroglyphs and paintings show tall, slender, and athletic
men and women, running around doing the daily tasks in Ancient Egypt?
Well… turns out that not everything is as it has been told, or rather, painted.
Painters were told to follow the ideal proportions and show pharaohs as what was seen ideal for
the time, even though that might not have been the real case.
Considering the dyet common for that particular time, obesity wasn’t that rare in Ancient
Egypt.
This was especially true among the upper levels of the society, whose dyet was rich in sugar.
They’d eat a lot of honey, dried fruits, and drink plenty of beer and wine.
Since the upper society members didn’t do any laboring or better said, nothing at all,
they’d often spend their days indulging in tasty, sugary food without even moving
a finger.
Their laziness went so far that they were even fed by their sloves.
The remains found from the pharaoh Hatshepsut showed that she was so obese, she probably
suffered from diabetes, something that was rather difficult to achieve in ancient times
of obscure feeding!
1 – Cleopatra did it with the lights off?!
For many centuries, Cleopatra has been shown as the ideal woman, a real beauty with her
strikingly thick, black hair, red lips, and perfect eyeliner, so she didn’t have to
think twice before using her six appeal as her most powerful weapon.
However, recent data show that maybe that was not the real case, and she might have
actually been the beast in the story!
Newer proof shows that actually, her facial features were strong and similar to that of
a man.
Her nose was bigger than average and was greatly hooked, something which wasn’t seen as bedazzling
among the much-wanted long and sleek noses.
One theory says that this depiction of herself as ugly was a part of her well-thought propaganda,
so she did it on purpose so she would seem stronger and harsher as a ruler.
However, she was so educated, that she completely changed the way kings and queens should be
seen.
Cleopatra was fluent in at least ten languages and with an extensive knowledge of mathematics,
philosophy, and astronomy.
Evidence shows that she was extremely charismatic and used her oratory skills to the maximum.
This was how she used to capture all of that men’s attention.
Hey, remember that one ladies, oratory skills to the maximum!
Here’s what’s next!