Prompt Cast
Lives of Common People in Ancient Egypt's New Kingdom
TLDR Recent shifts in Egyptology have focused on studying the lives of common people in ancient Egypt's New Kingdom, providing insight into their social hierarchy, living conditions, and connections to the state. The village of Deir el Medina has been a crucial site for understanding the lives of common working people, revealing evidence about their households, kin groups, occupations, and relationships with their immediate neighbors and communities.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
The lives of common people in ancient Egypt's New Kingdom, who built the pyramids and tombs and sustained the kingdom, were dramatically different from that of the Pharaoh's, but unfortunately, the majority of surviving evidence does not pertain to them.
04:53
Egyptology has traditionally focused on excavating royal tombs and palaces, but in recent years there has been a shift towards studying the lives of common people, although there are still significant gaps in our knowledge.
08:54
In the New Kingdom of Egypt, there was a clear distinction between the rich and the poor, with skilled artisans being better off than vagrants, but it is unclear how this social hierarchy extended to the majority of common working people.
12:57
The village of Deir el Medina in the New Kingdom of Egypt provides a wealth of evidence about the lives of common working people, including texts, domestic buildings, burials, and human remains, making it a crucial site for understanding the conditions under which they lived.
18:21
Deir el Medina, despite its unfavorable location, was occupied for almost four centuries due to its proximity to the Valley of the Kings and the need for workers to build and decorate royal tombs, which were often targeted by tomb robbers.
22:27
The workers of Deir el-Medina were sometimes loaned out to work on other royal projects and did work for the elite of nearby Thebes, but the village remained a self-contained community with its own history, traditions, and generations of family life, and the primary units through which they experienced the world were their households, kin groups, occupations, and the village itself, with their identities being defined by their relationships with their immediate neighbors, relatives, and communities.
26:18
The workers at Deir el-Medina had connections to other villages and places, and some of them were able to secure higher positions such as becoming a scribe in the army or working in the nearby temple and administrative complex of Ramesses the Great.
30:41
The workers at Deir el-Medina had direct ties to the state and were responsible for submitting written reports and requests, but they were not necessarily outsiders as many of them were born and raised in the village; the work was physically demanding and took a toll on their bodies, as evidenced by high rates of osteoarthritis in the lower limbs among the men buried in the cemetery at Deir el-Medina.
34:39
The workers at Amarna's south tomb cemetery lived difficult lives of hard labor, suffering from severe nutritional deficiencies, diseases, and traumatic injuries, as evidenced by their short stature, joint disorders, and healed fractures, but they were still better off than many in Egyptian society.
38:45
The people in Amarna's south tomb cemetery had decent diets, engaged in weaving and had care in their burials, indicating some social mobility and agency, although women had limited rights and were often in subservient roles.
42:49
Children in ancient Egypt were expected to follow in their parents' footsteps, both in terms of their work and in taking care of them as they grew old, as evidenced by the burials and wills of common people like Naunachta.
Categories:
History
Society & Culture
