Egyptians Loved Pets
The Egyptians saw animals as incarnations of the gods and were one of the first civilizations to keep household pets. Egyptians were particularly fond of cats, which were associated with the goddess Bastet, but they also had a reverence for hawks, ibises, dogs, lions and baboons. Many of these animals held a special place in the Egyptian home, and they were often mummified and buried with their owners after they died. Other creatures were specially trained to work as helper animals. Egyptian police officers, for example, were known to use dogs and even trained monkeys (baboons) to assist them when out on patrol.
History's First Obesity Problem
]]Egyptian art commonly depicts pharaohs as being trim and statuesque, but this was most likely not the case. The Egyptian diet of beer, wine, bread and honey was high in sugar, and studies show that it may have done a number on royal waistlines. Examinations of mummies have indicated that many Egyptian rulers were unhealthy and overweight, and even suffered from diabetes. A notable example is the legendary Queen Hatshepsut, who lived in the 15th century B.C. While her sarcophagus depicts her as slender and athletic, historians believe she was actually obese and balding. A wall relief of an obese male with folds of flesh, gynaecomastia and a paunch. It was not unusual for pharaohs and wealthy people to have themselves portrayed with rolls …
Egyptian Women
While they may have been publicly and socially viewed as inferior to men, Egyptian women enjoyed a great deal of legal and financial independence. They could buy and sell property, serve on juries, make wills and even enter into legal contracts. Egyptian women did not typically work outside the home, but those who did usually received equal pay for doing the same jobs as men. Unlike the women of ancient Greece, who were effectively owned by their husbands, Egyptian women also had the right to divorce and remarry. Egyptian couples were even known to negotiate an ancient prenuptial agreement. These contracts listed all the property and wealth the woman had
brought into the marriage and guaranteed that she would be compensated for it in the …
Ancient Egypt's Relationship to Africa
Ancient Egypt’s links with the eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia are well known and much studied, but its connections with the continent of Africa are more obscure.
's Discovery]] The Nile Valley’s geographical ties to Africa are obvious: and culturally, ancient Egypt owed much to its North African roots. Indeed, anthropologists of the early twentieth century remarked on the African-ness of some key aspects of ancient Egyptian culture, including its defining feature, the doctrine of divine kingship. Such views are rarely expressed today, yet the fact remains that Egypt had every reason, political as well as economic, to take an interest in its African neighbours. In an attempt to re-balance the accustomed view of pharaonic foreign rel…