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Daily Life in Ancient Egypt
Using the life of a young girl and her family as a model, this book recreates the daily life of the middle-class residents of the ancient town of Lahun during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom period. This perfect snapshot in time has been painstakingly recreated using recently published textual data and archaeological findings.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 27, 2017
An Egyptologist friend recommended this to me and I'm not new to Ancient Egypt, but I learned some things - sometimes because I'd never seen them explained starting at a very basic level for non-specialists before.
The literary device where the book follows the life of a child makes it sound like it must be for children, but it really isn't, and it also isn't very much of the text. The book is fairly scholarly in tone and has frequent references to the literature in the footnotes (at the end of each chapter), so it's a valid academic source that the ILL system may let you have, unlike the more expensive specialist texts. I photocopied the bibliography before giving the book back to the library (I got it on interlibrary loan from a university library) because it's a great resource and I intend to look up more on topics Szpakowska only had space to touch on.
I appreciated the focus on working class lives, women's lives (the Lahun Gynecological Papyrus medical text is a frequent reference), non-dominant sexualities (I finally came across the "how beautiful are your buttocks" bit from the story of Horus and Seth, which I didn't realise was an ancient quote and not a modern invention), and primary texts. I've heard a lot about Egyptian Pharaohs and ministers, but not so much about the majority of the population.
5/5, I'm glad I took the time out of my schedule to read this.
The literary device where the book follows the life of a child makes it sound like it must be for children, but it really isn't, and it also isn't very much of the text. The book is fairly scholarly in tone and has frequent references to the literature in the footnotes (at the end of each chapter), so it's a valid academic source that the ILL system may let you have, unlike the more expensive specialist texts. I photocopied the bibliography before giving the book back to the library (I got it on interlibrary loan from a university library) because it's a great resource and I intend to look up more on topics Szpakowska only had space to touch on.
I appreciated the focus on working class lives, women's lives (the Lahun Gynecological Papyrus medical text is a frequent reference), non-dominant sexualities (I finally came across the "how beautiful are your buttocks" bit from the story of Horus and Seth, which I didn't realise was an ancient quote and not a modern invention), and primary texts. I've heard a lot about Egyptian Pharaohs and ministers, but not so much about the majority of the population.
5/5, I'm glad I took the time out of my schedule to read this.
July 31, 2011
A well-written, immensely informative book, differing from similar studies (such as those by Erman and Mertz) by an attempt to keep strictly to a narrow focus on everyday life in the town of Lahun during the Middle Kingdom. Inevitably, scantiness of available data forces her to draw on other locales and other eras to fill out the picture, but there is much information derived from local excavations which is fascinating and wholly new to me.
Actually, the author sets out to focus on middle-class life in particular, although, by her own admission, the very existence of a middle class in Pharaonic Egypt is arguable. Also, to help give the book form, she invents a family which she then takes through they normal experiences of life, such as birth, death, and marriage. Fortunately not too much is made of this, to my mind, unnecessary deviation into fiction, and these aspects of the book never amount to more than a minor nuisance.
Actually, the author sets out to focus on middle-class life in particular, although, by her own admission, the very existence of a middle class in Pharaonic Egypt is arguable. Also, to help give the book form, she invents a family which she then takes through they normal experiences of life, such as birth, death, and marriage. Fortunately not too much is made of this, to my mind, unnecessary deviation into fiction, and these aspects of the book never amount to more than a minor nuisance.
June 19, 2013
This book was poorly titled. The author approaches her book through the viewpoint of a female living in the Middle Kingdom. I applaud her for trying to narrow her focus and discussing daily life from the perspective of women (and children), but if that's what you want to talk about, then title your book with that so the reader knows what to expect! Of course, within the text of the book, she wanders from this thesis and spends much of her time talking about Egyptians as a whole within this one particular city. So the book just seemed jumbled to me, and I never understood why she bothered to make the distinction between female/male perspective at all.
Also, the author sort of goes chronologically through the female's life from birth to death, chapter by chapter. But...the second to last chapter is death. The very last chapter is love. Not only is this chapter poorly named, since it discusses marriage and sexual relations, rather than love, but it really bugged me that it came LAST. Religion, crafts/trades, leisure time, all come before death. Then love is BOOM, last chapter. Why? It's so odd.
Also, the author sort of goes chronologically through the female's life from birth to death, chapter by chapter. But...the second to last chapter is death. The very last chapter is love. Not only is this chapter poorly named, since it discusses marriage and sexual relations, rather than love, but it really bugged me that it came LAST. Religion, crafts/trades, leisure time, all come before death. Then love is BOOM, last chapter. Why? It's so odd.
October 23, 2012
Read for Ancient World class. I wish I had enjoyed it more since I really enjoy the class...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews