Investigating Ancient Egypt's Societies

Abstract

At the mention of ancient Egyptian society, our minds most often conjure images of pyramids, golden funerary masks, and militant kings. The ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death and religion, feasted on bread and beer, treated women relatively well, and despite the wealth of preserved material culture, had no true art. Ancient Egyptian society featured a pyramid-like hierarchy with the king at the top, followed by the elites, administrators, craftsmen, and peasants. Some subsets of ancient Egyptian society had more access to power than others. While traditional approaches to ancient Egyptian society tend to be structured either chronologically or by assumed social categories, such frameworks impose strict boundaries between time periods and social identities that were likely much more flexible in reality.