24 Fasinating Facts About Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt is a time we constantly return to in movies, TV shows, and books.
However, most of these portrayals are DEAD wrong. What was ancient Egypt REALLY like? Let's find out with these crazy facts!
1.
There are around 50-60 blue faience hippopotamus statuettes that survived from Ancient Egypt. Due to the danger, hippos posed in the wild, they often snapped off the legs of hippopotamus statuettes before placing them in tombs, so the hippos wouldn’t be able to eat the soul of the deceased. -u/AndiamoAllie
2.
The Abu Simbel Temple from Ancient Egypt was moved brick-by-brick to a new location to protect from flood water. -u/livedrag
3.
The egg ovens of ancient Egypt were brick incubators created during the fourth century BC that were capable of hatching out thousands of eggs in 2-3 weeks. Two hundred of them are still in use today, the techniques involved passed down orally for more than two thousand years. -u/camwynya
4.
In Ancient Egypt people with dwarfism were highly respected and held high social status due to Egyptians viewing such people as having celestial gifts. In fact, during the 1st Dynasty, dwarfs directly served and worked with the king and royal household and were buried in subsidiary tombs. -u/Ted_Normal
5.
When mummification became accessible to middle/lower classes in ancient Egypt, embalmers started secretly cutting out the hearts of the lower classes so the elite wouldn't have to share the afterlife with them. The heart was considered the seat of the soul and vital to access the afterlife. -u/Risamim
6.
There was a Keeper of the Royal Rectum who may have primarily been the pharaoh's enema maker in Ancient Egypt. -u/ArbainHestia
7.
A war in Ancient Egypt broke out when a king called Apophis sent a strongly worded letter to Pharaoh Seqenenre complaining about the snoring of some hippos in a sacred lake in Thebes. -u/willowoftheriver
8.
Rivets are one of the oldest man made fasteners on earth, dating to ancient Egypt 5,000 years ago, and were in common use by the time of the Romans. -u/ItsPronouncedMo-BEEL
9.
Hatshepsut was the most successful female pharaoh of ancient Egypt. But after her death, her successor destroyed her statues to obliterate her memory. -u/Niyi_M
10.
The game of checkers dates as far back as 3,000 BCE, with boards and pieces having been found in the ancient city of Ur. Checkers artifacts have also been found in ancient Egypt, dating back to 600 BCE. -u/SojourningCPA
11.
"Libations," the practice of pouring out alcohol in memory of those who have "passed on" was common in Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. "Pouring one out for the homies" is a custom over 3,000 years old and is mentioned in the Bible, The Iliad, and The Odyssey. -u/hotelNoiseComplaint
12.
In Ancient Egypt, cats were bred not as pets, but for ritual mummification. Puppy farms and other animal breeding programs were a huge industry that provided a stock of animals to be killed and mummified as an offering to the gods and to keep the dead company. -u/Brutal_Deluxe_
13.
In ancient Egypt, under the decree of Ptolemy II, all ships visiting the city were obliged to surrender their books to the library of Alexandria and be copied. The original would be kept in the library and the copy given back to the owner. -u/Planet6EQUJ5
14.
"Senet" is a board game recovered from ancient Egypt whose name means “passing afternoon” in Coptic. -u/xn4v8h
15.
In Ancient Egypt, according to Herodotus' "The Histories", the bodies of noble women would not be delivered to embalmers until three or four days after death so that they would not find the corpse enticing. -u/HoneyGlazedBadger
16.
In ancient Egypt, pharaohs were always depicted in paintings and statues wearing a ceremonial prosthetic beard. Since the pharaohs were regarded as children of God, the beard also indicated divinity, and was thus worn even by female pharoahs like Hatshepsut. -u/wowbobwow
17.
Beer was incredibly popular in ancient Egypt. The laborers, like those who worked on the pyramids of Giza, were given a ration of over 10 pints of beer a day. -u/jesuisdeepak
18.
The lock has a history going back to ancient Egypt and the simple wooden pin tumbler lock. -u/zestzebra
20.
The earliest puns were found in ancient Egypt, where they were heavily used in the development of myths and interpretation of dreams. -u/bhaggith
21.
The Egyptian deity Set was once regarded as a heroic deity and protector of ancient Egypt. However, as Egypt kept getting conquered by foreign nations Set became demonized. The Greeks would later associate Set with Typhon which in turn would inspire many other demonic mythologies. -u/WhileFalseRepeat
22.
The Sea Peoples were a group of raiders and pirates that nearly toppled ancient Egypt, conquering almost half the country. Archaeologists do not know anything about where they came from or who they went afterward. -u/WSchultz
23.
There are electric catfish and they were known as "angry catfish" in Ancient Egypt. -u/preston98_
24.
In Ancient Egypt, Pharoah Pepi II despised flies so he would keep naked slaves smeared with honey near him in order to keep flies away. -u/savak9
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