Everyday Life In Ancient Egypt and Assyria PDF
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EVERYDAY LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ASSYRIA Written by the eminent French Egyptologist who was Director of Archaeology for the French Government in Egypt, this book is an account of all aspects, from the very highest to the very lowest, in the ancient worlds of Egypt and Assyria. Clearly and enthusiastically written, it is like suddenly being taken back three thousand years to witness everything. www.routledge.com EVERYDAY LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ASSYRIA GASTON MASPERO ~~ ~~o~~~~n~~~up LONDON AND NEW YORK First published in 2003 by Kegan Paul International This edition first published in 20 I 0 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX 14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © Kegan Paul, 2003 Transferred to Digital Printing 20 I 0 All rights reserved. No part ofthis book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 10: 0-7103-0883-3 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-7103-0883-2 (hbk) Publisher's Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. The publisher has made every effort to contact original copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace. PREFACE .. • will not be an unbroken history of the ancient THIS Oriental dynasties and nations: the order of events, the lines of the kings, the movements and invasions of the peoples may be found fully related in my Ancient Hi8t01"lJ, or in its abridged edition by Van den Berg. I only wish to give the readers of this book some impression of life under its various phases amongst the two most civilised nations which flourished upon our earth before the Greeks. I have chosen for each of them the epoch we know the best, and of which we possess the greatest number of monuments: for Egypt, that of Rameses II. (fourteenth century ll.C.); for Assyria, that of. Assurbanipal (seventh cen tury). I have acted like those conscientious travellers who do not like to enter a new country without some preparation, who study its customs and language before they start; then I journeyed-or at least I believed so -two or three thousand years back, away from our . present era. Once there, I looked round and endea voured to see as well and as much as possible. I walked through the streets of the city, glanced through the half-opened doors, peered into the shops, noted down the remarks of the populace that I chanced to VI PREFACE. overhear. Some famished masons went on strike: I followed them to the house of the Count of Thebes to Ree what happened. A funeral passed with a great clamour: I accompanied the dead man to his tom b, nnd learnt the chances of life granted to him in the other world. A marriage was being celebrated: I 100k advantage of the facility with which Orientals open their houses upon festival days to be present, at a distance, during the reading of the contract. When Pharaoh or the King of Nineveh passed by, I joined the loungers that followed him to the temple, the palace, or the hunting-field; where custom and etiquette prevented me from entering, I penetrated in the spirit by conversations or by the texts. I have read upon a clay cylinder the prayer which Assur banipal addressed to Ishtar in an hour of anguish; an important and loquacious scribe has related to me the travels of an Egyptian soldier in Syria; twenty bas reliefs have enabled me to be present, without personal danger, at the wars of the ancient world; at the recruitment of its armies, at their marches, their evolu tions; have shown me by what energetic efforts Rameses II. triumphed over the Khita, and how an Assyrian general prepared to attack a city. I have reproduced in Assyria the majority of the scenes described in Egypt; the reader, by comparing them together, will easily realise upon what points the civilisations of the two countries were alike, and in what respects they differed. The illustrations which accompany the text render this difference visible to all eyes. There are a great many of them, but I would have added to their number if I could. Our scholars, and even their professors, are sometimes much em- .. PREFACE. VIl barrassed when they wish to picture to themselves one of these ancient men whose history we are relating, how he dressed, what he ate, the trades and arts which he practised. These drawings by M. Faucher-Gudin will teach them more on these points than any long description. They have been executed with remarkable fidelity; it is the Egyptian and the Assyrian himself that they show us, and not those caricatures of Egyptians and Assyrians which are too often seen in our books. G. MASPERO. CONTENTS. EGYPT. CHAP. PAGE I. THEBES AND THE POPULAR LIFE. 1 II. THE MARKET AND THE SHOPS 17 III. PHARAOH. 37 IV. AMEN, THE GREAT GOD OF THEBES 55 V. THE RECRUITMENT OF THE ARMY 75 VI. LIFE IN THE CASTLE 93 VII. ILLNESS AND DEATH 113 VIII. THE FUNERAL AND THE TOMB 133 IX. THE JOURNEY 153 X. THE BATTLE 172 ASSYRIA. XI. A ROYAl. RESIDENCE: DUR-SARGINU HH XII. PRIVATE LIFE OF AN ASSYRIAN • 215 XIII. DEATH AND THE FUNERAL. 233 XIV. THE ROYAL CHASE 252 XV. THE ROYAL AUDIENCE: PREPARING FOR WAR 271 XVI. ASSURBANIPAL'S LIBRARY 287 XVII. THE SCIENCE OF PRESAGES 303 XVIII. THE WAR • 318 XIX. THE FLEET AND THE SIEGE OF A CITY 337 Q XX. THE TRIUMPH • 359
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