Diet
The diet of those in a higher class generally consisted of vegetables and fruits such as beans, chickpeas, lentils, figs and fish which was the most common due to the river Nile. Ordinary people did not eat meat, perhaps only at festivals in which beef seems to have been the most common of all the meats they had. The rich however ate a lot of meat such as, Antelope and Gazelle, regularly. They had much more of a varied diet. Instead of having a peasants two meal a day, they had three meals a day. Their meal consisted of porridge, pigeon, boiled fish, beef, bead, cakes, stewed fruits and cheese.
Education
Education in Ancient Egypt depended on that particular person’s social class. The children of those from a low class family mostly learned everything from their parents. Boys learned their skills from their fathers or any other male relatives. The skills they learned were simple farm tasks, apprentices in certain crafts or professions. Girls learned more domestic skills such as weaving, brewing, and bread making from their mothers.
Teaching reading and writing was normally meant for the children of wealthy and rich families. Writing was taught by using tablets or occasionally papyrus on which students copied different symbols of hieroglyphic script. Hieroglyphics are often found on tomb walls. In schools mathematics was taught. The Ancient Egyptians must have had a good understanding of geometry for they were able construct such complex and impressive monuments. A famous Egyptian mathematician was the great Pythagoras.
Entertainment
In Ancient Egypt they had all sorts of entertainment. Dancing and music was very popular. Tomb paintings show women playing flutes, trumpets, oboes, harps, lutes, and such simple percussion instruments as clappers or rattles.
Men enjoyed sports such as wrestling, boxing, fencing, and running. Entertainment was available in the many beer houses, where there was much singing, dancing, and playing of board games, which were very popular.
Monuments
The construction of the great monuments in Egypt was done the same time as the Nile flood for at that time farming was Impossible.
There is very little evidence of hard labour. These monuments was of order by the pharaoh, who was a living god was very physically demanding.
Large quantities of stone were used. Many teams of men hauled the stone to the Nile.
It took twenty years to build a pyramid. It took teams of 20,000 men working on three to four month shifts.
The Main Events of Ancient Egypt.
Worshipping Cats
This cat shown below is called a mau. It is descended from the cats kept by the Ancient Egyptians. Cats were worshipped in Ancient Egypt and if you killed one you would be put to death. When a cat died the whole family shaved off their eyebrows as a sign of mourning. Cats were considered very sacred and important. So like when pharaohs died these cats were also mummified.
The most famous Pharaohs in Ancient Egypt.
- Tutankhamun (1336-1327 BC)
Ancient Rome
INTRODUCTION
Ancient Rome contained one of the world’s greatest civilisations ever. According to a myth, the first two men who started off Rome were Romulus and Remus who were both brought up by wolves.
From about 200BC to the late 5th Century AD Rome controlled all of Italy and most of Europe, Africa and Asia.
The influence of Greece was tremendous. Many Greek styles, customs and aspects of religion were adopted from the Ancient Greeks e.g. they both worshipped a god called Mars the god of war and Jupiter.
ROMAN SOCIETY
From earliest times, Roman society was divided into two main groups: the upper-class patricians, and the plebeians, who made up the rest of the population. Patrician families were grouped into clans, probably reflecting the tribal structure of their early Latin ancestors. The best known clan was the Julians who produced the first imperial dynasty.
The plebeians enjoyed legal rights and privileges. Slaves of every nationality could be found in every part of the empire. The children of freed slaves were treated equals with freeborn children. With the offspring of a slave however, they inherited their parent’s slavery.
ROMAN VILLAS
Villas like the one shown here were excavated in great numbers in Pompeii. Access to the house was through the fauces (Latin, “jaws”) directly into the entrance area enclosed by the atrium, with the impluvium, a basin in which collected rainwater from the opening in the roof above it. Grouped around the atrium were the cubiculae (bedrooms), the alae (for worshipping ancestors and household gods), and one or more dining rooms (triclinia). Access from the atrium into the peristyle, the inner courtyard surrounded by columns, was via the tablinium, the master of the house’s reception room. Around the peristyle, which housed either a garden (hortus) or a pool (piscina), were situated more living and work rooms; the exedra, a kind of drawing room, formed the end of the villa.
THE ROMAN DAY
The Roman day began after daybreak. Breakfast, the ientaculum, was a very light meal and the business of the day began immediately afterwards. By midday the first important meal of the day, prandium or luncheon. In early days this was the main meal of the day, but gradually the evening cena, or dinner, became more important. This was a private meal and guests were not invited. After luncheon it was a custom to take a short sleep, this was very important in the summer months.
ROMAN BATHS
Public bathing was a central part of Roman culture that was introduced throughout the Roman Empire.
The principal features included an apodyterium (changing room), a caldarium (hot room), heated by hot air from hypocausts under the floor, and a frigidarium (cold room). Baths might also include a tepidarium (warm room), a laconium (steam bath), as well as exercise areas, covered walkways, clubrooms, and other places for social gathering.
The period after the siesta was the usual time for a visit to the gymnasium and the baths. The public baths were a distinctive and essential feature of Roman life.
These baths shown above are in Bath, England.
When you went to a Roman Bath you would go to hall for exercise. Exercises such as wrestling, ball games and running would take place. After this a series of hot and cold baths (the actual sequence varied), including a fiercely hot steam-room (the caldarium).
Soap was not used; instead, the bather was rubbed with oil (sometimes perfumed) that was then scraped off with a blunt, knife-like object (the strigil), removing dirt in the process. It was usual for the better off to arrive at the baths accompanied by their own slaves. The session ended with a rubdown and relaxation. Before beards became fashionable in the 2nd century AD, this may have been the occasion for shaving.
After the baths came dinner, the main meal and the main social occasion of the day. It is certainly true that, in some rich households in Rome, especially under the early Empire, dinner parties could be displays of wealth, characterized by bad behavior.
ROMAN DRESS
Most Roman men wore a shirt-like garment called a tunic. Over this Romans could wore the toga. Which was a long, traditional drape wrapped several times around the body. Women wore a longer tunic, over it they wore the stola, a long dress fastened at the shoulders.
ROMAN EMPERORS
ROMAN EMPIRE
Ancient Rome controlled the Roman Empire. The Romans built up their empire through conquest or annexation between the 3rd century BC and the 3rd century AD. The Roman Empire stretched from northwestern Europe to the Near East and all of the Mediterranean.
ROMAN CENTURION AND LEGIONARY
An efficient and disciplined army was essential to the control and maintenance of the Roman Empire. In each cohort of the Roman army, there were six centurions, each of whom commanded a company that originally consisted of 100 legionaries (a century).
ENTERTAINMENT
In Ancient Rome their main source of entertainment was the amphitheater. In the
amphitheatre they had chariot races, and military exercises. Chariot races, in particular, became extremely popular. However chariot racing was extremely dangerous. The Romans also had theatrical performances.
In the amphitheater the most popular sport, which nearly became a national obsession, was of course watching the gladiators. This form of entertainment involved the slaughter of 11,000 wild beasts and contests between 10,000 gladiators.
There were several classes of gladiators in ancient Rome. The Tracian fought with a curved sword and round shield, with little armour for protection. The Samnite was a heavily armoured gladiator who fought with a short sword and an oblong shield. The retarius tried to snare his opponent in a net and attack him with a long trident.
These gladiators even had to fight wild beasts! The Romans brought in many wild animals for the gladiators to fight from all over their Roman Empire including lions!
This is the bronze helmet of a gladiator.
INDEX
A
Akhenaten, 12
Ancient Egypt, 2
Ancient Rome, 14
C
Cats, 11
Centurions, 31
Chariot races, 32
Cleopatra, 12
D
Dancing and music, 7
Diet, 5
E
Education, 6
Emperors, 25
Entertainment, 32
Entertainment, 7
G
Gladiators, 32
H
Hieroglyphics, 2
Howard Carter, 3
K
Khafre, 12
L
Legionaries, 31
M
Monuments, 8
P
Pharaohs, 3
Pythagoras, 6
R
Reading and writing, 6
Roman Baths, 17
Roman Empire, 29
S
Sports, 7
T
Toga, 25
Tutankhamen, 3
Tutankhamun, 12
Z
Zoser, 12
