Table Of ContentEVERYDAY 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.
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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
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by Routledge
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© Kegan Paul, 2003
Transferred to Digital Printing 20 I 0
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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)
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The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
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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
