24 Hours in Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt wasn’t all pyramids, sphinxes and gold sarcophagi. For your average Egyptian, life was tough, and work was hard, conducted under the burning gaze of the sun god Ra. During the course of a day in the ancient city of Thebes (modern-day Luxor), Egypt’s religious capital, we meet 24 Egyptians from all strata of society—from the king to the bread-maker, the priestess to the fisherman, the soldier to the midwife—and get to know what the real Egypt was like by spending an hour in their company. We encounter a different one of these characters—all from different walks of life—every hour and every chapter, and through their eyes see what an average day in ancient Egypt was really like.

Donald P. Ryan is an archaeologist and Faculty Fellow in the Division of Humanities at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. His research in Egypt includes excavations in the Valley of the Kings. Ryan is the author of Ancient Egypt on Five Deben a Day, Beneath the Sands of Egypt and Ancient Egypt: The Basics.