Education in Ancient Egypt (an excerpt from the book)

2.2 Ancient Egypt 

From ca. 3100 BC to 332 BC, northeast Africa was home to the ancient Egyptian civilization. It was one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known. In antiquity, no other civilization is known to have enjoyed such remarkable stability, peace, and prosperity for such long periods of time. Ancient Egypt had a well-developed system of bureaucracy, education, and social structure. The ancient Egyptian philosophy of Maat emphasized truth, justice, and order. Ancient Egyptians wrote authoritatively on a variety of subjects, including mathematics, science, and medicine. They also developed a high degree of complexity and refinement in their arts and architecture. 

Being great builders, they built massive temples, fortresses, palaces, and over one hundred pyramids. The best-known instance of ancient Egyptian architecture, the pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu at Giza, was built ca. 2550 BC and stood 481 feet tall. Pharaoh Khufu’s pyramid is an engineering marvel, whose enormous scale and high precision are a testament to the ancient Egyptians’ knowledge of mathematics and astronomy. It stands on 13 acres of land and is aligned to the four cardinal points of the compass. Its base is accurately level, and each side measures 230 meters. The sides slope at an angle of 51 degrees 50’. Inside, Khufu’s pyramid contains a complex internal structure that includes the Queen’s Chamber, the King’s Chamber, a subterranean chamber, an enormous gallery, and numerous passageways. There are air shafts arising from the Queen’s Chamber and the King’s Chamber, with the shafts of the King’s Chamber hypothesized to be aligned toward circumpolar stars and the Orion constellation. The granite stones in the King’s Chamber weigh about 50 tons each and were transported on the river Nile from quarries more than 500 miles away. 

The ancient Egyptians were also one of the earliest shipbuilders, constructing reed boats as early as 4000 BC and later mastering the art of building large wooden vessels. Among the ships buried beside Khufu’s pyramid was a 144-foot-long ship, believed to be either the “solar barge” of Egyptian mythology or the funerary vessel that transported the pharaoh’s body to his burial place. The sprawling Giza Necropolis also contains the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure, the Sphinx, subsidiary pyramids, temples, and courtyards. There are causeways connecting the Giza pyramid complex with the Valley Temples on the Nile flood plain. 

For almost four millennia, the pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu stood as the tallest man-made structure in the world. At the time they were built, the pyramids of Egypt, including Khufu’s pyramid, were of extraordinary beauty. Today, given the ravages of time, the pyramids and other monuments of ancient Egypt are a pale shadow of their former splendor. The pyramids of Giza were originally clad in casings of highly polished white Tura limestone. Their polished white outer casing shone brilliantly in the bright Egyptian sun. However, their shiny outer casing is now gone, and what is visible today is merely the underlying structure. 

In antiquity, the glittering pyramids, and the extensive buildings and complexes on the banks of the river Nile may have been a grand sight to behold. The pyramids, sparkling like jewels in the distant desert landscape, must have bewitched many a traveler sailing on the Nile.

Archaeological excavations confirm that the people who built the Giza pyramids were not slaves, but a paid workforce of highly skilled and organized people. Archaeologists have uncovered plenty of evidence that the pyramid workers were well cared for, including purpose-built towns where workers lived along with their families, massive food processing sites that processed humongous quantities of bread, beer, fish, poultry, and expensive meats, and the evidence that they received the best medical care of the time.

It was literacy and numeracy that enabled Egypt’s gigantic building projects, whose precision and scale baffle even modern engineers. Ancient Egyptians were adept at arithmetic and geometry. Extant papyri from the 2nd millennium BC such as the Moscow Papyrus and the Rhind Papyrus show that ancient Egyptians could calculate areas of various geometric shapes and volumes of solids, including the volume of a truncated pyramid. 

Ancient Egypt was a society that held education and learning in high regard. By 3000 BC, hieroglyphic writing is thought to have emerged. By ca. 2700 BC, Egyptians were using papyrus to write on. Institutions called the House of Life, or Per Ankh, may have served as libraries and centers for knowledge dissemination. Such institutions may have existed in the cities and towns of ancient Egypt. Mastering Egypt’s complex writing system was challenging, and literacy rates were probably very low by modern standards. Like most pre-modern societies, the vast majority of people were illiterate. However, the scribal profession held great prestige in ancient Egyptian society, meaning that a significant number of literate individuals existed among the upper and middle classes. Archaeologists know of at least one place—the tomb workers’ village at Deir el-Medina—with high levels of literacy. 

In ancient Egyptian society, literacy and numeracy ensured social mobility. In the bureaucratic Egyptian society, there was a high demand for people who were literate and numerate. They were needed to keep records, quantify crops, survey land, assess taxes, make wills and legal documents, and serve as priests, bureaucrats, and high officials. As in Mesopotamia, scribal education in ancient Egypt was a stepping stone to many coveted jobs. After mastering the basics of literacy and numeracy, pupils continued further education in advanced subjects like religious studies, astronomy, medicine, and mathematics. The most educated among the scribes may have gone on to become bureaucrats, administrators, officials, and priests. 

Pharaohs and high officials were literate and numerate. Some notable people who rose from humble beginnings to become revered figures in ancient Egypt are believed to have been originally trained as scribes. Examples include Imhotep—vizier and architect of the first pyramid ever built in Egypt—and Amenhotep, son of Hapu—another great architect and a high official.

Most of what the ancient Egyptians wrote perished. Papyrus was not a very durable material. However, since Egyptian children learned to write by copying texts, numerous school texts have managed to survive on papyri and ostraca (potsherds). One such surviving text called the Satire of the Trades portrays the scribe Dua-Khety taking his son Pepi to school in the capital. His son is probably very young and still attached to his mother. On the way, Dua-Khety advises his son to set his heart on books:

I have seen many beatings-
Set your heart on books!
I watched those seized for labor-
There’s nothing better than books!
It’s like a boat on water. 

Read the end of the Kemit-Book,
You’II find this saying there:
A scribe at whatever post in town,
He will not suffer in it;
As he fills another’s need,
He will not lack rewards.
I don’t see a calling like it
Of which this saying could be said.

I’ll make you love scribedom more than your mother,
I’ll make its beauties stand before you;
It’s the greatest of all callings,
There’s nothing like it in the land.

To motivate his son at school work, he tries to convince his son of the superiority of the scribal profession by describing the hardships of other occupations. Here are a few examples:

I never saw a sculptor as envoy,
Nor is a goldsmith ever sent;
But I have seen the smith at work
At the opening of his furnace;
With fingers like claws of a crocodile
He stinks more than fish roe.

The carpenter who wields an adze,
He is wearier than a field-laborer;
His field is the timber, his hoe the adze.
There is no end to his labor,
He does more than his arms can do,
Yet at night he kindles light.
The jewel-maker bores with his chisel
In hard stone of all kinds;
When he has finished the inlay of the eye,
His arms are spent, he’s weary;
Sitting down when the sun goes down,
His knees and back are cramped.

After some lengthy advice, Dua-Khety sends his son to school. Believed to be composed between 2000 and 1700 BC, the Satire of the Trades was one of the most popular school texts used in Egyptian schools. Despite its mocking description of other professions, its intent was not to belittle other occupations, but to motivate recalcitrant children to do their school work. It was so commonly used that numerous copies have survived on papyri and ostraca.

In another text, Instruction in Letter Writing (from Papyrus Lansing, ca. 1800 BC), the Royal scribe Nebmare-nakht is seen advising his pupil Wenemdiamun:

[The royal scribe] and chief overseer of the cattle of Amen-[Re, King of Gods. Nebmare-nakht speaks to the scribe Wenemdiamun]. [Apply yourself to this] noble profession . . . You will find it useful . . . You will be advanced by your superiors. You will be sent on a mission . . . Love writing, shun dancing; then you become a worthy official. Do not long for the marsh thicket. Turn your back on throw stick and chase. By day write with your fingers; recite by night. Befriend the scroll, the palette. It pleases more than wine. Writing for him who knows it is better than all other professions. It pleases more than bread and beer, more than clothing and ointment. It is worth more than an inheritance in Egypt, than a tomb in the west.

. . .

Look, I instruct you to make you sound; to make you hold the palette freely. To make you become one whom the king trusts; to make you gain entrance to treasury and granary. To make you receive the ship-load at the gate of the granary. To make you issue the offerings on feast days. You are dressed in fine clothes; you own horses. Your boat is on the river; you are supplied with attendants. You stride about inspecting. A mansion is built in your town. You have a powerful office, given you by the king. Male and female slaves are about you. Those who are in the fields grasp your hand, on plots that you have made. Look, I make you into a staff of life. Put the writings in your heart, and you will be protected from all kinds of toil. You will become a worthy official. Do you not recall the (fate of) the unskilled man? His name is not known. He is ever burdened (like an ass carrying) in front of the scribe who knows what he is about.

The text contrasts the life of the scribe with that of a peasant and a warrior, and extols the benefits of being a scribe:

Let me also expound to you the situation of the peasant, that other tough occupation. [Comes] the inundation and soaks him, he attends to his equipment. By day he cuts his farming tools; by night he twists rope. Even his midday hour he spends on farm labor. He equips himself to go to the field as if he were a warrior. The dried field lies before him; he goes out to get his team. When he has been after the herdsman for many days, he gets his team and comes back with it. He makes for it a place in the field. Comes dawn, he goes to make a start and does not find it in its place. He spends three days searching for it; he finds it in the bog. He finds no hides on them; the jackals have chewed them. He comes out, his garment in his hand, to beg for himself a team.

. . .

Come, (let me tell) you the woes of the soldier, and how many are his superiors: the general, the troop commander, the officer who leads, the standard-bearer, the lieutenant, the scribe, the commander of fifty, and the garrison-captain. They go in and out in the halls of the palace, saying: “Get laborers!” He is awakened at any hour. One is after him as (after) a donkey. He toils until the Aten sets in his darkness of night. He is hungry, his belly hurts; he is dead while yet alive. When he receives the grain-ration, having been released from duty, it is not good for grinding.

. . .

Be a scribe, and be spared from soldiering! You call and one says:
“Here I am.” You are safe from torments. Every man seeks to raise
himself up. Take note of it!

The fact that the scribal profession was considered superior to that of a warrior in ancient Egypt is unsurprising. Ancient Egyptian wisdom literature rarely mentions martial values. Even in antiquity, great societies were built on a foundation of intellectual and moral values rather than martial values. In ancient Egypt and in many other ancient societies, the intellectual class consisting of priests and educated officials held a status higher than other classes, including that of the warrior (the royal family may be an exception).

One surviving document called the Papyrus Chester Beatty IV (written ca. 1200 BC) contains a remarkable school text that talks about the immortality of writers. It says that great people make heirs for themselves by writing books, and that books are better than monuments and tombs in continuing a person’s name and legacy into the future. It exhorts people to choose scribal profession and become like the great persons of yore who are remembered for the books they wrote. Here are the excerpts:

They did not make for themselves tombs of copper,
With stelae of metal from heaven.
They knew not how to leave heirs,
Children [of theirs] to pronounce their names;
They made heirs for themselves of books,
Of Instructions they had composed.

. . .

Be a scribe, take it to heart,
That your name become as theirs.
Better is a book than a graven stela,
Than a solid [tomb-enclosure].
They act as chapels and tombs
In the heart of him who speaks their name;
Surely useful in the graveyard
Is a name in people’s mouth!

Man decays, his corpse is dust,
All his kin have perished;
But a book makes him remembered
Through the mouth of its reciter.
Better is a book than a well-built house,
Than tomb-chapels in the west;
Better than a solid mansion,
Than a stela in the temple!

The text in the Papyrus Chester Beatty IV is noteworthy for its mention of the names of people such as Hardjedef (Hardedef), Imhotep, and Neferti who were considered by the ancient Egyptians to be the wisest in their history. The text laments the absence of such people in its day. It reminds the reader that although these wise men died long ago, their books have made them known for eternity:

Is there one here like Hardedef?
Is there another like Imhotep?
None of our kin is like Neferti,
Or Khety, the foremost among them.
I give you the name of Ptah-emdjehuty,
Of Khakheperre-sonb.
Is there another like Ptahhotep,
Or the equal of Kaires?
Those sages who foretold the future,
What came from their mouth occurred;
It is found as [their] pronouncement,
It is written in their books.
The children of others are given to them
To be heirs as their own children.
They hid their magic from the masses,
It is read in their Instructions.
Death made their names forgotten
But books made them remembered!

Some of the people mentioned in the above passages, such as Imhotep, Hardjedef, and Ptahhotep, lived more than a thousand years before the writing of Papyrus Chester Beatty IV in the 13th century BC, but the books they composed were still being used to teach pupils in ancient Egypt’s schools. 

The fact that books were copied and studied continuously for thousands of years at such an early period in history is noteworthy. Throughout ancient Egypt’s three thousand years of history, multiple copies of numerous books have survived and are often dated to widely separate periods—suggesting that ancient Egypt had a robust and long-lived educational culture capable of passing on knowledge over vast periods of time. For example, the wisdom book called the Instruction of Hardjedef, which may have been composed as early as 2550 BC, was continuously copied or studied until the latter half of the 1st millennium BC. The Instruction of Hardjedef  has survived (although in fragments) on nine ostraca from the New Kingdom Period (ca. 1550–1077 BC) and a wooden tablet from the Late Period (ca. 664–332 BC). Hardjedef was the son of Pharaoh Khufu and was known in antiquity for his wisdom.

Imhotep, another of the aforementioned names, was a major figure in ancient Egypt and held in high regard. He was the architect of the first pyramid ever built. Imhotep lived around 2650 BC and was known for his scholarly nature. (The namesake character portrayed in Hollywood movies has no resemblance to the historical Imhotep.) Although a commoner by birth, Imhotep rose to become the highest priest and official in the kingdom. He served as vizier to the Pharaoh Djoser. Long after his death, he came to be worshipped as a god and was considered the patron of scribes. Befitting his scholarly nature, his surviving statues depict him seated with an unrolled papyrus in his hands. 

The pyramid Imhotep built, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, still stands. It is considered to be the oldest surviving dressed stone monument in the world. The Step Pyramid is 200 feet high and lies at the center of a 37-acre complex of buildings. The pyramid complex is enclosed by a 34-foot-high wall and has a majestic colonnade entrance. Subterranean structures in the Step Pyramid complex include a 3.5-mile-long labyrinth of tunnels and chambers, including the pharaoh’s burial chamber, which lies almost 90 feet below ground. The pyramid and the complex of buildings around it were exquisitely decorated. For instance, the walls of chambers and passageways were decorated with blue faience tiles patterned to resemble reed mats. Even the large columns of limestone in the colonnade entrance were carved to resemble bound bundles of reeds. Polished white limestone from Tura encased the pyramid. 

Given his outstanding contributions, Imhotep was bestowed with the rare honor of having his name inscribed on the pharaoh’s statue. The inscription on the base of Pharaoh Djoser’s statue from the Step Pyramid complex refers to Imhotep as the chancellor to the pharaoh, administrator of the land, high priest at Heliopolis and a master craftsman of the sculptors and masons.