Scenes of daily life on tomb walls with accompanying hieroglyphs (such as the man carrying an offering, right), and vivid stories and letters provide many illustrations of the Egyptian imagination and sense of humour. In fact, they convey a sense of joie de vivre and correct the mistaken perception that the Ancient Egyptians were morbid people who were obsessed with death. They wanted life to be unending, with a happy existence for the whole family in the hereafter.

But they were also human beings with imperfections and tempers. In one letter to a scribe who had self-important notions, the writer accuses him of being a skinflint and adds the insult that he is not a “real man” as he cannot get his wife pregnant.

Another letter shows a trouble-stirrer trying to convince a man that his wife is an adulteress – but there is a put-down in the reply, in which the alleged cuckolded husband points out that the woman in question is not his wife anyway.

Derogatory remarks and insults – many of them almost unprintable in today’s sensitive climate – are also found frequently in royal inscriptions. Foreigners who live outside the frontiers of Egypt are described consistently as “vile”, depicted as bound prisoners or humiliated by being forced to do the “dog walk”. Even within Egypt, one king castigates some rebellious princes for being abominable “fish-eaters”.

On the walls of decorated tombs are images of ordinary Egyptians symbolically conscripted for eternity to work for the elite. Indoors domestic servants provide food, drink and perfumed pomades at endless parties and banquets. Entertainment is provided by musicians playing lyres and flutes, with hieroglyphs showing the words of the songs being performed while curva-ceous dancers move their bodies sensuously to the rhythms.

The scribes composed manuals of proverbs and etiquette that constitute elegant observations of the human condition. One, written in the twilight years of Egyptian civilisation, contains a plethora of maxims, including some that are obvious and others that today we would judge to be blatantly sexist. But they provide a glimpse of the morals and social values of Ancient Egypt. These, for example, were some of the more common cautionary maxims:

–– “Do not tell secrets to your wife unless you want the whole street to know them.”

–– “Teaching a woman is like a sack of sand with its side split open.”

–– “Don’t live with your inlaws.”

–– “Whoever coughs spittle into the sky will have it fall back on him.”

–– “Do not laugh at a cat.”

–– “The hissing of a snake is more serious than the braying of a donkey.”

–– “If you are going to say something to your boss, count on your hands up to ten.”

George Hart is an Egyptologist, formerly of the British Museum

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