Because of their elaborate preparations for the world to come, the Egyptians were once thought of as a gloomily death-obsessed people. Paradoxically, much of our information about their daily round comes from paintings, reliefs and models in tombs, which re-created scenes which they expected to see and enjoy again in a second life which was just like the one which they had left behind. These works show the Egyptians leading full lives, farming, hunting and fishing, making and doing, bringing up families, feasting, fighting and worrying about their health- pretty much like most people in most times and places.
a) Daily life and leisure activities.
A wall painting from the 18th dynasty tomb of Inherkha is perhaps one of the best illustrations of Egyptian everyday life in the New Kingdom. The painting is of a family group. The scene shows naked children playing with birds, with the long "sidelock of youth" hanging from their partly shaved heads. The children are being supervised by what looks to be their mothers. This scene tells us that the daily lives of the people were somewhat family orientated, at least between mother and child, while the older males worked or participated in leisure activities, such as in a relief found in the mortuary temple of Ramses III (ca. 1187-1156BCE) in Western Thebes. The relief depicts wrestlers and stick-fighters, all men, enacting ritualized battles between Egypt and its traditional smites, Nubian and Syrian enemies, as members of the court look on. This relief tells us that the New Kingdom Egyptian's leisure (for men anyway) involved celebration of past events e.g.- victories in wars, crowning of rulers and feast days of certain deities, among others.
b) Food.
Ancient Egypt was known as a land of abundance, and Kings sometimes boasted of god harvests during their reigns. In an inscription at the temple of Abu Simbel, Ramses II put the following words into the mouth of the god Ptah "I give to you (Ramses II) constant harvests the sheaves are like sand, the granaries approach heaven, and the grain heaps are like mountains.
