Amazing Facts You Didn't Know About Ancient Egypt!

Here are the most amazing facts you probably didn’t know about ancient Egypt!

Equality has been around

Seems like the society of ancient Egypt was well ahead of its time on this issue, because men and women were equal under the law! That meant women were free to live without a legal male guardian and could make their own decisions.

There were however, certain limits in occupations. For example, a woman wouldn’t be allowed to hold a position in the army nor would a man be expected to be in charge of a household.

However, everything else was equal. For example, women could marry whomever they wanted and later on divorce if things didn’t work out. Women could also buy and manage their own property, meaning a woman could inherit things down the female line in her family.

Another fun fact was that neither sex was favored when it came to childbearing, as both sexes were seen as equal.

The Ancient Egyptian gods and goddess are another proof of how far the equality went, as each sex was determined to be as important as the other, and that each sex had a unique set of skills.

Also, you might be surprised to learn that both sexes wore make-up, something that was more of a social norm rather than gender right.

Who really built the pyramids?

The pyramids are as grand and mesmerizing as they can be. Majestic establishments of up to 455 feet built in order to offer shelter for the part of the dead king’s soul that stayed behind. Let’s just keep in mind the different technology available at the time, so it’s just utterly amazing how these structures were built.

Having structures as grand as pyramids proves just how advanced of a civilization existed on earth back in those times.

If you try and think about the construction process, you probably get instant flashes of that Cleopatra movie where slaves are laboring their lives away while a supervisor slashes his whip on their backs.

As it turns out, that is an extremely common misconception, and the one responsible for conjuring the myth is the Greek historian Herodotus, all the way back in the fifth century BC. While it is true that there were slaves in ancient Egyptian society, they were mostly used for domestic labors or for field work, tasks fairly easier compared to the tiring construction of the pyramids.

Actual construction workers who were rather skilled were used for the pyramids – it was considered a huge honor to work on the pyramids and workers took pride in their work. Most of them were paid workers who took two or three-month shifts at the construction site and used to sleep and eat near the building area.

In fact, they were entitled to so many rights, that they actually could do labor strikes if they didn’t get paid on time.

One method of payment included beer, meaning that a day of work was worth almost a gallon and a half of beer!

Hair? Get outta here!!

In many paintings and hieroglyphs dating back from Ancient Egypt, Egyptians are depicted with thick black shoulder-length hair, very often garnished with some golden details. However, don’t get it twisted, because it turns out that they actually despised hair!

In fact, they hated hair so much that they removed every single hair on their bodies except for their eyebrows. Fun fact, they even removed their eyebrows in times of great grief, such as the occasion of a beloved pet cat dying!

Ancient Egyptians, especially those in the upper layers, shaved off their heads and wore wigs instead. A pharaoh didn’t allow for anyone to see him without his what are called ‘nemes’ on, a headpiece that covered his hair.

Some data suggests that Egyptians shaved off their hair and opted for wigs instead in order to protect their head from the blazing sun. Wigs acted as hats and were made either from natural human or horse hair – how did a wig made from other’s people hair make them feel less hot rather than their own hair is still a mystery to me, so I’m not quite sure I’m buying this one

Anyways, hair removal from the body was also connected with maintaining a good level of hygiene and protection against lice, which gives lice less surface to move around, right? Young children would wear their hair tied up and once they’d reached a certain age, their hair would be cut off.

As a matter of fact, anyone with hair was associated with the lower levels of society and with poor personal hygiene.

Birth Control

While today there are a variety of birth control methods, I’d think that a good majority of you guys know that that wasn’t the case in the ancient world.

Anyways, since the birth control issue was a burning topic even millenniums ago, ancient Egyptians took the problem in their own hands! In order to avoid pregnancy, various solutions were used.

One extremely popular method was the following recipe: a bit of mud, honey, and mix it all up with a tad of crocodile sh*t! Then, this was to be inserted into the woman’s vagina right before the actual work in that bedroom took place.

Supposedly the crocodile poo acted as a powerful spermicide.

They also found a way to test for pregnancy as well. A woman would be told to urinate on a sample of barley and wheat every day for a certain period of time – if pregnant, barley and wheat would grow.

Modern science was actually able to confirm this to some extent apparently; barley can’t grow if watered with the urine of a non-pregnant woman. Holy f*ck, how the h*ll did they figure that out?

Hieroglyphs

Hieroglyphs are probably the first thing that comes to mind whenever Ancient Egypt is mentioned, as there are walls and walls covered with colorful pictures of people and animals, with each telling a different story.

The hieroglyphs are definitely fascinating to look at, and you may wonder how they managed to use letters like that every single day. Well, the truth is they didn’t! They only used the hieroglyphs when the writing was supposed to be pretty to look at, such as for example the pyramid walls.

Actually, the majority of the population in Ancient Egypt didn’t even know how to write hieroglyphs because they were extremely complicated.

Instead, there were writing specialists known as scribes who did all the hieroglyphic writing. Those men were chosen as kids and were most often from the upper levels of society. They would train for years before even reaching a decent level of writing!

Other literate members of ancient Egyptian society used the Hieratic script and the Demotic script, which are simplified versions of the hieroglyphs, where the letters are actually in the shape of letters and not objects.

Hieratic script was used mainly for everyday writings, such as accounting and letters, while Demotic script was favored for court and document use.

How You Like Me Meow?

Cats were highly appreciated in ancient Egypt, and were literally almost on the rank of a God, and almost EVERY family had a pet cat. Their love for cats was so strong, that if you happened to harm or kill a cat, even on accident, you’d be facing a harsh sentence and maybe even death!

So naturally, when a cat died, the whole family would go into mourning, and as said before, this was a deeply tragic event that required some eyebrow shaving.

It wasn’t that uncommon to have your pet mummified as well! They’d be buried in special tombs alongside mice and milk.

Before you think that cat mummification happened in rare instances, hear this: In Beni Hasan, an ancient Egyptian cemetery site, a cat tomb was discovered with more than 80,000 feline burials inside.

Cleopatra did it with the lights off!!

For many centuries, Cleopatra has been shown as the ideal woman, a real beauty with her strikingly thick, black hair, red lips, and perfect eyeliner, so she didn’t have to think twice before using her sex appeal as her most powerful weapon.

However, recent data show that maybe that was not the real case , and she might have actually been the beast in the story!

Newer proof shows that actually, her facial features were strong and similar to that of a man. Her nose was bigger than average and was greatly hooked, something which wasn’t seen as bedazzling among the much-wanted long and sleek noses.

One theory says that this depiction of herself as ugly was a part of her well-thought propaganda, so she did it on purpose so she would seem stronger and harsher as a ruler.

However, she was so educated, that she completely changed the way kings and queens should be seen.

Cleopatra was fluent in at least ten languages and with an extensive knowledge of mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy.

Evidence shows that she was extremely charismatic and used her oratory skills to the maximum. This was how she used to capture all of that men’s attention.