A Year in the Life of Ancient Egypt: The Real Lives of the People Who Lived There

Spend a year in the company of the ancient Egyptians, during the twenty-sixth and final year of the reign of Amenhotep II (c.1400 BC), which saw a royal transition bringing Thutmose IV to the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt. While builders from the secluded village of royal tomb workers rush to complete Amenhotep’s tomb, and craftsmen labour to finish the numerous extravagant objects to accompany the god-king in his burial, most Egyptians go about their daily lives in ways unchanged for eons. Following the Egyptian calendar year, which was divided into three seasons (flooding, sowing and harvest), we will meet a farmer and his family, an embalmer, an artisan, a royal physician, a priest and even a royal wife as they live their lives in Thebes and Memphis during the eighteenth dynasty of the New Kingdom in this remarkable year in ancient Egyptian history.