When you think of Ancient Egypt, it’s common to think of the flashiest of artifacts that belonged to Pharaohs or were found in tombs. That’s only a small portion of the people who lived back then, though, so what was life like for the common people.
An archaeological research team in Egypt has made a fascinating discovery that amazingly reflects the lives of everyday citizens in ancient Egyptian cities, with thousands of first-person accounts.
Near the city of Sohag, Egypt, researchers unearthed an amazing discovery.
Thousands upon thousands of records of daily life in the ancient Egyptian city of Athribis, inscribed pieces of potery called ostraca. Ostraca were used like notepads, and could contain everything from mundane lists to private letters.
They believe they’ve found over 18,000 pieces so far.
Excavations are being led by Professor Christian Leitz of the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Tübingen, who were working in collaboration with Mohamed Abdelbadia from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
The team is in awe at the sheer volume of ancient documents.
“These ostraca provide a variety of insights into the everyday life of Athribis,” they wrote in a statement on the University’s website. “The contents of the ostraca vary from lists of various names to accounts of different foods and items of daily use. A surprisingly large number of sherds could be assigned to an ancient school.”
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They then detail the type of schoolwork found.
“There are lists of months, numbers, arithmetic problems, grammar exercises and a ‘bird alphabet’ — each letter was assigned a bird whose name began with that letter.
Hundreds of ostraca also displayed writing exercise “punishments”. These consisted of the same one or two characters written over and over again on the front and back of the clay pieces.
One of the biggest surprises was the variety of language used in these texts.
“Around 80 percent of the [ostraca] are inscribed in Demotic, the common administrative script in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, which developed from Hieratic after 600 BCE.”
They also found Greek, Heiratic, hieroglyphic, Coptic, and Arabic scripts!
It’s truly an amazing find.
One that provides a lot of insight into not just the more sensational elements of ancient societies, but the everyday occurrences too, reminding us how similar we still remain to our ancestors from thousands of years ago.
h/t: Express
