LEISURE ACTIVITIES
• Which activities were practiced by nobility vs. ordinary people
Leisure activities included sports, hunting, swimming and gymnastics. Both men women and children participated in sports. Social classes played a role n what activities were available.
Ordinary Egyptians
Nobility
• Leisure activities taking place evenings, after work, on days off – Deir el Medina had workers had one day off every 10 days
• Some holidays were annual – New Year, Harvest. Religious festivals such as Festival of the Valley and Royal celebrations (Sed)
• Leisure time spend in inns; Beer Houses; Brothels
• Tombs show banquets with larger number of guests
• Fashionable ladies shown with cones of scented fat on their heads attended by servant girls entertained by singers, musicians, dancers
All show the social activities of ordinary Egyptians and the degree in which activities were carried out in association with festivals
• Gymnastics or athletics were popular leisure pursuits
• Archery, boxing wrestling and fighting with sticks
There was an International Stick Fencing Championship!
• SENET was a popular board game played on wood, stone, clay, bone, faience, or a grid cut into the ground
• TAW – ‘twenty years’ two people facing each other
• MEHEN – ‘snake game’ played by up to 6 people • Hunting often the sport associated with the nobility
• New Kingdom tomb paintings Hunting undertaken in Delta and Marshlands of Upper Egypt
• Hunting season was at the end of the floods
• New Kingdom pharaohs saw hunting as advertising their prowess – Seen with Sety 1 engaging in a lion hunt with Ramesses III
• Historian MANNICHE argues that this was symbolic and indicated the tomb owners ability to master evil and danger
• Hunting of game from the chariot was conducted by nobles and pharaohs – dated from the reign of Thutmose IV
• Fishing was also popular
ACTIVITY INDOOR / OUTDOOR DESCRITPION
Hunting outdoor • Bird hunts in marshland / Delta of Upper Egypt.
• Best time for hunting at the end of floods.
• Fishing also popular – sitting in armchairs around garden pools.
• Hippopotamus hunting also documented.
• Pharaoh’s involvement: Sety I’s lion hunt
Ramesses II’s wild cattle hunt
• The first pylon at Medinet Habu depicts Ramesses II hunting wild boars pylons used as advertising propaganda for pharaohs prowess.
• Tombs scenes depict nobles hunting wild fowl and spearing fish.
Athletics activities e.g. archery, boxing, wrestling, stick-fighting, jumping, running, weightlifting outdoor • Young men trained in most athletic disciplines.
• Often part of festivals like Heb-Sed along with music, dance and song – pharaoh also supposedly took part in distance run.
• Particularly beneficial to soldiers.
• First international stick-fencing contest held between Ramesses II’s young soldiers and units of foreign troops.
• Paintings show various wrestling hand holds and throws.
Festivals, holidays
outdoor • Festivals at time of New Year, Harvest, flood time, etc.
• Images of gods paraded in colourful processions throughout countryside.
• Flood time – effigy of Amun carried aboard a sacred barge up the Nile to Luxor.
• Lodged at temple for a month before returning to Karnak.
• Vast crowds cheered from the riverbanks as Amun processed up and down.
• Pilgrimages to Abydos for Osiris – annual reenactment of Osiris myth
• Images in tomb of Userhat of royal boat and offering to Osiris.
Leisure Activities of Egyptians in the Ramesside Period Dynasty XIX - XX
Source: http://www.riversideg-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/public/riverside%20maat/NK%20SOciety/Ordinary%20Life/LEISURE%20ACTIVITIESanc.doc
Web site to visit: http://www.riversideg-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/
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