Activity

Houses, their architecture and material culture, not only provide settings for individual and group activities but also shape the social interactions and experiences of their inhabitants, as well as cosmological conceptions. For Egypt, studies have ranged from the possible gendering of space and activity (e. g. Wilfong 1999; Wegner 2004) to lived practices represented by categories of objects such as boxes and querns (e. g. Samuel 1999; Szpakowska 2008: 72-3; see further Koltsida 2007 and chs. 16 and 18).

Food production and consumption are sites of socially and culturally encoded meaning and value (e. g. Moers 2006), illustrated for Egypt by the fact that although food and food production are central components of tomb scenes throughout the Pharaonic period, representations of people eating and drinking are largely outside pictorial decorum; one exception is material from the Amarna period (e. g. Davies 1905: pls. 4, 6). Wisdom texts set out etiquettes of consumption and restraint when in the company of equals or superiors: ‘‘If you sit with many people, scorn the bread you love! Restraining the heart is a little moment... A man who is free from reproach about food - no words can prevail against him’’ (Teaching of Kagemni: Parkinson 1997: 297, cf. p. 252). The motif of eating or drinking with the king as a way to express intimacy with him is known from late New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period biographies (Frood 2007: 127, 208; Lichtheim 1980: 15). Consumption was also central to religious practices and at festivals, where excess was expected and celebrated (Meskell 2002: 173-7). Some Eighteenth Dynasty banquet scenes show guests vomiting (e. g. figure 25.3), while drunkenness aided ritual communication with the divine sphere (Depauw and Smith 2004: 86-9). The centrality of feasting practices is indicated by banqueting scenes, pits containing feasting debris in tomb forecourts (Hartwig 2004: 12-13), and large storage vessels bearing drinking songs that imply communal, celebratory contexts (Jansen-Winkeln 1989).

All foods, including the staple bread and beer, were socially and symbolically significant (e. g. Samuel 1999: 125-6). Meat was a signifier of class distinction: only the wealthy could afford to regularly slaughter cattle, as indicated by the value placed on slaughtering scenes (see figure 25.4; Ikram 1995). Alongside dairy products a vital source of protein was fish. Although fish is prominent in ration lists and scenes of food-production, it is rarely included in offering scenes or festival lists, suggesting restrictions associated with cleanliness and smell (Baines in press; cf. Troy 1989: 137; but see figure 25.4). The same probably applies to pigs, which are well attested archaeologically (Hecker 1982; Miller 1990). Although layered with social meaning, food was also aesthetic and pleasurable. The late Ptolemaic stela of Taimhotep, which

Figure 25.3 Banqueting scene from the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of the scribe and grain-counter of the Granary of the Divine offerings of Amun Djeserkareseneb (Theban tomb 38). After Davies 1963: pl. 6. Courtesy the Griffith Institute, Oxford.

Addresses the deceased’s husband, expresses this succinctly and echoes harpists’ songs of earlier periods: ‘‘Do not let your heart grow weary of drinking, eating, being drunk, and making love. Celebrate the happy day!’’ (Lichtheim 1980: 62-3).

Work and play, which are basic categories of human experience (Berger and Berger 1976: 258-9), were differently conceptualized in ancient societies, as is exemplified by the religious associations of Egyptian activities that might now be categorized as ‘‘recreation.’’ One of the richest sources for reconstructing details of work and play are the so-called daily life scenes in tombs (e. g. figure 25.1). The household was a primary context of work for most, as illustrated by Heqanakhte’s letters which instruct his sons, among others, in the management of his estate (Allen 2002). Groups of workers for large-scale state or temple projects seem often to have been recruited by and organized through local communities. Documents from Middle Kingdom Lahun discuss arrangements for mustering labor forces (e. g. Wente 1990: 76). These groupings were probably maintained throughout the duration of work: marks on blocks from Middle Kingdom royal building sites indicate teams of workmen from many towns, districts, and territories (Arnold 1990). Distinctive working identities are also indicated by the names of work-crews in the Old Kingdom, such as ‘‘drunkards of Menkaure’’ (Eyre 1987b: 12). Large working groups had their own internal divisions and structures, often based on naval metaphors (Eyre 1987b: 11-12; Roth 1991), and internal hierarchies that can be mapped, especially for temple organization (see Spencer ch. 14).

Figure 25.4 Early Middle Kingdom stela of Sobekaa showing a range of production and offering scenes (British Museum EA 1372). © Trustees of the British Museum.

Other factors such as age, gender, and ethnicity were also organizing factors for work. The term nfrw refers to groups of young men in military, labor, and expeditionary contexts (Eyre 1987b: 19). At Deir el-Medina, younger men (mnhw) were listed separately in documents and paid at a lower rate ((Zlernyi 1973: 113-17). Groups of working women are shown in scenes and models of food preparation, harvest, and markets (e. g. figure 25.4; Eyre 1987b: 37-8). Weaving is the craft most closely associated with women: a Middle Kingdom letter from Lahun (Collier and Quirke 2002: 114-17) and a New Kingdom letter from the ‘‘harem’’ at Gurob (Wente 1990: 36) attest to large-scale textile operations employing women with women managers (cf. Kemp and Vogelsang-Eastwood 2001: 433-6). Other contexts of female occupation are more obscure. ‘‘Houses of nurses’’ are known from Lahun (Szpakowska 2008: 36), while New Kingdom texts and images referring to settlements of women and female slaves in the New Kingdom (Eyre 1987a: 201; Loprieno 1997) can be compared to prisoner-of-war labor camps (Kemp 2006: 28-31). Labor was occasionally organized in terms of ethnicity among craftsmen (e. g. Eyre 1987a: 194-5; Wente 1990: 36) and especially military and security forces (Eyre 1987b: 36-7), such as the Medjay who seem to retain a level of distinct ethnic identity throughout the New Kingdom (Andreu 1982).

Respite from work was vital, even if just in evenings. The two-day weekend allotted at Deir el-Medina was used for court sessions, administration, and religious festivals (Eyre 1987a: 177; Vleeming 1982), and such activities would have enhanced community cohesion. Evidence for entertainments and performances, such as music, dance, and physical and intellectual games, comes mainly from religious and funerary contexts: ‘‘[in] preindustrial societies, most play activities were institutionally structured through ritual and ceremony’’ (Berger and Berger 1976: 272). Scenes of musicians and dancers are a core component of non-royal tomb decoration, often linked to funerary processions and banqueting scenes (e. g. figure 25.3; Harpur 2006: theme 12.1-7; Hartwig 2004: 101-3; Perez Arroyo 2003: 245-376). Physical games, such as wrestling and stick fighting, were sometimes depicted in tombs and temples (e. g. Harpur 2006: theme 12.10; see Decker 1992: 60-103) and have been associated with ritual performances, apotropaeic function, and ideology of kingship (Piccione 1999). Images of people playing board-games are common in tomb decoration, and game-boards and game-pieces are attested among grave goods throughout the Pharaonic period. Two of these games, mehen and senet, are explicitly associated with communication with and transition to the next world, both in religious texts and in iconography and context of use (Piccione 1990; 2007).

Evidence for play and performances in secular contexts is less solid. The form of these activities no doubt depended on status. Some musical performances may have been restricted to the elite. Harpists are known to have been in the employ of particular officials (e. g. Ward 1977; see von Lieven 2006: 357-8), while one of the model boats from the early Middle Kingdom tomb of Meketre has musicians seated near the tomb owner (Winlock 1955: pl. 39). The narrative frames of several literary tales thematize their performance within royal and elite settings (Parkinson 2002: 78-81; 2009: 30-40). Story-telling, however, like music and dance, is central to human experience and was probably more widely performed and experienced. Fragments of rattles, sistra, and games were found in the New Kingdom settlement of Kom Rabia (Giddy 1999: 317-24). Gaming squares were also carved into temple roofs, presumably for the entertainment of priests during watch periods (e. g. Jacquet-Gordon 2004: 12-13, 30-1), and are attested in other ‘‘graffito’’ contexts (Piccione 2007: 55). The secular pleasures of music and dance are vividly evoked in a Late Egyptian Miscellany text which abjures a young scribe for his lack of discipline: ‘‘I am told that you have abandoned writing and whirl around in pleasures, that you go from street to street, and it stinks of beer each time you leave (?) ... You have been taught to sing to the pipe, to chant to the war-flute, to recite to the lyre, and to sing to the netjekh. And then you are seated in the square among the harlots, and then you are standing and bouncing’’ (Caminos 1954: 182).