Ancient Egyptian: Ways of Life

The Egyptians were the first to make bread that is soft, light   and filled with air.   They also made the first ovens, because they need a different way to bake the larger mass of dough used for this new kind of bread.   The Egyptians used mud bricks that have been dried in the sun to make houses.





The sun is shining on our backs.   In town ,we shall be paid fish for our barley.





That was a song of Egyptian farmers , more than 3,000 year ago.   Wall paintings in ancient tombs show farmers at work in their fields.   The early Egyptians had hundreds of signs for words or for parts of words.   Like other ancient people, the Egyptians often wrote on clay tablets or stone.   It was from one such stone, the Rosetta Stone, that we learned ancient languages.   Cheops was the name of a king in ancient Egypt who wanted a place to stay when he died.   So he ordered his men to build a huge stone house in the shape of a pyramid.   A pyramid looks somewhat like a giant tent.   The base of this pyramid is almost big enough   to fill ten football fields.   Its peak is as high as a stairway with more than eight hundred stairs.   Kings of Egypt used to be buried in great tombs with jewels and golden vases, and even thrones and chariots.   The tombs had so many valuable things in them, that thieves used to break into them and steal their treasures. So later kings decided to hide their tombs.   They left orders for their burials to be in a secret place called the Valley of the Kings.   The graves were not to be marked.   But, still, the jewels in golden vases and thrones and chariots were stolen.   When historians checked it out they found out who stole the treasures, that’s right the men who were supposed to guard the tombs.


The Great Sphinx


 








The Great Sphinx was built almost   5,000 years ago , when Khafre was king of Egypt.   It had a human head and a lions body.   It stands 66 feet high and more than 240 feet...