For many people today any mention of Egypt brings to mind images of pyramids and mummies, the products of an ancient and mysterious civilization so old as to defy imagination. The modern fascination with ancient Egypt and its monuments is seemingly without end and never seems to be satisfied. The land of Egypt and its culture provide the material for countless films, special presentations on television, and sensational news articles about recent excavations. Every new archaeological discovery is hailed as “the greatest find since King Tut.” So many misconceptions and misunderstandings abound concerning the history and archaeology of Egypt that it is often difficult to separate simple fact from romantic fiction. However, it is still possible even after so many centuries to know a great deal about how the Egyptians really lived, how they conducted their affairs, and the kinds of objects and materials they used.

The allure of the great monuments and the secrets of mummification cannot take away from the obvious fact that these ancient peoples were human beings. They lived their lives in a culture that seems foreign in many ways to us today, but they had many of the same basic needs that we do. Certainly there are differences in the ways many things were done, but this is more a matter of the long progress of developing technology rather than differences in culture. It is always amazing to see how many of the ordinary aspects of life have not changed from the way that the Egyptians carried them out thousands of years ago. We have excellent evidence of many aspects of their life to prove this, from the dwellings they lived in and the clothes they wore to the food they ate and even the games they played.