Download leisure activities - NSW Public Schools

LEISURE ACTIVITIES
 Which activities were practiced by nobility vs. ordinary people
o 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
Ostracon, New Kingdom, Dynasties 19–20, ca.
1295–?1069 B.C.
Egyptian; From the Valley of the Kings, western
Thebes
Painted limestone
Leisure Activities of Egyptians in the Ramesside Period Dynasty XIX - XX
ACTIVITY
Hunting
INDOOR /
OUTDOOR
outdoor
DESCRITPION







Athletics
outdoor
activities
e.g. archery,
boxing,
wrestling,
stickfighting,
jumping,
running,
weightlifting
Festivals,
holidays
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.
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 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.
Indoor activities:
 music,
 board games (senet)
 Banquets
Female musician. Theban Tomb n° 219. Ramesside
Period.
Musicienne. Tombe thébaine n° 219. Epoque
ramesside.
MAYSTRE, C., La tombe de Nebenmât, pl.VI, MIFAO
71, Le Caire, 1936.
egyptsound.free.fr/ icono/11.htm