It wasn’t easy living back in ancient times. It was especially not like today. You wouldn’t have very advanced machines to help you do work, no TV to entertain you, and no car to travel around in. You would have to find something else to entertain yourself, you would probably walk or take a ferry to get places, you would probably not have an education, and you would spend your life coping with the annual flood of the Nile River. Not much of a life if you ask someone today but to the Ancient Egyptians, who never played a video game, heard of a TV, or ever dreamed of the machines that we have now, it was quite a life indeed.

Imagine if you didn't have the chance to go to school. That’s how it was for most Ancient Egyptian children. The children who did go to school hoped to one day become rich and powerful. Children today are somewhat like that hoping to gain wealth in their life and becoming famous is right up there, too.

Ancient Egyptians did not have video games. Egyptians found other ways to entertain themselves. Men hunted for fun. Children liked to play little games like leapfrog. Everyone liked to play the board game, Senet.

Being an Egyptian artist isn’t as easy as it sounds. Pottery, weaving, and painting are not as easy as they look. Ancient Egyptians put a lot of work into their artwork and produced many high quality products. In fact, their weaving was so good that today there are still 6,000-year-old pieces of Egyptian linen.

Imagine living right next to a river that flooded every year? What would you do? Every year you would have to leave your home and almost all of your belongings behind. When you return to your home later, you would come back and find a pile of rubble where your house used to be. The Ancient Egyptians that lived in the flood area of the Nile River had to do this every year.

Ancient Egyptians did not travel often. This was because they were afraid of dying in a foreign country and getting an improper burial. When it came time to make your journey to the Afterlife, you would not be prepared.

Imagine having to cook outdoors every night? I guess it would be like a big barbeque every night, except for the fact that you would be having a barbeque on the roof! The Ancient Egyptians did this every night because it kept the inside of their house cooler. They also had different styles of houseing in different time periods.

Did you know that the Ancient Egyptians wore makeup? It may not have been quite like our lip-gloss or our blush but it was still makeup. Another interesting thing about the Ancient Egyptian’s style is that they wore jewelry made mostly out of sand or quartz.

Did you know that the Ancient Egyptians had beef jerky? It wasn’t in a nice little plastic wrapper, but it was beef jerky. Also Ancient Egyptian bread was not so great. Sand mixed with the flour and gave the bread a gritty taste. If you ate too much of this gritty bread, the sand in it would wear down your teeth to the roots.

Imagine being the high priest of a temple, or maybe a scribe who wrote things down in hieroglyphics, or maybe just a plain old farmer? These were all jobs that Ancient Egyptians could choose from. For most of the high-class jobs, you needed to have a scribal school education. Unfortunately, most people never went to school, so most Egyptians became farmers.