Daily life

1. Daily life

2. The Man on the right carries a full sack of grain.  The one on the left scoops up grain with a pail, perhaps to measure it for counting or distribution.  A scribe with a writing board squats between them, recording the amount of grain. 

3. The standing woman takes flax fibers from the woman squatting behind her and twists them into linen thread, rolling the thread onto a spindle held against her raised knee. At the right, two women tend a loom represented by four pegs.

4. The standing man would have held a saw with which he was dividing the upright log into planks. The seated man was probably using a tool called an azde, now lost, to smooth the plank of wood in front of him.

5. Boats were crucial in Egypt. where the Nile was the primary means of transportation. Dozens of model boats have been found in tombs. Egyptians believed the god Osiris traveled by boat to his final resting place at Abydos and that in death they would accompany him. The deceased, shown as a mummy, is seated beneath the canopy here.

6. One of the finest models, the famous "Bersheh procession," shows a male priest and three females bearing offerings. It has an interesting history. Originally archaeologists incorrectly reconstructed this procession with pieces missing or wrongly placed because tomb robbers had jumbled all of the Bersheh models together. Just a few years ago the missing incense brazier in the priest's right hand and the chest carried by the last female were rediscovered in storage. Similar processional figures in other museums provided clues for the correct reconstruction. This is a good example of how Egyptologists continue to revise their ideas as new evidence comes to light.