Daily Life In Ancient Egpyt Summary

A Critique of Daily Life in Ancient Egypt
In this critique of Kasia Szpakowska’s book, Daily Life in Ancient Egpyt, I am going to discuss her purpose, my likes and dislikes, her use of images, and how I felt this book related to this course.
Daily Life in Ancient Egypt was an excellent choice for this course. The information supplements the in-class lectures by providing sufficient information into the life of the mundane versus the life of the rulers and the pharaohs. It provides information that is clear and concise so the reader doesn’t need to dissect the information and gains a clear understanding of real life for the Ancient Egyptians. In addition, this book is a good reference for other classes in ancient civilizations as well as a reference

This particular work by Kasia Szpakowska is written in expository style; it is informative and unbiased. She uses many details and facts to support her claims about the Ancient Egyptian middle class. In chapter one, she takes to time to lay out the setting for the book so that the reader understands the context in which these ancient traditions were practiced. She explains that the book is set in the Late Middle Kingdom in Lahun and that the Lahun settlement came to be as a result of a pyramid complex built by the Pharaoh Senusret I. She goes on to explain the social classification system during that time so that the reader understands why life may have been different for our main character versus the elite or the lower class. The chapter goes on to explain what kind of homes they lived in, the animals they used for working the land as well as the spiritual animals they carved into figurines, and other details about what their society was like. The remainder of the book gives details about what the main character’s life would have been like, ranging from the minute details of diet to the larger details such as religion and death. Her style and organization make this book an excellent source for unbiased

Her writing is very simplistic and easy to read, yet it was also informative and detailed. For instance, when describing Egyptian footwear, she states, “The leather was still furry on the inside, and while it covered the toes, the back of the foot would have been exposed, with the shoe held in place at the back by a leather ankle strap” (Szpakowska 73). This detailed description allows you to form a mental image of the sandal-like shoes that were worn. When possible, the author also provided images to supplement the text. In the text, the author describes a game piece “made of unfired clay with little indentions around the perimeter and in two columns down the center, with some of the depressions linked with incised lines,” however it is hard to get a mental picture of what this is (Szpakowska 115). For this she provides an image of this game piece in Figure 6.5, which makes her description more understandable and provides the reader with a visual aid to support the text (Szpakowska 115). Although there were some aspects I liked about the book, there were a few I did