First of all, I love talking about Egyptian history! This class kind of makes me want to take a class devoted to that period in time. I don’t know why, but the Egyptians just fascinate me! They lived a life of luxury and wore makeup and wigs. They didn’t worry about what they were going to eat or where they were going to live. They worried about wearing enough jewelry so their gods would protect them. I also love cats so this makes me love the Egyptians even more. I liked when you told the story of how cats would just follow the people around and followed them back to their houses after working in the fields. When I would walk to school in middle school, my cat would follow me the entire way. Once I got to school she would turn around and go back home. I also thought it was funny that the term ‘to see’ was miw and that’s what the cats said. I also thought it was a pretty low blow when the Persians put cats out on the battlefield so that the Egyptians wouldn’t fight. However, this life of luxury made me wonder about their army and if they even had one. If I lived in such a non-hostile environment, I can see one of two things happening. I can envision the Egyptians not worrying about having a strong military because they lived such an easy life. On the other hand, I can see them having a very strong military so that their lifestyle is never destroyed. Egypt just seems like an awesome place to live. They were very tolerant people and Egypt was a big melting pot for many races.
Royalty was definitely an interesting circumstance. Thinking from a present day perspective, their way of doing things is actually really disgusting. It’s so weird how they intermarried with their grandparents and their children. I looked up pictures of different pharaohs and one in particular that you had mentioned in class, Akhenaten, is really deformed. He looks like an alien. You also mentioned how some of these pharaohs had a limp and many other problems due to inbreeding. I feel really sad for them and it just seems so wrong. However, looking at this from their perspective in their time and culture, I can see why they would do this. It is important to keep the throne in the family line. They didn’t want anyone else to be pharaoh as long as there was another male in the family. If having children with you grandparent was the only way to produce a son to be the next heir to the throne, then that’s what had to be done in order to maintain the royal blood. I knew that there had been women pharaohs, but I never knew that they wore beards and men’s clothing to look like the pharaoh. Now it makes sense as to why pharaohs in pictures I’ve seen always have their arms crossed over their chest. The women pharaohs did this so that they could hide their breasts. This pose eventually just became the typical pose for a pharaoh. However, I was wondering why female pharaohs felt the need to cover their breasts and to wear men’s attire. If these people were a very