Rare Ancient Egyptian Artefacts (5000-Years-Old)

Hi, I'm Anna Cargill-Martin. I am an ancient historian and I am so excited to be here at the Petrie Museum of Egyptology. This was one of my favourite museums as a child and today I've been given special access to some of the treasures of their collection. These are artefacts that uncover the secrets of life and death in ancient Egypt and I am so excited to see them up close. This is incredible. I am so excited to see this so close up because this is a garment that looks so modern. It's so well-preserved and yet, as I understand it, this is exceptionally old, even by the standards of ancient Egypt. Absolutely. So this is the world's oldest known, most complete woven garment. So the garment has been radiocarbon dated around 5,000 years old. So this garment was ancient even when the Great Pyramid of Giza was being constructed. So where is an object like this discovered? So this garment was found as part of quite a large bundle of textiles, very muddy, apparently very smelly bundle of textiles, which was buried in a tomb in a grave at a site called Tarkhan in northern Egypt, not too far from the site of Giza. They would have been deliberately placed in the tomb in this sort of bundle and the beautiful sort of arid, dry environment inside the tomb means that the garment itself is incredibly well-preserved today. So this was found inside a tomb, but do we know whether it was also worn in life? So there are hints on the garment itself that tell us that there's a very good chance that it was. So on the elbows of the garment, we see they're particularly creased. Oh yeah. And also on the underarms and the armpits, there are stains. So these are hints to say that it may have been worn during life, but it was also found inside out. So someone had worn it, taken it off inside out and then it was placed in the tomb. It's so fascinating. And is there anything either in the garment itself or in the kind of tomb context in which it was found that gives us an insight into who might've owned this, who might've worn it? So the material, the fabric that the garment is made from is linen, which was made in flax. Now, linen was relatively widespread in use at different periods in ancient Egypt, but there were grades of linen, qualities of linen. There were actually four different grades. And this is actually quite a fine type of linen. So we can tell just from the material that the person who would've owned this garment would've been quite high status. In terms of the size of the garment itself, this also gives us hints about the kind of person who might have worn it. So it is quite small. Now, it's been described in the very distant past as being worn by a child, teenager, a young girl, but we don't know. We don't know exactly who would've worn a garment like this. It is very small. We tend to describe it having belonged to a slim teenager, but we must remember that in ancient Egypt, body sizes were different due to different nutrition from today. So people tended to be small. I think it's so astounding, the detailing of the pleating up at the top of the garment. And I assume that's a purely aesthetic decision. This is a 5,000-year-old fashion. Yeah, absolutely. So over the bodice and the sleeves, we can see these really detailed knife pleats. And so this was absolutely a conscious choice to create a level of detail in the garment itself. And there have been specialists that have analysed the construction technique of the garment. And what's wonderful is around the sort of V of the neck, there were whip stitches. And it's possible to know that these were made by someone who was right-handed. So the layers of, I guess, detective work that we can do to sort of investigate this garment and find the people behind the garment still continues today. And do we know anything about how this garment would have been worn? Are there any other sort of elements of dress that survive from this period? So after this, it was still very, very common for hundreds, thousands of years for these sort of linen garments to have been worn. Different lengths, different shape sizes, kilts, linen is a very, it could be made in a very sort of fine, producing very thin fabric, which would have been quite sort of diaphanous in the heat. So actually that would have worked incredibly well in a very hot climate. And we see representations of different types of garments on tomb walls, for example, people wearing these beautiful pleated linen garments. So this style that is popular about 5,000 years ago remains popular for some time after that. Yeah, absolutely. In different periods, the pleats become smoother or they become more exaggerated. So about 1,500 years later, the fashion was for really sort of diaphanous pleated garments, which were, you'd almost see on a catwalk today. And that technique of pleating only became more skilled, more specialised in time. So this is the kind of beginning of that fashion that is so iconic from the Egyptian wall painting. Yeah, absolutely. And bearing in mind, this is 5,000 years ago, the person who created these pleats was incredibly skilled. The people that created this beautiful fine linen, again, incredibly skilled themselves. And so the garment, as it survives now, looks always like a top. Do we know how long it would originally have been? Invariably, it's described as a tunic or a dress. I mean, these are very sort of modern words to describe such a garment. The lower hem is actually lost, so it could have been longer, similar to a sort of a Galabaer type garment that you might find worn in Egypt today, commonly. Equally, it might've been quite short and actually have been a sort of tunic type garment. We don't know. What an item to start with. I'm so excited to see where we're going next. So tell me what this incredible object is. So this is a 5,000-year-old gaming board. Oh, my God. It's wonderful. It is known as a Mahen board. So Mahen was a snake god who protected the sun god on the journey to the afterlife. So snakes were revered in ancient Egypt in many different ways. The body of the snake lent itself so beautifully to this game. Ultimately, in this game, you would move from the tail of the snake inwards around the spiral into the head of the snake. So the entire board is designed like a kind of coiled serpent, and you start with the tail here, and you go all the way around to the head with that wonderful little tongue in the center. And is the cross-hatching here, is this meant to kind of delineate scales? I think so. The ancient Egyptians really observed nature, animals, plants. And so, for me, this is no accident to show the cross-hatching to indicate the very detailed scales of the snake. Absolutely. And the little eyes. Is that even a kind of forked tongue? I think so. Yeah, I think so. I think so. So we don't know exactly how the game would have been played, but it's very likely that there would have been gaming pieces of some type. So small pebbles, perhaps something carved into a particular shape. And then you would have moved around the board as you were playing the game to be able to reach the head of the snake. And do we have any idea what governed your movement around the board? Was this a dice game? Was there something else involved? So we know from ancient Egypt, at different times, they did use dice, but what was more common were dice sticks. So you might have a set of four sticks of different colors that you would throw, and then that would indicate a number which then would help you move along the board. So do we know if this was a popular game? Was this something everyone was playing? So we know that it was quite popular in the very early periods of ancient Egyptian history. So this dates from what we call the pre-dynastic period, so the very earliest time when Upper and Lower Egypt joined together, and unified to become ancient Egypt, as we know it today. But really, depictions of this game, Mehen, only lasted for, well, only, for a few hundred years, up until around the time of the Giza Pyramids. So, I mean, it's still 700, 800 years, but this game didn't actually continue in use then throughout ancient Egyptian history. So maybe it was a trend of some kind over a certain amount of time. Yeah, and then suddenly the kids were like, Mehen, that's not cool anymore. So we have the gaming boards. Do we have any depictions of these in use? We do. So in particular from tombs, from elite tombs, around the time of, again, the Great Pyramid of Giza, around 2,300, 2,500 BC, on the tomb walls, we have depictions not only of Mehen and the game being played, but of different types of games, such as Senet, which is quite a well-known game from ancient Egypt. And it's really interesting to see people depicted with the gaming pieces, playing these games. And how many people are usually depicted playing it? Is this like a two-person game? Or could there be more players involved? So for Mehen, we don't know exactly. It's often the gaming boards which are shown in the tomb. But for a game like Senet, it's kind of the same. You move around a sort of rectangular board. There are depictions of one person playing, two people playing. So we don't know for sure, but it makes sense to me that this would be at least two people, possibly more. And this is clearly a beautifully made object. And it's, what sort of stone is this? So this is limestone. So limestone would have been very easily available in Egypt. And the thing with this board game is actually, it's very heavy. It's not light. It's not a portable board game as you would know it today. So to make the gaming board out of stone is quite interesting in itself. So perhaps it wasn't intended to travel. And so do we think that this was a game that was being played kind of up and down the social spectrum? Or given that the board is so heavy, it's so beautifully carved, and we're seeing depictions of it in elite tombs, do you think that this is a sort of leisure activity of the elite? So the jury's still out when it comes to, in particular, when it comes to gaming in ancient Egypt. So we know that some games, it's very likely they would have been played during life. But also with particular games such as Mahan, such as the game Senet, there were also real implications around sort of divine entities linked with the afterlife. And so if you depicted a game, a gaming board, or you had the gaming board itself in the tomb, there may also have been sort of ritual elements there linking the use of the gaming board with your journey into the afterlife. Hi there, I'm Dan Snow. And if you love history, you know that History Hit is on a mission to bring the past to life. Every week, we travel the world to film original and in-depth documentaries. And now History Hit has launched a YouTube membership to give you access to even more films released weekly. Become a History Hit channel member now to make sure you never miss out on exclusive documentaries on topics like newly discovered shipwrecks and the clash of gladiators. We cover all time periods and all subjects from Pompeii to D-Day. Click the Join button on the History Hit YouTube channel or click the link in the description and see for yourself what History Hit has to offer. We can't wait to have you join the team. So what am I looking at here? So these are two objects which tell the story about work and labor in ancient Egypt. So they're about a thousand years apart in age. So one of them is an object we call an ostracon. So this is a reused piece of pottery, broken pottery that has been used essentially like an ancient sticky note. So a note has been added onto the outside, actually, of the ostracon here, which tells us a story about what it was really like to work in ancient Egypt. Wonderful. Gloves on for this, I assume. Yes, please. Yes, please. This is just a broken shard of pottery absolutely covered in writing. Can you tell me when this was written and do we know what it said? Yeah, so this is around 3,000 years old and the writing on there is called hieratic. So this is sort of like shorthand for ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. So this could be written quite quickly. This is actually an administrative note from the workers who were working in to build the royal tomb of King Ramesses III. And this is a list of all of the yarn that was sent to them to make lamp wicks so that they were able to do their work. Because working in the tomb, it would be very dark. They would need wicks to be able to have light to be able to do that work. So this is kind of like an ancient delivery list on a very ancient sticky note. So this, I assume, is not for sort of official record purposes. Is this someone who is working on the tomb and is trying to kind of keep track of things as he goes? Or is this a kind of accepted means of communication? That's a great question. So if you can imagine that this is a broken piece of pottery. So somebody just picked this up from the ground and thought, okay, this is perfect for recycling. I'm going to reuse this. So this was seen by the ancient Egyptian people as something they could use quickly and then dispose of quickly, like our sticky notes today. I mean, nowadays in Egypt, in certain places, you can still see broken pottery all over the floor, but also broken pieces of stone. So this is from the ancient site of Thebes, which is now modern Luxor in Southern Egypt. And this site is very well known also for this beautiful white limestone. So we have lots of notes on broken pieces of pottery from Luxor and also on this beautiful white limestone, which was just perfect for writing. So this was probably written by a relatively high official because they would need to be literate. So they would need to be a relatively high official to have noted this. There are debates over the level of literacy in ancient Egypt, and the debate ranges anywhere from 1% to 5% in the population as a whole. The majority of them would be reading and writing hieratic because even fewer people could read and write hieroglyphs as we know them today. So yeah, a very, very small percentage of the population who would have had access to education to be able to become literate. You said this was around 1,000 years later? Exactly, yes, exactly. So this is different materials. So here we're looking at papyrus. So papyrus is ancient Egyptian paper made from the papyrus plant, which was grown by the banks of the Nile in Egypt. This is actually written in Greek, and it's very interesting because it involves a complaint in the workplace. So what is the complaint? What has happened? So it seems that there's a cultivator, a farmer, whose female donkey and her load have been taken. And as you can understand, they weren't very happy about this. And so this note is that individual informing a policeman, essentially, that their donkey was taken, as well as the associated goods, and sort of putting that in writing. And it being papyrus, it's a material that wouldn't have been so easily available. So this would have had to have been manufactured and produced. And so this is potentially something that would have been kept in a more formal sense. So this is a sort of official crime report. Exactly. And do we know if it would have been written by the farmer himself, or would this likely have been written by a scribe? So we don't know for sure, but it would make a lot of sense that it was noted by a scribe, someone who was literate, who was able to sort of make a formal note of this complaint and the fact that this action had happened. And when you say it was a complaint that was made to a policeman, what do we know about the Egyptian police force? What do we know about what they might've done in response to a complaint like this? The police, as we described them in ancient Egypt, I suppose that the nature of the police differed in different periods. And so it could be that there was a different periods, there was a sort of local overseeing group that was perhaps more informal, that kept sort of order within a village or a town. But we also know that there was a formal process of policing certain sites. There's also some debate over whether mercenaries were brought into Egypt from the sort of desert areas around Egypt in order to act as policemen. There is some evidence for this too. And the fact that this is... Can I? Yeah. The fact that this is written in Greek as opposed to hieratic, is that by this point the official language of Egypt? And is it what people are kind of speaking day to day? Or is this just the language that they're using to make official kind of complaints and documents like this? So at this time in Egypt, so this is around 250 BC. So this is a time we know as the Ptolemaic period. So this is when the Greeks ruled over Egypt. And so the Greek script would absolutely have been the formal script that was used. Greek would have been spoken. But also it's important to bear in mind that at this time in Egypt, the country was very much a melting pot of people, ideas, languages, objects, traveling around the Mediterranean into outside of Egypt and beyond. And so this particular period was really fascinating in terms of identity. What did it mean to be Egyptian at this time in Egypt? I wonder if he got his donkey back. You've got to hope so. So this is incredible. These look so recognizably modern. But when were these made? I absolutely agree. It's almost like he could go down to a shop and buy these sorts of things today. Sort of like Boho Beach shop would give you these woven sandals in an instant. Exactly. But they're so incredibly ancient. So this beautiful little sandal is around 3,500 years old. And then these socks are just under 2,000 years old. So imagine that between them, there is still 1,500 years. What sort of context were these discovered in? These objects were actually found from a domestic context. So from a town or a village, which is quite surprising in itself. But again, the arid environment would have helped to support the preservation of these very, very delicate materials. So these are not things that are being made for the grave. These are things that are being worn in everyday life. And do we know anything about the sort of people that would have been wearing these? This looks quite small. Yeah. This is a very, very small sandal, which we think was probably worn by a child. Possibly, according to modern sizes, possibly a child of around eight years old. But of course, it is tricky to compare modern sizes with ancient foot sizes. But around about eight years old. So this is a child who would have lived at a site called Tel El Amarna, which is in Middle Egypt. And they would have lived about 3,500 years ago. And so we don't know who this child was. We don't have their name. We don't even have the other sandal. But in some ways, I think that's very special because it opens up some questions about who that child was and what they did. It's possible that this child may even have been a worker themselves. They may have worked on some element of constructing the ancient city. This was very common in ancient Egypt for children to work in this way. But again, we don't know, unfortunately. But it means that, again, we can tell stories about who this child might have been. So we know child labour was something that was common in Egypt. Do we know what sort of roles they were doing? Are they doing kind of the same jobs that the adults are doing? Or are there specific roles made for children? So there would have been roles that children would have been very good at because of the size of their hands. So if you have very small hands, you can do very delicate work. So things like, I don't know, helping to shape pottery, for example, if you have very small hands, that would have been quite, quite useful. Much like the Victorian children in the mills whose small hands were useful to delve into the machines. So there were jobs that would have been best suited for children with smaller hands. However, we do also know that children were engaged in heavy labour, different periods and different areas of ancient Egypt. And we know that from the condition of their human remains, ultimately from their graves. So it is evident, including at the site of Tell al-Amanah, that children were engaged in heavy labour. And this would have been a sort of everyday sandal for a child. This is the normal thing that workers are wearing? So, yeah, no, that's a great question. So this would have been made from reeds. So again, reeds very easily accessible at the banks of the Nile. But we do know that children more commonly were barefoot. So this also raises an interesting question. So if the child wearing this sandal wasn't barefoot, does that imply some level of status? Again, we don't know for sure. It opens up certain questions. I love the fact that we only have one. I wonder if this eight-year-old just lost his other sandal, got a real bollocking when he got home. Well, I'd kind of like to think that the sandal is still somewhere in the sand at Amanah and it'll be found one day. And here, am I right in thinking that I'm looking at socks made specifically for wearing with sandals? Absolutely. So you might be able to see that the toes are indicated in the socks. And so much like the socks you might see today in Japan, for example, that are created specifically to be worn with sandals, these socks would have been ideal to have been worn with sandals in an ancient fashion moment. Dubious then as it is now. And it would have been worn with exactly this style of sandals. Exactly. So this sort of flip-flop style of sandal would have been perfect with these socks. And it would have meant that the wearer would have had, perhaps if it was cold, that they could have worn their socks and stayed warm whilst also having appropriate footwear. And so in the winter, would people have been wearing socks with sandals rather than closed shoes? So it depended on the period. And again, it did depend potentially on your status as well. So these socks were created from brown wool and they were made with a technique which we call nowadays, nalbinding, which is a sort of single needle knitting technique. And again, there is certainly a level of skill involved in that. So whether that then equates to a higher status or perhaps not everybody had access to socks that looked like this, that were created in this way, remains an important question. And these are created much later than the sandals. Yes, absolutely. So there's just over 1,500 years between these two pieces of footwear. So again, you know, fashions don't change all that much. As you said, you could go, I don't know, down Oxford Street today and probably see something quite similar in some of the shops. There was a level of fashion as well as function at different periods. And I do think that these two different types of footwear do exemplify that. I am so excited to be seeing these so close up. They are just such astounding works of art. Can you tell me a little bit more about them? So these are painted wooden panels, essentially, that show the faces and the upper body of individuals, men, women, and children. And these panels would have been used to cover the face of the deceased person who would have then been mummified ready for their grave, ready for the afterlife. And what period and what area of Egypt do these come from? So these date to the Roman period. So this is about 2,000 years ago. And this is when Egypt was part of the Roman Empire. And if we look carefully at some of the features that you can see on some of these painted panels, they really tell a story about Roman-style dress, Roman hairstyles, jewellery. So these are from a site called Hawara, which is in the Fayyum region of Egypt, which is the northwest of Egypt. And this was a very important, very strategic site in the Roman period where there would be, again, people, lots of trade of items and ideas sort of flowing into and out of Egypt. And it's so interesting because these are much more sort of realistic and representative than a lot of the mummy masks that we're familiar with from earlier periods of Egyptian history. What do you think that tells us about Egyptian culture under the Roman Empire? These represent a real, what I would like to call a cultural entanglement, a real melting pot of traditions coming together. So you're absolutely right that when we think about a mummy mask, even at this time as well, you think of a sort of gold gilded, something very ostentatious in its way, but these are something completely different. And it's very clear that the people that produced these were incredibly skilled artists and they were really concentrated at this particular period, at this particular place. And so again, yeah, it tells us something about burial customs as well. Very Roman-style painted panel portraits, but the body was mummified in a very Egyptian style. So then it opens the question around Egyptian identity. What did it mean to be Egyptian in the Roman period? So was this style of mummy portrait and kind of type of burial very specific to this area or was this something that we think was probably quite diffuse throughout Roman Egypt? So as far as we know, it was relatively concentrated. So at this site of Pewara, we have hundreds of examples of these panels found in graves and they represent men, women, and children, and really they are quite specific to this site and this area. I think it's so fascinating how individualised these portraits are. They are so representative, they're so realistic. You have such a sense of what this individual looked like, even a sort of sense of what their character might have been like. And what do you think that says about how the people of this place, of this time, wanted to be remembered as they moved into the afterlife? So I like to describe these type of portraits, painted panels, as ancient photoshopping. Because if you're going into the afterlife, if this is your eternal image going into the afterlife, you want to look your best. And so, okay, they didn't have Photoshop as we know it today, but like an ancient kind of, yeah, filter. You wanted to be seen in your best clothes, with your best hairstyle, the best jewellery, that your skin was perfect, that there was a level of sort of perfection there that may not have existed in real life. We don't know if these particular individuals owned this jewellery or wore their hair in this way. But again, I think that opens up these really interesting questions around authenticity in a way. Like, what are we looking at here? Are these mirror images? Are these portraits as we would describe them today? Or are they sort of general representations of individuals that have been filtered essentially 2,000 years ago? So these are such beautifully made objects and they're absolutely packed with symbols of wealth. What can we say about the status of the people that are depicted? So we can look at the individuals themselves who are shown on the object. So they are wearing very, very nice, expensive jewellery. They've got their hair in beautiful hairstyles, lovely clothes. So just looking at the individuals, we can infer that they were of a relatively high status, but looking at the objects themselves, the technique of producing, of painting these panels was highly skilled and the wood that would have been used to make them was also very, very high quality. You know, it would have had to have been collected specifically for this purpose. So from the objects themselves, we can also tell that they would have been relatively high status individuals who owned these. So this is something that is only accessible to the elite? Absolutely. And do we know what sort of status the artists who made these would have possessed? Would there have been people that were acknowledged as sort of great masters or were they always seen as skilled artisans? Based on the evidence that we have, we don't know of particular individuals like you might see with the great Greek vase painters, for example. Or the great Greek panel painters as well. Indeed, absolutely. But what I think is quite interesting to think about is that perhaps the artists who created these objects, you know, were they originally trained in Rome, for example, and then they travelled to Egypt? I don't know. Were they, you know, were they born in Egypt? Would they class themselves as Egyptian? It's a really, really very interesting, quite complex question. And again, just ties back to that idea of identity. What did it mean to be Egyptian in the Roman period? And also, how did you want to present yourself? These people wanted to present themselves in a very Roman fashion. So did it take a Roman artist to be able to do this? We don't know. From the dress to here, we have covered an incredible length of time. Absolutely. So over 3,000 years of history, of ancient Egyptian history, showing us how people lived and how they died thousands of years ago. And I think it's incredible that we saw in that dress, this concern with how you presented yourself. And we're seeing that again, 3,000 years later, when people are making their decisions about how they want to be presented in their final form as they face death. Yeah, absolutely. And it's that point, the final form. So, you know, when you've made your decision, this is very, very important because this is how you're going to be remembered. And this is an Egypt that has changed immeasurably. And we see that in the style and in the Roman elements in these portraits, but it is also an Egypt that has a lot of continuity. And that's reflected in the fact that these are attached to mummies. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So mummified individuals, very Egyptian style of burial, but very, very Roman style of these painted portraits, which would have covered the face. So again, that idea of kind of cultural entanglement, melting pot of Egypt, of ideas, people, things, traveling around to really create these beautiful objects that we're seeing today. What an incredible reflection on the length and the depth of Egyptian civilization. I cannot thank you enough for showing me these incredible objects, for letting me get so close to them, for talking me through them. And the Petrie Museum is open to the public, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. So Tuesday till Friday, 1 till 5 p.m., and then on Saturdays from 11 till 5 p.m. It's been a pleasure to have you here and I look forward to seeing many people who are watching today at the museum soon. I look forward to coming back. You'd be so welcome.