“The popular view of Egyptian civilization as dignified and austere is incorrect. It comes fro

“The popular view of Egyptian civilization as dignified and austere is incorrect. It comes from the massive temples, the grisly mummies, the crumbled and ruined tombs. Yet the temples were once bright with paint and aglitter with gold; the mummies were men, women and children who enjoyed life so much that they went to unusual extremes in the hope of perpetrating it; the tombs were Houses of Eternity, equipped with “every good and pure thing” for the enjoyment for life everlasting. We are not insulting the Egyptians or falsifying their view of the world if we catch a glimpse of them telling bawdy stories about the gods, getting drunk, writing sentimental poems to their sweetheart, or lecturing their bored children. If we laugh at them just a little, it will not diminish them; and if we fail to see that we are also laughing at ourselves, we are missing the best part of the joke.”―Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt, by Barbara Mertz -- source link

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