When we imagine ancient Egyptian society with its administrators and kings of whom we know so much, we tend to overlook the "little people". In no other area is this likely to take toll as much as when we talk about life expectancy.
In general, we quickly reach the limits of science when it comes to the population of Ancient Egypt. Not only because the population figures are unlikely to have remained constant during the 3000-year history, but also because we have hardly any evidence to refer to before the Graeco-Roman period. There was no regular census before then, only sporadic surveys of the emploayable population, who were used for military service, for example. It is quite certain that neither women, nor children, nor the elderly were taken into account.
In Greco-Roman times, however, there was an innovation that should be quite familiar to us: the poll tax. This meant that every household had to submit a list of its members once a year, on the basis of which the tax was calculated. Here too, we do not know whether children under 14, who were not liable to pay the tax, were included. In any case, in the course of Egyptological scholarship, figures circulated about the total population of Egypt that make one dizzy: The range is from 5 million to 35 million! So somewhere in between lies the truth; we only have realistic figures from Alexandria, which is said to have been "the largest city in the world" around 50 BCE. Here we may assume a population of about 1.5 million.
What was the composition of this population and what assumptions can we make from archaeology and medical texts?
Due to the large number of spells for the health of mother and child, we can guess that infant mortality must have been very high. The same applies to the mother in the puerperium, which is always a critical phase and must have cost many young Egyptian women their lives. Consequently, life expectancy for women was around 30 years, for men at least 35...although this is not a figure that is likely to trigger cries of joy!
These figures can be derived primarily from archaeology. In excavations of cemeteries and necropolises, rough ages can often be derived from skeletons. Unfortunately, these analyses come with a wide range; between the ages of 25 and 50, it is often not easy to give a reliable age. However, the estimate on the life expectancy of 35 seems reasonably plausible.
Interestingly, the analyses of larger cemeteries show a perfect age pyramid (I apologise for this pun...); the Egyptian population seems to have been quite stable in its composition, not overly child-rich (which makes a population of 35 million seem absurd), but still balanced between "productive" population and some "old" ones (where anything over 50 is considered really old!).
Of course, the life of a worker was virtually predisposed to premature death; however, we must not disregard the fact that even kings were by no means so well provided for that they lived to a very old age. Ramesses II, with his age of a good 90 years, was definitely an exception, as was Tutankhamun, who only lived to 18. Nevertheless, kings also rarely lived beyond the age of 45 or 50, at least if we consider the kings of the New Kingdom, to which both belong. We seem to be too inclined to think of kings as "old men"....
A final interesting point is that the Egyptians rarely mentioned their age, unless they became very old by Egyptian standards. The "ideal" age, which was a sign of wisdom and divine favour, was 110 years.
In the "Great Demotic Wisdom Book" we find information on how life should be optimally structured in its God-given time span:
"Man spends 10 years being young before he knows life and death. He spends another 10 years by accepting the work and the teaching by which he will live. He spends another 10 years by saving and acquiring possessions to live on. He spends another 10 years to mature age before his heart attains insight. Remaining 60 years in the total lifetime attributed by Thoth to the man of God. It is one in a million who attains it, if the God blesses, if the fates are favourable."
Those who are well-versed in the Bible may be reminded of Genesis 6:3 when they read the last sentence: "Then said the Lord, My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, because he is also flesh: therefore shall his days be 120 years."
Apparently, the gods of antiquity were at least quite unanimous about how old a human was allowed to become...
Literature
- J. Kraus, Die Demographie des Alten Ägypten. Eine Phänomenologie anhand altägyptischer Quellen (Dissertation Göttingen 2004).
- F. Hoffmann, J.F. Quack, Anthologie der demotischen Literatur, Berlin 2018. (Übersetzung des Großen demotischen Weisheitsbuches, S. 272ff.)
Cover picture
Extract from Stela EA1168, British Museum, London
© The Trustees of the British Museum, tomb-relief | British Museum
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