24 Hours in Ancient Egypt: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There

Spend 24 hours with the inhabitants of the most powerful kingdom in the ancient world.

Ancient Egypt wasn’t all pyramids, sphinxes and gold sarcophagi. For your average Egyptian, life was tough, and work was hard, conducted under the burning gaze of the sun god Ra.

During the course of a day in the ancient city of Thebes (modern-day Luxor), Egypt’s religious capital, we meet 24 Egyptians from all strata of society - from the king to the bread-maker, the priestess to the fisherman, the soldier to the midwife - and get to know what the real Egypt was like by spending an hour in their company. We encounter a different one of these characters every hour and in every chapter, and through their eyes see what an average day in ancient Egypt was really like.

‘Lively and amusing […] an engaging read. Ryan successfully makes this ancient civilisation more immediate and accessible.’ - Current World Archaeology