Egyptian Life as Moses Saw It.

The mute yet eloquent story told by the tombs of the Pharaohs.
THE Egyptians have not left behind them a voluminous literature. Their greatness lives before us in the remains of their architecture, sculpture, and painting. Little more than a religious and political history of Egypt is obtainable from the written records. The hieroglyphic inscriptions of temple and monument yield little but accounts of those military expeditions, great structural enterprises, or state affairs in which the Pharaohs gloried and by the record of which they sought to magnify their own name and power.
Nevertheless, we are not left to profitless guesswork as to their manner of life, general temperament, and social relations. Strange as it may seem, very full information concerning Egyptian life can be gathered from the tombs of their dead. They were adorned with vividly painted wall pictures in which all manner of scenes taken from daily life have been preserved to us.
The Egyptian carefully prepared his tomb. He had its walls decorated with those scenes of life which he desired to perpetuate. Not only so, but it was the custom to place in these tombs those objects which were in daily use during his earthly sojourn, so that a great variety of utensils, of furniture, art treasures, jewelry, pottery, and garments have been reclaimed by the excavator and archeologist. Thus, it came about that a Pharaoh was always placed in his tomb surrounded with those things that had contributed to his luxury, splendor, and pleasure during his lifetime. Knowing this, many of these tombs were plundered by ruthless robbers before steps were taken through agencies of government to protect and preserve these storehouses of historic treasure. Since then, through strenuous efforts and patient toil, much has been gathered and placed in the great museums of the world. These treasures tell in mute yet eloquent fashion, the story of those days when Egypt was as a garden, and gold and silver were well-nigh as plentiful as the sand of the desert which now covers so much of the land that then abounded in fruitfulness.
From this inheritance of picture and object, along with what knowledge has been obtained from inscription and papyri, we derive a remarkably complete history. 
The Past Mirrored in the Present.
We are thus able to visualize the state of Egypt's culture, the manner of life, conduct, and relations that prevailed among her people. Actually, we can see the things with which they surrounded themselves in those days. And we come to know the amazing environment in which Israel’s great leader, Moses, was educated.
As tomb after tomb has been opened, yielding up their long-sealed story, we are made to live once again in those very scenes that passed before the eyes of enslaved Israel. The hard labor of that oppressed people doubtless contributed to Egyptian wealth and luxury.
The wall paintings of these tombs, and the objects found in them, which so amply confirm what is depicted on the walls, all tell their own story, now made imperishable for us through the persevering and self-sacrificing labor of many to whom is rightly accorded the honor due great achievements. 
From the accumulated store of information, we come to know the home life of Egypt, and find that much which characterized it then, may still be observed among the Egyptians of today. In fact, it is amazing to see how the past of over thirty centuries is mirrored in the living present. Not only so, but in a broader sense, witness is borne to the fact that human nature has not changed through these passing centuries. The same motives are seen at work, the same actions are performed, the same forms of good and evil prevailed, the same passions, strifes, rivalries, intrigues, and enterprises worked out in the social, commercial, and political life of ancient Egypt. It makes the beholder feel that after all, there is not much that is very new in this day of ours. It should at least check the boastful tendency which marks it. As the work of the archeologist progresses, the task of crowning this century as the greatest of all, becomes increasingly difficult to any thoughtful mind.
Let us begin where life first plays around the hearth of this world’s fire—the nursery. Does it surprise you to be told that these tomb paintings show us the playthings of the children, and that the pet names of childhood have been recorded for us, while the family affection and the mother’s way of caring for her infant are clearly portrayed?
From these wall pictures, we know the fashions of the Egyptians and see how they changed from time to time. Their songs, their dances, their wooing, their sports, their foods, their pets, their athletics, their feasts, their carnivals of pleasure and lust—all are given illustration in these houses of the dead.
The Egyptian evidently loved the beautiful in nature and art and surrounded himself with what especially appealed to the senses. Among other things, this is shown by his household furnishings and his wardrobe. These tombs have yielded their store of such articles—gold, silver, bronze, ebony, ivory, alabaster, and the finest pottery were materials used to make his furniture and decorate his house; spotless linen, linen embroidered in many colors, jewel-decked garments, and many pieces of jewelry, still unsurpassed in artistic workmanship, made up his dress.
Before all this came to light, having only the ruins of those bygone days to contemplate—which even now still awe the beholder,—it was easy to think that the Egyptians were a people from whose lives much of what is called the joy of living was crushed out, or held in contempt through their religious surroundings. It seemed proper to think of them as a people largely occupied and burdened with the terrors and needs of many gods, the gloomy prospect of death, and strange ideas of the next life. Indeed, it seemed that they must have served rigorously in a continuous round of labor and ceremony to meet both the material and religious demands of the priestly class, at whose imperious bidding they toiled to erect vast and somber temples. Now we know this could only be a superficial view of Egyptian life, formed from viewing simply the remains of their immense structures and the outward appearance of their tombs. The tombs now opened have opened to us a tale of life, very similar to the pleasure and wealth-loving character of our own days.
These ancient Egyptians were festive, light-hearted, mirthful, lovers of wine and dancing, devoted to all that was sensuous in life.
In fact, these elements entered into their religious activities. The very things that most appealed to the desires and appetites of the soul they thought to use for its edification. Neither priests nor people appear to have practiced any form of austerity or mortification of the flesh.
Their ceremonies were great spectacles of gorgeous display in which were combined everything that would appeal to the emotions—color, music, dancing, feasting, nothing to create a melancholy aspect, but all that would gratify a pleasure-loving, fastidious populace.
A Religion of Luxury and Vanity.
The robes and utensils of daily use found in the tomb of both priest and layman, negative the idea that there was any tendency toward puritanical living. “Take as a typical example, the costume of a certain priest who lived at the end of the eighteenth dynasty. An elaborate wig covers his head, a richly ornamented necklace surrounds his neck; the upper part of his body is clothed in a tunic of gauze—like linen; as a shirt, there is swathed around him the most delicately colored fine linen, one end of which is brought up and thrown gracefully over his arm; decorated sandals cover his feet and curl up over his toes; in his hand he carries a jeweled wand surmounted with feathers. It would be an absurdity to state that these folds of fine linen hid a heart set on things higher than this world and its vanities.” The objects of daily use, such as “ornamental bronze mirrors [the women of Israel had such mirrors and gave them to Moses to use in making a laver for the tabernacle, Exod. 38: 8], frail perfume pots, lotus formed drinking cups, golden chairs, and soft cushions” do not suggest religious abstraction or austerity of life.
Rather, it appears evident that the Egyptians loved the comic, took pleasure in caricature, and found delight in music. Very fond of flowers, they decked themselves and decorated their banquet rooms in lavish style. Naturally they cultivated beautiful gardens and sought for all manner of rare plants and flowers. This was so characteristic that even such a warrior as Thothmes III (eighteenth dynasty) could spend time during his great campaigns to collect the choice botanical specimens found in the invaded regions and bring them home to beautify his capital—Thebes.
Enchanting gardens belonging to the upper class stretched out along the banks of the placid Nile. To these, the wealthy Egyptian loved to retire in the cool of the evening, there to wander among the palms and acacias in the waning light of those glorious sunsets that gild with golden glow and many varied hues the distant western hills that guard the approach to the burning desert. In such a garden, watching with quiet amusement the conflicting shadows dance in weird form upon the glass-like water of the garden pool he might well be lulled to peacefulness of thought, with many a pleasing fancy taking shape in his mind, now resting from the heat and tension of the day, regaled with the day’s last song of some of nature’s own choristers, perhaps startled for a moment out of a pleasing reverie by the weird hoot of a passing owl, only to be quickly forgotten as strains of music and song drifted inland on the night breeze from some gay parties in the boats plying up and down the Nile, that same gentle breeze striking the many flowers like a magician’s wand and wafting to the already enchanted senses their unrivaled fragrance. Adjacent to these luxuriant gardens, stood many a palace and villa where scenes of revelry, feasting, and inebriacy were enacted. Here men and women joined in a riot of pleasure. Not from their literature do we learn this, but chiefly from the walls of their tombs upon which they themselves have pictured it for us. Thus, we have their own confirmation of the Scripture which intimates that in Egypt, the pleasures of sin were enjoyed for a season (Heb, 11: 25).
Elaborate Personal Adornment.
The character of the times is, as usual, well exhibited by the manner of personal adornment, and especially by that of the Egyptian woman. For both sexes, the usual costume was made up of pure white linen for the production of which, in superlative purity and excellence, Egypt was far famed. They blended color with the spotless white linen by using elaborate girdles, beaded neckpieces, ribbons, bracelets, and much jewelry. Cosmetics played an important part in the Egyptian lady’s toilet. Tattooing was quite the fashion. Jewelry constituted her chief glory. She arrayed herself from her head, with its golden hair-band, to her ankles, encircled in silver, with various pieces for the ears, the neck, the breast, the arms, and the hands, in which were combined gold, silver, precious stones, and ivory, often wrought in wonderful incrustations which remain unexcelled to this day.
This gives us some idea of what the Israelites obtained when they borrowed jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment from the Egyptians at the time of their departure from Egypt (Exod. 3: 22; 11: 2; 12: 35, 36).
As to food, we must not think the Egyptians lacked in choice viands equal to what we now enjoy. From many inscriptions and pictures, it is clear that they provided themselves with a good variety of meats, vegetables, fruits, and wines prepared and served in ways equal to our own. Even Israel, complaining when in the wilderness, could speak of the fish they ate in Egypt and remember the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic (Num, 11: 5). The Egyptian manner of feasting was little different from that of the present. It was characterized by many of the same things found in the banquet halls of this twentieth century.
This, then, may serve as an outline sketch of the manner of life in Egypt in the days of Moses—days which followed great military adventure, far-reaching conquest, and which abounded in wealth with its accompanying luxury when obtained by the subjugation of distant peoples from whom a constant influx of revenue was secured to the conquering nation.
PLAINFIELD, N. J.   
"The Sunday School Times" July 10, 1926