Toys and Games Galore!

Egyptians had toys? Like what a rock on a stick? WHOO! Surprisingly they had more "sophisticated" toys. Like dolls. no not like the picture to the left. More like the paddle doll to the right. They were usually made from trees growing near the nile. For poor children they usually had dolls that were stuffed with clay and silt from the Nile. Yay a dirt sack how exciting. Anyway how about the rich you ask? They had dolls more like the modern ones. They had movable limbs and animal hair usually. Some other toys were rattles, tops and mini weapons that they played soldier with. One of the most popular toys was a ball made out of leather and other cloths. Another toy was the animal figurine. Unlike most figurines these had moving mouths. So they could spend hours a day having their toy hippo bite their fingers... Yay!

Instruments

Apparently Egyptians could rock out, no not the awesome shredding of an electric guitar :-( but a harp, flute, wind pipe, many different wind instruments, or maybe an aulos. Yeah what the heck is an aulos is probably what you're thinking, that's what I thought to but it is an, a double pipe played with a double reed. It wasn't easy to become an artisan music player. No, you had to go through many years of what was probably boring and tiring exercise to work the musical muscles. It was worth it though to become a master musician, for you were highly honered among your community. They also sang, about gods, life, pharaohs, and working. They also had dancing, but strangely men and women never danced together at social gatherings.

Other Sports

Now Egyptians didn't just splash around in the water. No, no they also liked to lay the Smack down on their rivals. As you can see on the picture to the right, many modern day wrestling moves appear in ancient Egyptian wrestling. Unfortunately they didn't have mats to wrestle on. So they were either wrestling out on the hot sand or on the soil near the river. I would think they did it near the river where the soil would be softer, because personally I wouldn't feel like breaking my back on a big old rock. But hey, thats just me. They would also sometimes do this in temples for honoring a certain god or godess. Children and adults (usually men or boys) would participate in this and very rarely did women. They also had a sport called piggy-pack catch. Where usually four girls would play. They were divided into two teams. One girl sat on the other girls back and threw the ball to the other teams "rider". Whenever the ball was dropped they switched positions. Children also played, sword fight not, "I shall slay thee knave!!!", but more like wooden sword in a ring for fun.

Water Sports

Well as you probably know the Egyptians, lived along the nile, Duh. You'd think that the Egyptians got pretty bored of their lifes. They had one sport that we actually have now-a-days. Swimming (I wouldn't really want to swim in a river full of Angry Hippos) In Egypt almost everyone learned how to swim, whether they be thirty or five! What they would do is swim to a certian point in the river and the first one there usually got a prize of linen or other items. (Oooh Linen, wheres the gold???) They also had another sport which sounds pretty awesome to me, boat racing, usually hosted by the rich to show off their wealth. Yeah yeah, sounds boring but wait till you hear what happened on the boats. Well each rowing team had a captain 1-4 rowers depending on the size of the ship and and attacker. Here's the coolest part, the attacker stood at any side of the boat. WITH A GIANT STICK!!! He got to whack the other team upside the head to mess them up. They even sometimes had stick fights on the boats.

~Senet~

Senet is an Egyptian board game where the players "quest" for eternal fulfilment. (Life after ya go boom) When its turned into to English it Senet means "Passing" which explains why it is for life after death. The game was a grid of small wooden squares. Each player has from 6-8 small wooden pieces. But instead of using dice they had "Throwing Sticks" the light side represented none while the dark side (I am not talking about Starwars OKAY?!?!?) represented one space to move. There were four throwing sticks so if there was one dark side there was one space to move, two dark sides three and so on. If you rolled all light though you moved five which was obviously the best roll. In Senet you had to make your way through the twists and turns while trying to avoid the specially marked tiles that had bad fortune for your piece, but there were also good things. The game that most closely resembles this I would say is a combination of sorry or monopoly (With out the hotels and such)

◘ What is the most interesting toy/game/entertainment that the Egyptians had, why do you think this? ◘

What are some similarties between today's sports and games and ancient egypt's games?

What are areas of strength for this blog?☺

What are areas of improvement for this blog?