How would a profile of a tipical...?

Question

How would you describe the profile of a typical peasant in ancient Egypt? What thing did he or she didi?

Answer 1

Egyptian peasants grew cereal grains for food and beer, flax to provide fiber for clothing, and papyrus to make paper.

Farming in Egypt was entirely dependent on the cycle of the Nile, so much so that the Egyptians thought that a year is comprised of three seasons: Akhet (flooding), Peret (planting), and Shemu (harvesting).

The flooding (June through September) usually provided abundant deposits of silt, which is a great natural fertilizer.

During the growing season (October through February), peasants plowed the land and planted seeds in the fields. There is barely any rain in Egypt, so the fields had to be irrigated and irrigation facilities had to me maintained.

During the harvesting season (March through May), peasants harvested. The process was rather similar to that of any pre-industrial society; the crops were cut down with sickles, threshed by beating them with a flail to separate the grain from the straw, and winnowed to remove the chaff.

Egyptians also grew fruit and vegetables, but those were grown on high ground, so they had to be fertilized and watered by hand.

In addition to farming, peasants were often conscripted to do public works. Those conscriptions may have lasted anywhere from a few days (routine irrigation maintenance) to a lifetime (building a pyramid).