Little-Known Details About Pharaohs and Ancient Egypt

Throughout history, it hasn’t been uncommon for new kings or emperors to make a huge fuss about ascending to the throne. Many often threw elaborate parades and games, but ancient Egypt might’ve been on another level. Their coronation celebrations could last up to a year, and they involved a lot of feasts, parades, and other celebrations you might associate with ancient royalty. Most of the time, someone just ascended through traditional inheritance. 

When you think about the ancient Egyptians, the first thing you probably think of is the Great Pyramids. But some of their other architecture could be just as magnificent. For example, if you were a wealthy Egyptian, then your bedroom may have been built atop at tower attached to your home, giving you great views of the city or countryside below. But, these towers weren’t just built to show off wealth.

It might sound weird to use animal fat to moisturize your skin until you realize that a lot of products, even today, use some form of animal fat as an ingredient. The ancient Egyptians knew about this little secret thousands of years before the modern world. But that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, considering how obsessed they were with beauty. Another benefit of animal fat was that it helped them keep cool. 

This is true of a lot of royalty back in the day, but you don’t often see it depicted or talked about when it comes to ancient Egypt. However, the truth is that marrying members of your own family wasn’t uncommon for the ancient pharaohs either, and this often led to some pretty serious health issues. When researchers found the tomb and body of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, they noticed that he probably suffered from some of these types of ailments. 

One of the ancient Egyptians’ signature looks involved going heavy on dark eyeliner. This has been depicted in everything from movies to books. But it turns out that they didn’t just do this in order to look beautiful, although that was definitely a really big part of it. But it also helped protect their eyes from the rays of the sun, which could and still does get pretty bright in Egypt. 

The ancient Egyptians had a lot of different cures, rituals, and procedures, but one of the most popular is actually still done today. It turns out that the Egyptians were pretty fond of getting enemas done. If you’re not familiar, then we won’t go into all the details about what that involves, but back then, it was done less so for health reasons and more so that people could stay skinny.

If you’ve ever looked at anything depicting ancient pharaohs, then odds are they were depicted sporting a beard. It was deemed a sign of beauty, and people went to great lengths to find the perfect beard. So much so that it was fairly common for men to wear fake beards, at least if you were a pharaoh. Meanwhile, real facial hair wasn’t viewed in nearly the same light as fake beards. 

Apparently, the ancient Egyptians weren’t too big into modesty. It wasn’t uncommon for men to flash women on the riverbanks when they were riding down the Nile on a boat. They’d do this in the hopes that a woman would be so impressed that they would jump in the water and swim out to the boat. Of course, that probably didn’t work as many times as they hoped it would.

It probably sounds a bit weird at first, but ancient Egyptian makeup was usually made of some mixture of crushed-up bugs. Before you judge, a lot of makeup today uses similar ingredients, so in reality, the Egyptians were just way ahead of their time. The bugs could include the shells of beetles or ants or some mixture of a bunch of different bugs depending on the color and pigmentation. 

It turns out that the ancient Egyptians had all kinds of different procedures and treatments for many of the same things people deal with today. Their method for testing fertility was especially unique. We won’t get into the details, but it involved garlic or onion and the woman whose fertility was being tested. The next day, if the woman’s breath smelled like garlic or onion, then that meant that she was able to have children.

The ancient Egyptians, it turns out, had some pretty wild cures for headaches and migraines. One such cure involved drilling a hole into the patient’s skull. The thinking was that it would reduce swelling or relieve stress. It didn’t. In fact, drilling or cutting a hole into the skull has been found in a lot of ancient skulls from around the world. Another cure involved the head of a crocodile. 

While the ancient Egyptians may not have had the same access to healthcare that we have today, they did have their own way of detecting pregnancies. Apparently, to detect pregnancies, a woman would urinate on some barley, and if the barley or some other type of grain. Next, they’d plant the seeds. If they ended up growing, then the woman knew that she was pregnant. It’d usually take around seven days for the seeds to begin sprouting. 

Since fertility and beauty were such big issues for the ancient Egyptians, it only makes sense that they had their own birth control methods. One such method involved using leaves to prevent unwanted pregnancies. It’s actually thought that the Egyptians may have been the first to come up with some type of birth control method, although it’s unclear if it actually worked. The leaves were usually combined with crocodile dung. 

The ancient Egyptians were swarmed and plagued with an insect, but it’s not the one that’s often mentioned in stories, at least not so far as we know for sure. Instead, they had a huge problem with lice and no way to get rid of them. The lice were so bad that they’d infest their wigs, which may have been one of the reasons so many decided just to shave everything off. 

Bathing in public was pretty common in a lot of ancient cultures, so the Egyptians weren’t really alone here. However, you usually hear more about the baths built by the ancient Romans or the Greeks than the Egyptians. If you were lucky enough to be royalty or among the Egyptian wealthy, then you usually had your own bath, but this was pretty rare, and most people bathing with others was the norm. 

The ancient Egyptians were all about beauty standards, and those standards were hard to meet if you happened to have bad breath. To fight bad breath, it was common for many Egyptians to chew different herbs that left their mouths feeling minty fresh. It also meant that it wasn’t uncommon for someone to have some herbs stuck between their teeth. We can’t imagine how distracting this must’ve been during day-to-day life. 

Like with their hair and bears, nice eyebrows were deemed very important. Most people would just make sure that they’d keep up with their eyebrows so that they always looked nice, but some would take it a step further. Actual facial hair, in general, wasn’t really considered nice, so some would just completely shave their eyebrows off. The practice was especially common if you had a cat that just passed away. 

When we think if ancient Egypt, we usually think about one unified kingdom, and the Great Pyramids are usually somewhere in the background, but at various times it existed as two separate entities. There was the upper Nile and the lower Nile. Both were ruled by different Pharaohs, and they were only occasionally unified after their split. The ruler of Upper Egypt was sometimes referred to as Sedge, while the other ruler was called Bee. 

Pharaohs in ancient Egypt would usually have more than one wife, and when we say more than one, we mean way more. But while they usually have a lot of different wives, there was always one “great wife” who was considered above all of the others. There were no rules on how many wives a pharaoh could have, but there did seem to be a rule that there needed to be one great wife.

Death and burial were deeply important in ancient Egypt. Just look at the Great Pyramids, which are basically just giant tombs. So, for religious reasons, the organs were usually removed when it was time to mummify someone. The only thing they didn’t alter when they were embalming someone important was the heart since they thought that the heart was the center of a person’s spirit. Everything else got put into a jar or was altered. 

There are a couple of different details on this list that involve fertility, but that’s only because it was so important. One method for checking a woman’s fertility involved covering them in oil and making them go to bed like that. Apparently, if they looked “fresh” the next day, then they were fertile. It’s unclear what the reasoning behind this one is, but you could “become” fertile later, even if you failed the test the first time. 

Along with all the other things they did to attain beauty, the ancient Egyptians were really big on perfume. But it wasn’t purely for beauty. Perfumes were also believed to have some religious significance, which brought them closer to their gods. They’d often make perfume out of things like frankensince or honey and cinnamon. There were all sorts of different types of perfumes, but the exact mixtures were tightly guarded secrets. 

Manicures might seem like more of a modern obsession, but it turns out the ancient Egyptians were really keen on keeping their nails looking their best too. They had what we call manicurist today, who’d paint nails and make sure they were looking their best. The ancient Egyptians were among the first to have manicures or nail art done, and even fake nails were worn by some back then.

Staying thin in ancient Egypt was an entire ordeal. In addition to some of the procedures they had to keep skinny, they’d also often take castor oil, which acted as a sort of bowel cleanser. It was such a big thing that they’d free up a couple of days on their calendar during the month so that they wouldn’t have to worry having to go out and take part in social life. 

You probably already know that cats were considered very special in ancient Egypt, but why? It turns out that cats were thought to be magical and that they could provide some protection from evil spirits and other evil things. Black cats were thought to be especially lucky, which is pretty much the opposite of what a lot of people believe today. But in order to benefit from the magical abilities of cats, you were supposed to really take care of them. 

Today, most toothpaste is all made from the same general ingredients, but in the ancient world, you didn’t have the same luxury that we have today. Ancient Egyptian toothpaste was usually made from a mixture of ingredients, which included ox hooves, (burnt, of course), eggshells, and other ingredients you’re unlikely to find the back of toothpaste tubes today. The toothpaste they used was really rough, as you might imagine. 

Bathing in the Nile was pretty common in ancient Egypt, and it was more so the closer you lived to it. People also use water to wash their clothes. While the Nile was probably a lot less polluted back then compared to today, that doesn’t mean that it was completely clean. A lot of ancient sewage ended up in the Nile. It was also cleaner after heavy rains when it would flood. 

The ancient Egyptians were big on beards, at least on fake beards, and the reason for this stems from one of their gods, named Osiris. The god is always depicted as having a beard that looks really similar to some of the fake beards worn by pharaohs. The better your beard looked in ancient Egypt, the closer you were thought to be to Osiris, and thus, the “holier” you were. 

You’ve probably seen an image of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh wearing a headpiece before. These headpieces could be different colors or shapes depending on what they were doing or where they were ruling. For example, there were different types of headpieces for pharaohs who ruled the upper and lower Niles. Those who ruled the Lower Nile usually wore a flatter red headpiece. If a pharaoh ruled both, then they would have a double crown or pschent. 

This probably shouldn’t come as too much of a shock, considering how much the ancient Egyptians prioritized beauty, but all of those depictions of people in ancient Egypt that you’ve probably seen on ruins and in documentaries are definitely inaccurate. The Egyptians would purposely have their images drawn in a way that was flattering to the point of looking nothing like the people who were actually being drawn or depicted. 

It’s not uncommon for movies involving ancient Egyptians or their ruins to also involve an expert who can read hieroglyphics. It’s true that because of the Rosetta Stone, we can make out a lot of ancient Egyptian writing, but we still don’t understand all of it. That’s because while they may just look like symbols or pictures, hieroglyphics are a lot more complex than that. Many of them have both images and sounds attached to them. 

This one is a bit dark, but it turns out that necrophilia was a big issue in ancient Egypt. After someone is mummified, sometimes someone comes along and mess with the body. It was such a big issue that they developed their own ways of trying to deter people from messing with mummies. They’d leave the bodies out in the sun for a day or two before burying them. 

Successions can get messy, and that was as true in ancient Egypt as it has been many times since. Sometimes, the Pharoah just happened to pass away before their heir became old enough to rule, but instead of finding another heir, the young ruler, regardless of their age, just assumed the throne. The most famous example of this is probably Tutankhamun, who was only nine years old when he became a pharaoh. 

The movies usually make it seem like the lives of ancient Pharaohs were just ones filled with luxury, feasts, and celebrations, which, while sort of true, didn’t mean that they didn’t have a lot of responsibilities too. These responsibilities started not long after they woke up, in the form of morning meetings they’d have with their advisors and others who’d tell them about the newest developments and what needed attending to. 

There is one thing that a lot of movies get right when it comes to the ancient Egyptians, and that was the luxury with which pharaohs traveled. They usually had no less than around 50 followers who went with them where they would go. These followers would carry them along in chairs while walking down the road, making sure that the mobile throne never touched the ground unless the pharaoh wanted to step out. 

One of the most important jobs of the pharaoh was to attend and take part in religious events at temples. However, even pharaohs get sick from time to time, and if they couldn’t make it, then they’d have a statue stand in for them at the temple. So long as a statue of them was at the temple, religious ceremonies could precede as planned with priests performing the rituals. 

Another detail on this list discusses all of the wives a pharaoh would usually have, so it’s no wonder that some of them would have over 100 children. This was even with ancient contraception. The children typically lived in the palaces alongside one another, and they’d have all of the luxuries that were possible at that time. For example, they’d have caretakers, teachers, and access to ancient Egyptian healthcare. 

Depending on the source you look up, henna may have originated somewhere around ancient Egypt. Others say it came from India. Either way, it was important in ancient Egypt, and women would often wear it when they were getting married. Henna is still done for weddings in many parts of the Middle East today. Embalmers would also use henna to stain mummies since it helps preserve the body and wrappings. 

We probably don’t have to tell you this, but while they might just look like pretty structures today, the ancient Egyptians looked at the pyramids entirely differently. They were giant tombs meant to help a pharaoh pass from one life to the next. Each giant structure, which has lasted for thousands of years, was meant for a single person. The only other thing we can think of in comparison is the Taj Mahal. 

In addition to around 50 followers who would tail the pharaohs wherever they went, they also had servants and were carried around in ornately decorated thrones. These servants would carry them atop their shoulders in giant platforms, making sure to move in unison so that the ride wouldn’t be too bumpy. They’d also fan the pharaoh with huge leaves if it got too hot, which it often did in ancient Egypt.