Work the land or keep track of grain

Paintings from the tomb of Wensu

If you had lived in ancient Egypt, you probably would have been a farmer, like most people. Farming was important in ancient Egypt thanks to - you guessed it! - the Nile, whose floodwaters irrigated the soil and made it the most fertile ground on earth. But if you were one of the rare people who could read and write, you might have been a scribe, like Wensu, who took inventories of the grain supply. His job was to keep track of grain for the temple of Amun in Thebes at a time when money had not yet been invented and people traded one type of good for another. The job of a scribe was therefore very important, and when he died, Wensu was laid to rest in a chapel decorated with scenes of his earthly life. Thanks to this tradition, we have a front-row view of the life of an ancient Egyptian family that lived more than three thousand years ago.