Social Pyramid Research Paper

448 Words2 Pages

The social structure of Egypt is shaped like a pyramid, at the top are the most important and the most respected people, the pharaoh. At the bottom are the lowest and poorest people, the slaves.
Pharaohs were the highest place on the Egyptian social pyramid. Therefore, they had the ultimate power over Egypt, they were like Gods to the population of Egypt. The people expected the pharaoh to keep the Gods happy so the Nile would flood and there would be good harvest. The pharaoh also had to maintain the army to defend Egypt from other countries. The people of Egypt looked up to the pharaoh to ensure their well-being, if the pharaoh did not live up to the expectation of the people he/she’s competence was restricted. The pharaoh owned all the land in Egypt there fore they could do anything they wanted with it. They gave parts of the land to people as gifts or rewards. The pharaoh was also the leader of the legal system. They were responsible for enacting laws, delivering justice and maintaining law and order.
Slaves were the lowest ranking on the social pyramid. They were mostly prisoners of war, captured by …show more content…

They showed their works of art by writing on papyrus and carving in stone. Scribes are responsible for the oldest corpuses. On the social pyramid the scribe is near the top, so it was a good job to have. Except only males were allowed to be scribes as males were the only people who went to school. But being a scribe was a difficult job to have, because there are hundreds of hieroglyphics to remember, and it takes as long as twelve years to train to become a scribe. The job of a scribe was to write letters for fellow villagers who couldn’t write, record the amount of crops harvested, calculate the amount of food needed for the tomb works and keep accounts and ordering supplies for temples and the Egyptian army. Luckily scribes did not have to pay taxes, be part of the military or do any of the manual