[Music] if you watch any film based upon ancient egypt we tend to see the same stereotypical image privileged pharaohs relaxing on their golden thrones while poor slaves cool them with their fans out of the palace windows you can see the peasants twirling in the fields and in nearby temples priests make extravagant offerings to half human half animal gods but how realistic is this as a representation of real ancient egyptian society today we'll be exploring the different people that made up ancient egypt ancient egyptian society is usually explained as a kind of pyramid structure the most powerful people were few in number and were at the top of the society while the greatest number of people in society were peasants who had little power and were at the bottom in between the pharaoh at the very top and the peasants at the bottom there were several social groups with increasingly more power the closer they were to the top of the social pyramid please keep in mind as we look at each group that it was very rare that a person could change which social class they are in usually the social group you're born into is the one that you'd remain in for the rest of your life anyway let's get started and look at the top of this social pyramid from the beginning of the pharonic age at about 3100 bc the pharaoh was the king of egypt he had control of all laws and armies which made him the most powerful person in all of ancient egyptian society also the pharaoh controlled most of the land and the empire which made him the richest person in society as well in addition to these things egyptians consider the pharaoh to be one of their gods therefore the king also had great religious authority as well the next most powerful individual in egypt was known as the vizier a person was assigned to this position by the pharaoh himself and he acted as the pharaoh's most trusted advisor the vizier was responsible for the day-to-day running of the country and acted as the chief judge to settle legal matters all official statements sent out across the land were required to have his personal seal on them the vizier was so close to the pharaoh that he was often in charge of running the ferris household as well the egyptian empire was far too large for the pharaoh to be everywhere at once so he had to appoint people to look after regions for him in order to ensure that the king's commands were followed so egypt was divided into smaller regions like states within countries today in ancient egypt these smaller states were called gnomes and rich nobles were assigned to look after each region and were therefore called no marks these people had important positions of power but they could only exercise it in their assigned region their main tasks were to ensure that crops were harvested that income was generated and the piste was kept to help the pharaoh successfully maintain control over such a large kingdom ancient egypt was a very religious society with hundreds of temples both small and large across its vast empire in theory the pharaoh was considered to be the high priest of every temple in egypt but realistically he could not be everywhere at once instead groups of priests around all of the temples and acted in pharaoh's place to offer sacrifices and supervised religious activities the main concern for the priests was to ensure that the gods remained happy and that all of the necessary ceremonies were completed every day the egyptians believed that if the necessary rights were not carried out that the entire world would fall into a state of chaos as a result priests were treated with great respect as they held the fate of the world in their hands however some temples and their priests became very wealthy as they controlled large farming estates over time great temples like the one to amon at karnak use their power to even manipulate pharaohs themselves the scribes in ancient egypt were incredibly important people this was due to the fact that they were the only people who were trained to read and write their main jobs were to keep accurate records of everything that occurred in the kingdom and to write all official documents for the pharaoh nomaks and priests the vizier nomaks priests and scribes were usually nominated from among the noble families across egypt these nobles were families who had held wealth and power in the kingdom for several generations as a result they had the time and the money to train their children in the necessary skills to take on the various roles mentioned before most of their wealth came from large farming estates where farmers grew their crops people in this social class were those who specialized in a particular craft builders potters metal workers leather workers painters sculptors carvers weavers jewellers tailors plus many more such workers played important roles in creating temples and tombs for the pharaohs as well as creating weapons and equipment for his armies while they were towards the lower end of the social pyramid they were still central in keeping egypt going towards the lower end of the social order were the agricultural workers such as farmers and fishermen who grew the crops and caught the fish to feed egypt most people in egyptian society were part of this group as sometimes in egyptian history farmers and labourers were used by the pharaoh to build monuments like the pyramids when they were not busy tending their crops at the very bottom of egyptian society were the servants and slaves these people were usually those who had been captured in war or who had sold themselves into slavery to pay off a family debt slaves had no power and were at the mercy of their masters so there's the different social groups in egyptian society but you'll notice that we very rarely mentioned women all of social classes we mentioned applied both to men and women there were even some female pharaohs however at each level of egyptian society women typically held less power and authority than the men however compared to other ancient society egyptian women had the ability to buy their own land speak on their own behalf in court cases and could even divorce their husbands if they wanted to so there we go now you have a better idea about ancient egyptian society if you need further information please click the links in the description below and i'll see you next time you