Life expectancy of ancient egyptians

Answer 1

About 60 years :)

If you were a rich patrician, you probably might have been able to live to 60, but plebeians, your lower class, weren't as lucky. Their lifespan was obviously shorter. And since plebeians made up more of the social class than patricians did, you're looking about an average of 20 to 40 years as your life expectancy for an ancient roman citizen.

If you was a Roman you had about a 50% chance of surviving until your tenth birthday. After that you was likely to survive unhindered until your fortieth birthday when weakness due to age would make you more prone to succumb to disease. It is estimated that around 28% of the population survived past their fortieth with a very old and wise 2% living past their seventieth birthday.

Answer 2

The life of an ancient Egyptian was short and difficult. Newborn children were not likely to survive their first year. The Infant Mortality Rate was extremely high, possibly around 60-70%, and the mortality rate for women in childbirth was also extremely high. Children then were seen as a special blessing from the gods if they survived their first year.

After about the age of 5, boys and girls were separated in their learning experiences. Boys from wealthy families went to school. Boys from poor families began helping with the men's jobs in the fields or whatever other occupation their father happened to hold. A boy's education lasted the child was between 12 and 16 at which time they were considered grown and could begin to work for themselves. This would be the earliest age for men to marry, but normally they were between 17-20 years of age when they took their first wife. Men could take more than one wife, but had to be able to support each of them and their children. As a result, this was usually done only by the very wealthy. Most men then continued to work until they died, the average life span was approximately 30 years of age for a poorer working man. Making it past the age of 40 was seen as a special blessing and those who did so were rewarded. Men were granted a stipend by the government consisting of grain and vegetables each year.

This ration was smaller than what he would have earned had he continued to work but it was enough to keep him alive.

Girls lives were much different than boys. Their entire life was centered around the home and family. At age 4, girls would begin to learn from their mothers how to maintain the house . They would learn how to sew, make foods, and keep house. The hours spent doing domestic chores were much longer than the educational hours of boys. Cloth had to be made and sewed into pieces of clothing, the fields planted and tended, food prepared, and countless other household chores. Girls were expected to marry after they began menstruating around the age of 12 or 13, although there is evidence of girls marrying as young as 8 or 9 years of age. They were also excepted to have a child within the first year of marriage. Pregnancy was a revered condition in ancient Egypt and even if a girl wasn't married, her pregnancy was celebrated. Women's lives were also relatively short with an average of 30 years for poor women and slightly more for women from richer families. Female retirement was different from men's, however. Women were to be taken care of by their sons. If a women had no sons she was to be taken care of by her daughter and son-in-law, but this was rare and occurred only if the daughter was now part of a wealthier family. It was more likely that these old women would be forced to live as beggars.

Answer 3

The average life expectancy for the ancient Egyptians was about 33 years for men, as opposed to 29 years for women. This is based on skeletal evidence.

As a side note, the life expectancy in Ancient Greece was about 20 years. The average age for the Ancient Romans was 35 years.

This does not indicate that there were no long-lived persons, just that they were fewer of the total individuals born. One reason for the discrepancy between life expectancy then as opposed to now was the high rate of infant mortality (as well as premature deaths from minor illnesses and injuries that had no effective treatments).

Answer 4

It was about age 40. What is weird is that this one pharaoh named Ramses the second lived until he was 90.