I'm an average Egyptian in 100 ad, how much would I have knowledge of Egypts ancient past?

by Meep_Meep_Meep_Meep_
EddieOOO

Broadly speaking, the question does not rest so much on who was considered an Egyptian but on the status of the individual. For an Egyptian peasant, the relationship of the individual to the state religions would have been one of following certain festivals, worshiping in specific temples, and practicing ancestral customs. These would lead themselves to an expression of religious identity but not actually impart a great deal of historical knowledge among the practitioners.

For individuals living within urban society, the answer is a bit more complicated. By 100 A.D. Egyptian culture has been very Hellenized, The intellectual outlook of the urban elite was not longer truly Egyptian in intellectual or educational orientation.

The only true guardians of Egyptian history would have resided with the priestly castes and families. It is, however, critical to remember that Eygptian society has a deep sense of history but it was not a historically oriented society. It lacked our understanding of history, without proper chronicles, and often with the removal of unpopular rulers from monumental descriptions.

The most that people would have known about history would, ironically, have probably come from Herodotus. Indeed, with the exception of modern archaeological recoveries, it remains one of the foundational text of Egyptology.