The World of Ancient Tourism

Going on vacation is surprisingly older than you’d expect

Not so ancient picture of the Great Sphinx

It’s always interesting seeing elements of our modern culture being reflected in past civilizations. While it may seem that instances of these are few and far between, they are surprisingly more common than what you’d expect.

I think a reason for this is that with history, we often only focus on the major events involving powerful people. In reality, when looking at the more common aspects of history, we see very similar people to us doing very similar things.

Today, I want to look into tourism in the ancient world. I was surprised to hear that people so far in the past vacationed just like us. I guess I assumed people would just stay where they were born their entire lives. Yet, similar to us, the people of ancient times had a desire to see what the rest of the world had to offer.

Popular Destinations

Vacationing in the ancient world was both more and less common than you would expect. Many people traveled for religious or diplomatic reasons, while, leisurely travel was much less popular (given the dangers of travel back then). This did not stop the daring few from experiencing all that ancient world had to offer.

For the sake of simplicity, we will only look at examples from Ancient Egypt and how the civilizations of Classical Antiquity interacted with their culture via travel.

How the Great Pyramid of Khufu in Giza would have looked when the Greeks and Romans encountered it. It would have had a bright white finish from a top layer of polished limestone as well as a solid gold top piece.

Surprisingly, tourism was just as talked about in the ancient world as it is today. Many people from all across the Mediterranean ventured to lay their eyes on the great pyramids and temples scattered across Egypt. So much so that Greek historian Herodotus included the Pyramids of Giza in his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (want to know more, click here).

The First Yelp Reviews

One universal theme in history is that tourists have always been rude and obnoxious. When people don’t get their way, they think the whole world needs to know about it. Today, if someone needs to rant about a bad experience, they would just go on Yelp, but ancient people, obviously, didn’t have that. With the absence of that, many disgruntled tourists went to writing on the walls of whatever place they were at.

During the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt, Greek citizens had a close connection to Egypt both politically and culturally. Because of this, many Greeks visited the already ancient pyramids and temples of Egypt. The example that inspired me to do this was one of the many inscriptions left by one of these angry tourists on the wall of a tombs.

The, in my opinion, amazing tomb of Ramses V did not seem to interest this disgruntled tourist, with them writing:

“I visited and did not like anything but the sarcophagus!” “I cannot read the hieroglyphs.”

Traveling back in time a few millennia to Old Kingdom Egypt, this example comes from a lesser known source, possibly being that of tomb raiders.

These hastily written hieroglyphics say:

“The gang, Friends of Khufu”

Lastly, we have an example coming from the Djoser Temple right next to the Pyramid of Saqqara. This 4,000 year old inscription details the lovely visit the writer and his brother had.

This four millennia old writing reads:

A scribe of the king’s treasury named Hadnakhte and his brother Panakhte, “came for a pleasant stroll in the West of Memphis.”

Souvenirs are Older Than You Think

Every good vacation comes with souvenirs; we all want to be able to show off the places we’ve been. In Ancient Egypt, there are quite a number of examples of all different types of souvenirs meant for tourists. Just like modern tourism, a lot of Egyptian collectibles were cultural iconography marketed to those who saw it as foreign and exotic.

There are a great deal of examples excavated near the temple for the Egyptian mother goddess, Mut, in Luxor. Archaeologists have found a variety of small figurines of deities, shapes of amulets, and decorative objects.

Amulet of Ankh. Meaning “life”, it is believed to bring safety and protection to whoever wears it. Often buried with New Kingdom Pharaohs in the belief that it would prevent grave robbing.

Shabti of the goddess Mut. Shabti’s are mummification figurines that were traditionally buried with the deceased in the belief that they would do the hard tasks of a person in the afterlife. The vertical inscription in hieroglyphs reads “I am Mut–en–ipet, justified”

Wooden cosmetic spoon in the likeness of a female figure. A spoon like this would be used to store and/or mix various makeups.

At the nearby temple of Deir el-Bahri, archaeologists have uncovered even more figurines believed to be mementos for visitors and pilgrims coming to see the temple. These New Kingdom artifacts primarily consist of statuettes of different gods and goddesses of Egyptian mythology.

Example of a statuette of the goddess Hathor (left). Primarily known for being the goddess of beauty, fertility, pleasure, and love. Next to her (right) us a seal for Hathor.

Final Thoughts

It’s always interesting seeing the similarities we share across time and culture. When looking at Egypt in a broad sense, we see a foreign and distant culture; however, the more you zoom in, the more recognizable other civilizations become. It pretty unifying seeing that we all have the urge to leave bad reviews and collect souvenirs. I guess things never really change.

Until next time…

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