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| Welcome to my Blog! Wander through wonderful worlds real and fictional, meet interesting people, visit exciting places and find a few good books to enjoy along the way! |
By N.L. Holmes Narrated by Thomas J. Fria
What would it be like to live in the ancient Egypt of Hani’s time? First of all, if one had to drop down into the Late Bronze Age, Egypt would be the best place to drop. In terms of health care and women’s rights, for example, they were far ahead of their contemporaries, but life would still seem primitive in the extreme, unless one was lucky enough to be an aristocrat. Let’s look at some of the differences between our times and Hani’s that would immediately strike a time traveler.
One is the hierarchical nature of society, so
different from our own democracy. The king was unimaginably rich and powerful.
King Tut’s tomb contained goods that would have cost a thousand years of an
ordinary workman’s salary! High nobles lived in luxury in spacious houses with big
gardens, had indoor baths and toilets (flushed by servants with buckets), ate
meat-rich food off exquisite plates, and enjoyed well-fed, sedentary, secure
lives. The working class huddled with their average of ten children into poorly
lit little houses, worked hard from sunrise to sunset, and could hardly afford
to buy furniture. But they did at least have “weekends” off
every ten days and plenty of festivals to supplement their bread-and-beer basic
diet. People were very conscious of their class, but it wasn’t unheard of for the dissatisfied to stand up to their betters.
Royal workmen sometimes went on strike, and every village had a council of
citizens—including women—that ran their local affairs in a democratic way.
Nobody had money. Business was carried out by barter, sometimes using bronze or
silver, but there was no coinage. Taxes were paid in labor or foodstuffs, and
wealth was reckoned mostly in grain and cattle, hence land.
Marriage consisted of the simple decision to live together, with both partners bringing to the marriage what they could. The Egyptians seemed to marry monogamously for love (they had some red-hot love songs!) and to be devoted family folks, but divorce was easy if things went bad. If a man’s wife was childless, he could take a concubine to give him heirs. Women had essentially equal legal rights with men, could testify in court, leave and receive inheritances, run businesses, and even give orders to men subordinates. Yet people still sometimes took advantage of widows and orphans, and the very poor might have to sell themselves into temporary indentured servitude to pay debts.
Egyptian medicine was highly advanced for its
day, with doctors consulting casebooks that showed what had worked against symptoms
in the past. They were good at surgery, and medicines varied from solid “folk”
remedies like willow bark for fever (it contains salicylic acid like aspirin)
or honey as an antiseptic to strange magical procedures. Nowhere near as good
as modern healthcare, but way better than that of the Middle Ages! Still, it
would strike our time traveler that Egypt was, as it is today, a tropical
country with lots of diseases and a slew of horrible parasites carried by the
river. If you were working class, you strained your body so hard that it showed
up in the bones. If you were rich and sedentary, you might suffer from
cardiovascular problems. The life expectancy was about 35 for ordinary people,
but there were individuals who lived to be seventy, eighty, even ninety years
old —although there wasn’t much anyone could do for their cataracts or
arthritis. As far as dentistry goes, the only thing to do about a rotten tooth
was to pull it out if you could grab it. If you were rich enough, you could
fill in the gap with a bridge attached with gold wires.
One thing that would strike a modern
immediately was how slow life was and how much physical effort everything
required except for the fortunate few who had servants. Most travel was by boat
at five miles per hour, or by foot at three. Donkeys went no faster. It took
days to get anywhere! People like Hani, who traveled frequently to foreign
parts, spent much of their lives in transit. Messages had to be sent by runners
or horseback couriers—no phone calls or texts. Calculations and writing were
done laboriously by hand in a system so complex that only 1% of the population
had the luxury of mastering it, and it was literacy that gave a person status.
There was no running water; it had to be raised from wells. Light was provided
by dim oil lamps, and “air conditioning” was just a vent in the ceiling, maybe
with some servants to fan up a breeze. Even the king, the most powerful man on
the planet, lived a life of far less comfort than an ordinary person today, although
he had prettier jewelry. And for the ordinary man, every giant block of stone
or heavy beam had to be cut without any power tools. Manpower was the secret of
Egypt’s greatness. There was no unemployment, but life was pretty disposable.
In short, the Egyptians lived in a society of contrasts. While they seemed to have been free of racism, there were sharp social divides. Their engineering and craftsmanship have never been equalled, yet everyday life for most people was primitive. Their science was far more sophisticated than almost anything else around, yet little of that got translated into labor-saving gadgets. I would love to visit their world, but I sure wouldn’t want to live there permanently!
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| About the Book |
When Hani, an
Egyptian diplomat under Akhenaten, is sent to investigate the murder of a
useful bandit leader in Syria, he encounters corruption, tangled relationships,
and yet more murder. His investigation is complicated by the new king’s
religious reforms, which have struck Hani’s own
family to the core. Hani’s mission is to amass enough evidence for his superiors to prosecute
the wrongdoers despite the king’s protection—but not just every superior can be
trusted. And maybe not even the king! Winner of the 2020 Geoffrey Chaucer Award for historical fiction
before 1750.
Book Title: Bird in a Snare
Series: The Lord Hani Mysteries, Book 1
Author: N.L. Holmes
Publication Date: 21st March 2020
Publisher: WayBack Press
Page Length: 425 Pages
Genre: Historical Mystery
Trigger Warnings:
Sexual abuse of children
BUY THE BOOK
Amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bird-Snare-Lord-Hani-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B08682L3NC
Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Snare-Lord-Hani-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B08682L3NC
Amazon CA:
https://www.amazon.ca/Bird-Snare-Lord-Hani-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B08682L3NC
Amazon AU:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Bird-Snare-Lord-Hani-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B08682L3NC
Barnes and Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bird-in-a-snare-nl-holmes/1136704008
Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/bird-in-a-snare
iBooks:
https://books.apple.com/us/book/bird-in-a-snare/id1503986661
Audio:
https://www.audible.com/search?keywords=bird+in+a+snare&ref=a_search_t1_header_search
LINKS:
Bird in a Snare (Book 1): https://books2read.com/u/3n2YL9
The Crocodile Makes No Sound
(Book 2): https://books2read.com/u/47QZpL
Scepter of Flint (Book 3): https://books2read.com/u/4jPDjZ
The North Wind Descends (Book 4):
https://books2read.com/u/bPy5Md
Lake of Flowers (Book 5): https://books2read.com/u/3Ly0MX
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| About the Author |
N.L. Holmes is the pen name of a professional archaeologist who received her doctorate from Bryn Mawr College. She has excavated in Greece and in Israel and taught ancient history and humanities at the university level for many years. She has always had a passion for books, and in childhood, she and her cousin (also a writer today) used to write stories for fun.
Social Media Links:
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Twitter Handles: @nlholmesbooks @maryanneyarde
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Hashtags: #HistoricalFiction #HistoricalMystery #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub
Tour Schedule Page:
https://maryanneyarde.blogspot.com/2021/12/blog-tour-bird-in-snare-lord-hani.html
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Website: https://helenhollick.net/
Amazon Author Page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick
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