"From The Wisdom of Anii: 'Make not thyself helpless in drinking in the beer shop.  For will not the words of thy report repeated slip out from thy mouth without thy knowing that thou has uttered them?  Falling down, thy limbs will be broken, and no one will give thee a hand to help thee up.  As for thy companions in the swilling of beer, they will get up and say, 'Outside with this drunkard!'."
"Tutankhamun's tomb contained an ancient 'first aid kit' with bandages and slings."
"Thuthmose III was a great hunter who claimed to have killed 120 elephants and 120 wild bulls in just an hour."
"The Nubian pharaoh Taharqua made his soldiers run cross country in the desert for 30 miles while he followed them in his chariot."
"Some Egyptian medical texts contain prescriptions for female contraceptives consisting of crocodile dung, honey, celery and cows milk."
"Ramses III claimed in one battle to have personally killed 12,535 of the enemy and taken 1000 prisoners."
"The oldest papyrus is the Prisse Papyrus from 2000 BC.  The longest Papyrus is the 'Great Harris' papyrus which measures 133 feet long.  The widest papyrus is 20 inches wide."
"The ancient Egyptians referred to the Nubians by the name 'Nehesy', which means 'burnt-faced'.  Tim Kendall notes that some have suggested the original root of this word may survive in Arabic and Hebrew as 'nehes' or 'blackish brown', and the Nubians in Egyptians paintings seemed always portrayed with a black or dark brown skin, as compared to the Egyptians which were shown with red or light brown skin."
"By the end of the Old Kingdom, Egypt's armies were mainly made up of Nubian mercenaries who eventually settled in Egypt and married Egyptian wives."
"Tim Kendall writes: 'Egypt's monarchy so declined in prestige and power that the Old Kingdom devolved into a series of quarreling fiefdoms.  Two centuries of political disunion and strife, known as the First Intermediate Period (c. 2250 - 2060 B.C.) ensued.  Nubian soldiers were now employed by all the rival Egyptian chiefs, and lawlessness reigned on the southern frontier.'"
"Tim Kendall writes: 'The name Kush first appears in a monumental inscription set up about 1950 B.C. near the fortress of Buhen to commemorate the reconquest of Lower Nubia by Sesostris I.  Here Kush heads a list of nine other places that are depicted as bound enemy captives being presented to the king by the war god Montu.'"
"The women of Kush wore many necklaces and amulets around their necks and adorned their hair with circling beads.  They wore leather skirts decorated with beaded designs and many bracelets on their arms, anklets on their legs, and fine leather sandals on their feet."
"Tim Kendall writes: 'According to a late Second Intermediate Period Egyptian text, gold flies were among the prizes awarded a warrior by the pharaoh for heroism in battle . . . perhaps to one who was judged to have comported himself like a fly which torments its foe mercilessly and fearlessly.'  Four such sets of fly amulets were found at Kerma, the capital of the early Kushite empire."
"Tim Kendall writes: 'The Kushite kings of Egypt were remembered in later ages for their great piety and reverence for the Egyptian gods and all aspects of Egyptian civilization . . . To their Egyptian subjects, they proudly presented themselves as the successors of the great pharaohs of the past, who, like them, claimed to be sons of this god (an ancient god resident in Nubia).'"
"Kushite dead were placed in round pits within one or two days of death which were then covered over with a low mound, and then covered with white pebbles.  Sometimes the whole mound was ringed with black pebbles.  The bigger the mound, the more important the owner.  In early burials the deceased was placed on cowhides but later on wooden beds  -- some of them finely made and carved."
"The ancient Nubians looked much like their modern counterparts with black curly hair and dark brown skin.  Child mortality was high and many Nubians died before even reaching 20 years old.  Tim Kendall notes: 'Interestingly, serious bruises and broken bones are frequent among males, but no such injuries are found among the females.  This indicates that men and women had dramatically different occupations.  As Egyptian texts imply, many Nubian men were professional soldiers, at least during their youth, and the wounds were almost certainly the result of rough military activities.'"
"Kushite graves often contain adult ewes or rams placed at the southern ends of the grave pits.  These animals wear 'a strange apparatus on their heads: a spherical topknot of ostrich feathers secured by thongs that passed through holes in the tips of their horns and terminated in fancy, colored beadwork tassels'.  Some of these animals also have red ochre designs painted on their bodies."
"Royal Kushite graves contain multiple human sacrifices -- women, children, but rarely men.  'From the positions of their bodies, it is clear that many stepped into the grave, lay down beside the deceased . . . covered themselves with a cowhide, and allowed themselves to be buried by the mourners at the graveside.'    One king's tomb contained more than 322 such sacrifices -- supposedly from among the royal servants."
"The Egyptian hieroglyphic system had less of an impact on other cultures than Sumerian and Babylonian cuneiform, but some think that it did influence the Cretan and Hittite writing systems.  In the Protosinaitic and Meroitic (The language of the Kushites) there was direct borrowing of symbols. There seems to be a direct link between Protosinaitic and the Caananite and Phoenician alphabets, which formed the basis for Greek, which in turn formed the basis for Latin.  Some believe that the ancient hieroglyphs live on within our own alphabet -- The 'M' coming from the hieroglyph for water, for instance, and the 'O' from the eye symbol or perhaps the sun symbol, etc."
"The 'Pyramid Texts', the oldest body of religious writings known, are found inscribed on the walls of the pyramids of the Fifth and Sixth dynasty."
"The 'sa' symbol in ancient Egyptian appears to be, judging from tomb paintings, a representation of a papyrus life-preserver which the boatmen wore over their shoulders and head.  It was a symbol of 'protection.'"
"One reason lapis lazuli was valued by the Egyptians was because its deep blue color and flecking of gold speckles were symbolic of the night sky and its many stars."
"The Egyptians kept bees in long hollow tubes for hives and honey was collected by calming the bees with smoke -- much like today."
"The frog was the sacred symbol of Heket, the goddess of childbirth, and its image was often found on magical knives which were placed on the wombs of pregnant women and newborn children for protection.  Both the frog and the fish symbolized rebirth and 'repeating life' and were adopted by Christian Egyptians as symbols of the resurrection."
"The Egyptians believed the heart held the essence of a person's life and was therefore not removed in the mummification process.  A close friend was termed 'ak-ieb' which means 'one who has entered the heart'"
"The Egyptians saw the constellation 'The Big Dipper' (Ursa Major) as the shape of a foreleg and was referred to by them as 'The Foreleg'."
"Ancient Egyptian writing contains three types of signs -- 'logograms', which specifies a complete word; 'phonograms', which represent a sound; and 'determinatives', which help indicate meaning and sense.  Their writing, like the Semitic languages, contained no vowels, but consisted of 24 consonants (in the Middle Kingdom)."
"Egyptian appears to have been derived from 'Akkadian' (A Semitic language spoken in Mesopotamia).  Scholars date the separation of the two languages as late as 6000 B.C., but as early as 12,000 B.C"
"Writing makes its first appearance in Egypt right at the end of the Predynastic period, just before the First Dynasty, during a time of great cultural change, technological innovation, and centralization of government around a central royal court.  The most likely source of knowledge was from Elam or Mesopotamia, but it seems to have been the idea of a written language, rather than the system itself, that was borrowed."
"'Meroitic' was the native language of the people of Kush.  So named by archaeologists because the later capital of Kush was at Meroe (now Begrawiya in the Sudan), much of their language and writing system is still unknown.  However, we have learned some of their system by isolating well known names and places in the Meroitic texts -- such as the names of a king and queen of Meroe whose names appear on a monument from Ban Naqa (in the Sudan) written in both Egyptian and Meroitic." 
"The Egyptians gave colorful names to their armies.  A quote from a narrative of Sethos: 'Thereupon His Majesty sent the first army of Amun 'Powerful of Bows' to the town of Hamath, the first army of Pre 'Manifold of Bravery' to the town of Bethshael, and the first army of Sutekh 'Victorious of Bows' to the town of Yenoam.'"
"The Egyptians called the ocean the 'Great-Green'.  A passage from Akenhaten's great hymn reads:  'Thou hast set a Nile-flood in the sky, and it descendeth for them and maketh waves upon the mountains like the 'Great-Green' to drench their fields in their villages.'"
"Kamose expresses his frustration and decides to take the offensive against he Asiatics: 'His Majesty spoke in his palace to the council of grandees who were in his suite 'I should like to know what serves this strength of mine, when a chieftain is in Avaris, and another in Kush, and I sit united with an Asiatic and a Nubian, each man in possession of his slice of this Egypt, and I cannot pass by him as far as Memphis.  See he holds Khmun, and no man has respite from spoliation through servitude to Setyu.  I will grapple with him and slit open his belly.  My desire is to deliver Egypt and smite the Asiatics.'"
"Ramesses, upon seeing himself abandoned by his troops in battle against the Hittites prays to Amun: 'What ails thee, my father Amun?  Is it a father's part to ignore his son?  Have I done anything without thee, do I not walk and halt at thy bidding?  I have not disobeyed any course commanded by thee.  How great is the great lord of Egypt to allow foreigners to draw nigh in his path!  What careth thy heart, O Amun, for these Asiatics so vile and ignorant of God?'"
"Tim Kendall writes: 'A third mehen game appears in the Sixth Dynasty tomb of Idu at Giza.  Here, one wall depicts the owner, seated in a stationary palanquin, gazing upon four registers of figures, engaged in physical sports, groups of dancers, musicians, and hand clappers, and three boardgames:  a mehen between two senet games, each played by a pair of players . . . the words above the scene are evidently those of the player on the right, who merely states: 'I am playing mehen against you.'"
"Tim Kendall writes: 'In Pyramid Text 332 . . . the king is said to have 'come forth from Mehen, having come (away) from his fiery breath.'  The king's journey is then likened to 'traveling to the two skies' and 'returning to the Two Lands.'"
"Tim Kendall writes: 'Spells 758-60 of the Coffin Texts speak of 'the Roads of Mehen', as though the coils of the great serpent were pictured as a series of circling roads, leading to the sun god, who sat enthroned at their center."
"Tim Kendall writes: 'If we imagine the 'gates' on the 'roads of Mehen' as squares or spaces on the gameboard, Spells 759 and 760 sound almost as though they were describing a mehen game:  'Make way for me; open the gates for me, oh you who are in Mehen, for I know the circuit of Re and those gates which are in him.  As for one who knows the name of those his roads, it is he who will enter Mehen.  As for one who knows this spell, he does not perish forever; he will live on that which Re lives''"
"There are two late period mehen tomb paintings.  Tim Kendall writes: 'One might assume from these scenes that mehen had continued to be played until the Late Period, were it not for the fact that the relief style is so deliberately archaizing, a popular trend of the time.  In this, both scenes seem almost pure re-creations of the Old Kingdom style . . . In the tomb of Ibi, the two players nearest the mehen board look away from it . . . In the Walters relief, all four players look away from the board . . .  From these scenes it is impossible to know whether the ancient game is actually being played . . . or are deliberately ignoring (the game) as if to recognize its ancient significance as a game but to acknowledge that it must no longer be played for ritual reasons.'"
"An ancient Egyptian love song: 'The love of my sister is upon yonder side, a stretch of water is between us both, and a crocodile waiteth on the sandbank.  But when I go down into the water, I tread upon the flood; mine heart is courageous upon the waters . . . and the water is like land to my feet.  Her love, it is, that maketh me so strong; yea, it maketh the water-spell for me.'"
"Advice from the Instruction of Kagemni: 'Be not boastful of thy strength in the midst of those of thine own age.  Be on thy guard against any withstanding thee.  One knoweth not what may chance, what God doeth when He punisheth.'"
"Advice from the Instruction of Ptahhotep: 'If thou art a man of note, that sitteth in the council of his lord, fix thine heart upon what is good.  Be silent -- this is better than tefteh flowers.  Speak only if thou knowest that thou canst unravel the difficulty.'"
"Advice from the Instruction of Ptahhotep: 'If thou desirest thy conduct to be good, to set thyself free from all that is evil, then beware covetousness, which is a malady, diseaseful, incurable.  Intimacy with it is impossible; it maketh the sweet friend bitter, it alienateth the trusted one from the master, it maketh bad both father and mother, together with the brothers of the mother, it divorceth a man's wife.  It is a bundle of every kind of evil and a bag of everything that is blameworthy.'"
"Advice from the Instruction for King Merikere: 'More acceptable to God is the virtue of one that is just of heart than the ox of him that doeth iniquity.'"
"From Pyramid Text 257 in which the deceased ascends to the sky and even the gods tremble at his greatness: 'The gods are afraid of him, for he is older than the Great One.  He it is that hath power over his seat.  He layeth hold on Command, Eternity is brought to him.  Discernment is placed for him at his feet.  Cry aloud to him in joy, he hath captured the horizon.'"
"From Pyramid Texts 273 and 274 in which, strangely, the deceased devours the gods: 'He hath broken up the backbones and the spinal marrow, he hath taken away the hearts of the gods.  He hath eaten the Red Crown, he hath swallowed the Green One.  He feedeth on the lungs of the Wise Ones; he is satisfied with living on their hearts and their magic . . . He hath swallowed the understanding of every god . . . His duration is eternity and his boundary everlastingness . . . Lo, their soul is in his belly, their lordliness is with him.'"
"From the Wisdom of Anii: 'Take to thyself a wife when thou art a youth, that she may give thee a son.  Thou shouldest beget him for thee whilst thou are yet young, and shouldest live to see him become a man.  Happy is the man who hath much people, and he is respected because of his children.'"
"From the Wisdom of Anii: 'Double the bread thou givest to thy mother, and carry her as she carried thee.  She had a heavy load in thee, and never left it to me.  When thou waste born after thy months, she carried thee yet again about her neck, and for three years her breast was in thy mouth.  She was not disgusted at thy dung.'"
"From the Wisdom of Anii: 'Make for thyself a fair abode in the desert-valley, the deep which will hide thy corpse . . . Death cometh to thee . . . he placeth himself in front of thee.  Say not: 'I am too young for thee to carry off,' for thou knowest not thy death.  Death cometh and leadeth away the babe that is still in the bosom of its mother, even as a man when he hath become old.'"
"From the Wisdom of Anii: 'Eat not bread, if another is suffering want, and thou dost not stretch out the hand to him with bread. . .  One is rich the other is poor . . . He that was rich in past years, is this year a groom.  Be not greedy in filling thy belly.  The course of the water of last year, it is this year another place.  Great seas have become dry places, and banks have become abysses.'"