Egypt Facts

In Ancient Egypt, some people paid their taxes in honey.

Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone!

In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.

The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.

Cleopatra wasn't Egyptian; she was Greek.

Ancient Egyptians adorned sacred crocodiles with gold jewelry, including bracelets and earrings.

Cleopatra married two of her brothers.

Ancient Egypt had at least 17 documented types of beer by 2400 B.C., including thick, sweet, dark, and date beers.

The oldest known Cinderella story comes from ancient Egypt, predating the European versions by over 2,000 years.

The ancient Egyptians believed the brain's primary function was to produce mucus, which is why they discarded it during mummification while carefully preserving the heart.

Honey never spoils. Archaeologists have found 3,000-year-old honey in Egyptian tombs that was still perfectly edible.

Honey does not spoil. It has been found in Egyptian pyramids perfectly preserved and still edible.

Sisa Abu Daooh, an Egyptian woman, disguised herself as a man for 43 years after her husband passed away so she could work and provide for her daughter. She worked as a shoe shiner, brick layer, and farmer. When she was finally revealed in 2015, the Egyptian government didn't punish her — they awarded her the "Ideal Mother" prize on national television.

The Library of Alexandria held up to 700,000 scrolls. To fill it, guards searched every ship in the harbor, seized any books on board, and kept the originals. It wasn't destroyed in one fire - it died over 500 years. Less than 1% of ancient Greek writing survives. Sophocles wrote 120 plays. Only 7 made it.

Abu Simbel's colossal temples were carved by Ramesses II 3,200 years ago. When Egypt's Aswan Dam threatened to flood them, Egypt and 48 nations raised $40 million. Engineers sliced the temples into 1,000+ blocks - some weighing 30 tons - then rebuilt everything 65 meters higher. The solar alignment still works.

Thutmose II's lost tomb was found near Luxor in 2025. It was the first king's tomb found in the Theban hills since King Tutankhamun's - over 100 years earlier. Ancient floods damaged it and priests removed most of its contents. But fragments of the blue ceiling with its yellow stars survived 3,500 years. Those stars are only found in kings' tombs.

King Tut's complete tomb collection is on display all together for the first time. Howard Carter found all 5,398 pieces in 1922. For a century, most sat in storage - Cairo's old museum showed only about a third. Egypt's Grand Egyptian Museum, beside the Giza pyramids, opened in November 2025 with all of it under one roof. A century after being found, it's all together at last.