Ancient Egyptian Attitudes Toward Foreigners: A Survey
This paper examines ancient Egyptian attitudes toward foreigners by drawing on scholarship from Bruce Trigger, Mu-chou Poo, and Muzhou Pu, as well as primary literary sources including the Teaching for Merikare, the Prophecy of Neferti, and the Doomed Prince. The analysis reveals a complex interplay of cultural pride, religious taboo, and ethnic contempt — particularly directed at Asiatics and Greeks. The paper traces how Egyptian identity was defined by language, culture, and religious practice rather than physical characteristics, and shows how this definition consistently placed foreigners in a subordinate or threatening role throughout Egyptian history from the Middle Kingdom through the Late Period.
- Introduction: Foreigners in Ancient Egypt: Who counted as a foreigner and why
- Greek and Cultural Contempt: Egyptian disgust for Greek customs and contamination
- Religious Hostility and Ethnic Bias: Khnum priests, Jewish mercenaries, and religious taboo
- Attitudes in Art, Literature, and Political Texts: Asiatic contempt in texts, art, and royal instruction
- Foreign Language and Cultural Assimilation: Using Egyptian as a path to social integration
- Conclusion: Synthesis of Egyptian xenophobia across history
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What makes this paper effective
- It draws on a well-selected range of primary texts — including the Teaching for Merikare, Prophecy of Neferti, and the Doomed Prince — allowing the argument to rest on direct ancient evidence rather than modern interpretation alone.
- The paper balances multiple scholarly voices (Trigger, Poo, Pu) to triangulate a consistent argument about Egyptian cultural superiority without relying on a single authority.
- Quoted passages from ancient texts are integrated effectively, with brief analytical commentary following each to connect evidence to the paper's central claim.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates evidence-driven synthesis: it assembles passages from several independent scholarly sources and ancient texts, then shows how each reinforces the same thesis — that Egyptian attitudes toward foreigners were defined by cultural pride and religious taboo rather than racial categories. This method of converging evidence strengthens an argument without requiring a single definitive source.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a contextual introduction establishing who counted as a foreigner in ancient Egypt, then moves through specific categories of contempt: cultural disgust toward the Greeks, religious hostility toward Jews, literary and artistic contempt for Asiatics, and finally the question of assimilation through language. A brief conclusion ties the historical analysis to broader reflections on Egyptian society. The structure is broadly thematic, organized by type of evidence rather than strict chronology.
Introduction: Foreigners in Ancient Egypt
Author Bruce Trigger, a professor of anthropology, explains that during the Late Period of Egyptian history foreigners accounted for "a sizeable proportion of the population of Egypt" (Trigger, 1983, 316). Included among the foreigners living in Egypt — anyone who could not speak Egyptian was considered a foreigner — were "merchants, mercenaries, travelers, students, allies and conquerors" (Trigger, 316). What was the Egyptian response to the presence of foreigners? According to the literature surveyed by Trigger, there was a "complex interplay of prejudice, ideology, pride and self-interest," and pride and self-interest were the attitudes that exerted the greatest influence.
In terms of Egyptian ethnicity, Trigger references Herodotus' writings, which pointed out that everyone was Egyptian "who lived north of Elephantine and drank the waters of the Nile" (316). Herodotus' descriptions of foreigners did not rest on racial considerations; rather, foreigners were judged and described based on "domicile and culture, not physical characteristics" (Trigger, 316). As to culture, Egyptians found it contemptible that foreigners: (a) had poor eating habits "considered disgraceful" because they did not conform to Egyptian customs; (b) did not write from right to left but instead, as the Greeks did, wrote from left to right; and (c) tossed the heads of sacrificed cattle — which had been "heaped with curses" — into the river, or sold them to the Greeks (Trigger, 316).
Greek and Cultural Contempt
The ancient Greeks were certainly not widely accepted by the Egyptians. Trigger notes that Egyptians abstained from kissing Greek women or men on the mouth. Ancient Egyptians disliked the Greeks so passionately that they would not use Greek knives, spits, or cooking pots; moreover, Trigger asserts that Egyptians "would not touch any meat cut with Greek knives because all of these items might have been contaminated by contact with slain cows" (316). Herodotus wrote that the Egyptian attitude toward foreigners was a "mixture of cultural superiority and distaste," but that distaste went beyond the merely social and pragmatic. As Trigger paraphrases Herodotus, the distaste Egyptians felt for foreigners was "powerfully reinforced by religious taboos" (316).
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