Prehistoric Men

by Robert J. Braidwood

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE

A culture lasts, although individual men in the group die off. On the other hand, a culture changes as the different conventions and understandings change. You could almost say that a culture lives in the minds of the men who have it. But people are not born with it; they get it as they grow up. Suppose a day-old Hungarian baby is adopted by a family in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and the child is not told that he is Hungarian. He will grow up with no more idea of Hungarian culture than anyone else in Oshkosh.

So when I speak of ancient Egyptian culture, I mean the whole body of understandings and beliefs and knowledge possessed by the ancient Egyptians. I mean their beliefs as to why grain grew, as well as their ability to make tools with which to reap the grain. I mean their beliefs about life after death. What I am thinking about as culture is a thing which lasted in time. If any one Egyptian, even the Pharaoh, died, it didn’t affect the Egyptian culture of that particular moment.