Figure 1.--This is a modern representation of ancient Egyptian children at play. Here we see a boy and girl playing together. We do not know if that was common, but it probably was a home. The drawing does seem accurate. Younger children commonly went without clothing. We can see the different hair style of the boy and the girl. The toys depicted were actually found by the archeologists.

Egyptian children like all children liked to play. We do not know much about this because the surviving texts do not address the topic. And the images do not normally depict children playing. The imagery is much more formal, showing activies like farming that were imoortanht economically or culturally. We know, however, that the children did play because archeologists have found the toys boys and girls played with. We suspect that these were for younger children because the children began working at a fairly young age, leaving less time for play than modern children. We are less sure about the play activities of school-age boys. We do not know of sports in the modern sence. Activities like fishing and hunting were practiced, but they were not entirely recreational.