Early education in Graeco-Roman Egypt was a lot more informal than education is today. Students would be provided with an education to suit the demands that later life was expected to place upon them. For instance, a child who was expected to become a tradesman or woman would be sent to apprentice with a master craftsman. Another child, expected to follow in his father's footsteps as an engineer might be provided a private tutor so that he might learn his letters and arithmetic. Some parents would send their children to village "schoolhouses" where they could attain an education that was appropriate to their social status.

Follow the links to learn more about different aspects of the children's educational experiences using the evidence left to us on the papyri, ostraca, and wooden tablets preserved in the University of Michigan Papyrus Collection.

Background	Curriculum	The Schoolhouse	Teachers & Students
Apprenticeships	Artifacts	The Gymnasium	UM Papyrology Home

 

Note: This site uses Unicode fonts to display Greek characters. For the full experience, enable Unicode encoding on your browser. In Internet Explorer, select View>Encoding>Unicode. In Safari, select View>Text Encoding>Unicode. It is best viewed with a screen resolution of 1280x1024.