How Much Was a Loaf of Bread? The Real Cost of Living in Ancient Egypt

How Much Was a Loaf of Bread? The Real Cost of Living in Ancient Egypt

Ever looked at your grocery receipt, stared at the price of bread and thought, “This is getting ridiculous”?
Now imagine having that same reaction… 3,000 years ago on the banks of the Nile.

In this episode, we dive into the real cost of living in Ancient Egypt through the most ordinary thing on the table: a loaf of bread.
Forget mummies and treasure-hunting clichés – this is the story of scribes, bakers, workers, corrupt officials, low Nile floods, strikes, and quiet acts of rebellion, all seen through what it took to put bread on a family’s table.

You’ll see how:

Wages were paid in grain, bread and beer, not coins

A bad Nile flood could turn rations into weapons

Temples and royal prestige quietly drained everyday granaries

The first recorded workers’ strike in history began with missing bread

One cautious scribe chose to save the truth on papyrus

We follow:

Hori, a royal scribe torn between loyalty and conscience

Nefru, a village baker stretching shrinking grain into enough loaves

Panehsy, a granary official discovering how profitable “shortages” can become

This is history told like a story, not a school lecture.
Static visuals – paintings, maps, artifacts – are brought to life through atmospheric narration: the smell of baking bread, dust in the granary light, the murmur of a hungry crowd at temple gates.

🧠 About AI in this video

The script, text, voiceover and generated images in this video were created with the help of artificial intelligence and then curated and assembled by a human creator.
Historical information is based on current research, but this is still a creative interpretation, not an academic lecture.