The iconic blue and white headcloth, that so often features in modern artistic renderings of the Egyptian Pharaohs, was most commonly worn by the rulers of the Middle Kingdom.

In ancient Egyptian art, royal scribes and government officials are often depicted as being extremely fat. This was done to demonstrate the scribe’s wealth (he was evidently well-fed) and his exemption from manual labor (he did not work with his hands). This may be understood as related to the way in which ancient Egyptian rulers used art and iconography to control their population and create certain images of authority.

A shawabti is a small figurine of a servant. They were generally buried with a deceased ruler (often in large numbers) to serve him in the afterlife. It was expected that the Shawabti would spring to life in the underworld and serve the Pharaoh for eternity. Most Shawabtis were made of wood beginning in the Middle Kingdom (earlier Shawabtis had been made of stone).

A sistrum is a musical instrument specific to ancient Egypt. It is best described as a rattle. The ancient Egyptians shook sistrums during religious rituals to provide musical accompaniment to the proceedings. Music was an important component of Egyptian communal worship, especially during the New Kingdom and later.

The Egyptians believed that disease was caused by malignant spirits. Specifically, they believed that deceased people could be hostile to the living and that these dead spirits punished the living by spreading disease. The Egyptians conceived of protection against disease as like warding off evil spirits.

Depictions of pregnant women are almost completely absent from the record of ancient Egyptian art. Women in ancient Egypt were universally depicted as young and fertile and were never shown to be pregnant or middle aged. This was probably done as a form of social control, to emphasize the significance of women of childbearing age and to diminish the importance of older women.

False beards were often worn by some Pharaohs to emphasize their divinity. The Gods, such as Osiris, were often depicted with a long, false beard, and so the Pharaohs of the Middle and New Kingdom began to wear false beards themselves. This might be understood as part of how ancient Egyptian rulers used images and iconography to cement their authority and reinforce their association with the Gods.

Ma'at, the central truth or justice of the Ancient Egyptian religion, was personified as a goddess whose main activity was to weigh the souls of the dead. In some earlier references she is figured as the deity who put the events of the universe into their initial order.

Nepr and Nepit were the god and goddess of grain. Osiris was the god of death and resurrection, and Anhur was the god of hunting.

In the ancient Egyptian pantheon of God, Isis was the Goddess of fertility and motherhood. She was one of the most widely worshipped deities in ancient Egypt and worship of her spread throughout the later Greco-Roman world (particularly in certain parts of the Roman Empire). Isis was thought to be the wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus.