NCERT Solutions for Class 9th Social Science Chapter 4 Fig. 4.32, Social hierarchy Pyramid — LET'S EXPLORE
Book page 87 Updated on2026-09-08
Q1.
Look at the social hierarchy pyramid in the image. What were the social classes of early Egypt? What were the different kinds of occupations? What could have been a typical daily routine of the people from each class?
Answer
(a) The social classes. Fig. 4.32 prints exactly four tiers, from the narrow top to the wide base:
Fig. 4.32 as printed. The shape carries the argument: each tier down is wider, so most Egyptians were at the bottom.
(b) The occupations — read from the figures drawn inside each tier.
Class
Who is drawn in the tier
Occupations
Pharaoh
A single figure holding a staff
Ruler of Egypt; the chapter adds that the Sed festival marked a king's 30th year on the throne, and that festivals celebrated the pharaoh's rule
Government Officials, Nobles and Priests
Four figures — some carrying staffs and fans and wearing gold, one in plain white linen
Administration, collecting and recording revenue, running the temples and the rituals; the priests are the ones with access to the sacred spaces
Free Landholders, Artisans and Merchants
A woman carrying a basket on her head; a kneeling craftsman; two men carrying a loaded litter; a person working at an object
Farming one's own land; craft work — potters, weavers, sandal-makers, basket-makers, jewellers; trading and carrying goods
Serfs and Slaves
Figures with sheaves of grain; a man ploughing behind a red ox; a man carrying a yoke with two vessels; men hauling a sledge with a heavy block
Ploughing, harvesting, carrying water, hauling stone for building — the physical labour on which everything above rests
(c) A typical day — clearly labelled as reconstruction. No timetable survives, so this is built from what the chapter does tell us: the Nile flood and the farming year, ditch-digging and dam-building as collective work, temple ritual and festivals, craft production, pyramid building, and the leisure activities it lists — swimming, canoeing, board games, music and dancing.
Sample answer:
Class
Morning
Midday
Evening
Pharaoh
Ritual duties; receives officials with reports on the level of the Nile, the harvest and the storehouses
Decisions on building works, on the army, on grain stores; audiences
Attends a festival in which a god's statue is paraded to the sound of the sistrum; music and feasting
Official or priest
The priest performs the morning rites at the temple; the official reads and writes records on papyrus
Supervises the measuring of fields and the collection and storage of grain; settles disputes
Checks the day's accounts; oversees the temple's evening ritual and its stores
Landholder, artisan or merchant
The farmer opens the ditches to let Nile water into the fields; the potter and the sandal-maker begin work; the merchant loads goods for the river journey
Craft work continues; goods are exchanged; the family's meal of bread, beer, fish and vegetables
Repairs to tools and to the house; board games, music, a swim in the river
Serf or slave
Out at first light — ploughing behind an ox, sowing, or carrying water on a shoulder yoke
Heavy labour through the hottest hours: harvesting, threshing, or hauling stone on sledges for a royal building
Returns late; a simple meal; rest — with the same work waiting at dawn
The point the pyramid shape is making. Widen the tiers going down and you are saying something about numbers: a very few at the top, a great many at the bottom. But surplus flows the other way — the grain the base grows and the stone the base hauls support the two tiers above it. The chapter shows the same structure in Mesopotamia, where entry to the ziggurat was 'restricted to high priests and priestesses, who were probably a part of the ruling class, reflecting a clear division of social hierarchy', and in China, where by 1500 BCE society was 'highly stratified with the ruling class, nobles, and aristocrats at the top, followed by farmers and labourers'. Once there is a surplus, someone controls it — and every Bronze Age civilisation in this chapter developed a hierarchy independently.
One qualification the chapter itself supplies. Rank was not the only thing that decided a life. Egyptian women 'in general enjoyed more rights than their Greek or Roman counterparts, as they could own property and run businesses' — Cleopatra (69–30 BCE) was trained from childhood to rule and became queen at eighteen. A single pyramid diagram flattens differences of this kind; mention them so your answer does not.