How tall was the average Egyptian? (2023)

How tall was the average Egyptian?

Nevertheless, over this whole period they found that the mean height (of their sample of 150 skeletons) was 157.5cm (or 5ft 2in) for women and 167.9cm (or 5ft 6in) for men, quite like today.

The Egyptian men are the third shortest among the Middle Eastern countries, with an average male height of 170cm, coming after Kuwaitis and Iraqis whose average height is 169cm and 165cm respectively, according to a study co-authored by an 800-person team along with the World Health Organization (WHO).

Overall, the average height of kings was a steady 166 cm (5.44 feet), featuring much less variations compared to the general population.

According to the findings in the Royal Society Open Science journal, early humans ranged from the broad, gorilla-like paranthropus to the thinner australopithecus afarensis. The hominins from four million year ago weighed 25kg on average and stood just over 4ft tall.

In the prehistoric populations, the maximum height for men was 165 to 170 cm, while women topped out at 160 cm. Today, by comparison, men in England have an average height of around 175 cm, while for women it is about 162 cm.

People in ancient Egypt did not grow very old. Very high infant death rates due to high risks of infections resulted in an average age at death of 19 years. However those who survived childhood had a life expectancy of 30 years for women* and 34 years for men.

Remember the average life for a man in the Ancient Rome's times was about 40… Even the average height was shorter than today's Romans: around 5'5”!

How tall was the average Roman woman?

Killgrove said in her post that, while she thinks the male estimate seems right, the female estimate might be a bit off. Roman women were only about 5 feet 2 inches tall on average, and size 10 is quite large comparable to that stature.

Angel's anthropological studies of Greek skeletal remains give mean heights for Classical Greek males of 170.5 cm or 5' 7.1" (n = 58) and for Hellenistic Greek males of 171.9 cm or 5' 7.7" (n = 28), and his figures have been corroborated by further studies of material from Corinth and the Athenian Kerameikos.

An anthropometric survey of Dinka men, war refugees in Ethiopia, published in 1995, found a mean height of 176.4 cm (5 ft 9.4 in). Other studies of comparative historical height data and nutrition place the Dinka as the tallest people in the world.

New Kingdom: 1550-1077 BCE

Around 1550 BCE, the New Kingdom period of Egyptian history began with the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt and the restoration of centralized political control. This period was Egypt's most prosperous time and marked the peak of its power.

Equestrian Indian tribes on the American Plains in the late 1800s were the tallest people in the world, suggesting that they were surprisingly well-nourished given disease and their lifestyle, a new study found.

Historical appearance

Judean men of the time period were on average about 1.65 metres or 5 feet 5 inches in height.

He may have stood about 5-ft. -5-in. (166 cm) tall, the average man's height at the time.

"The examination of skeletons from different localities in Scandinavia reveals that the average height of the Vikings was a little less than that of today: men were about 5 ft 7-3/4 in. tall and women 5 ft 2-1/2 in.

How tall were the ancient Native Americans?

According to a recent study published in The American Economic Review, they were then the tallest people in the world. Men stood an average 172.6 centimeters (about 5 feet, 8 inches) tall, a hair or two above Australian men (averaging 172 cm), American men of European decent (171 cm) and European men (170 cm or less).

The report says the average height of 19-year-old Chinese males is 175.7 centimeters, making them the fifth tallest in Asia and the tallest in East Asia; the average height of Chinese females is 163.5 cm, the tallest in the region.

The Lifespan of the Ancient Egyptians

The study of the anthropological evidence from several cemeteries as well as the census declarations from Roman Egypt defined the average life expectancy for males at 22.5-25 years and for females at 35-37 years.