As archaeologists, we are often asked what it was like to live in the past. By blending a fictional narrative with factual archaeological evidence, we offer an interpretation of what a typical day may have been like living at Sai, a town on an island in the River Nile during the second millennium before the common era (BCE), in what is now Sudan. We focus on the question at different levels, thinking about the day-to-day life of the residents of an ancient town, activities that took place, and its broader historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. We also explain how archaeologists work and interpret some of the evidence we discuss, focusing on a range of methods. These include recent advances in virtual 3-D reconstruction, which offer a unique perspective on our interpretation of the past. Many themes covered in this article are highly relevant today and can be linked to several UN Sustainable Development Goals (in particular, 9, 11, and 12). We encourage readers to think about some of the things we discuss in relation to their own lives and experiences and have provided a number of call-out questions in speech bubbles throughout the article to get some of these discussions started.

作为考古学家，我们经常被问到过去的生活是什么样的。通过将虚构的叙述与真实的考古证据相结合，我们对公元前第二个千年（公元前）尼罗河岛屿上的小镇赛伊（Sai）的典型一天生活进行了解释。现在是苏丹。我们关注不同层面的问题，思考古镇居民的日常生活、发生的活动以及更广泛的历史、地理和文化背景。我们还解释了考古学家如何工作并解释我们讨论的一些证据，重点关注一系列方法。其中包括虚拟 3D 重建的最新进展，它为我们解释过去提供了独特的视角。本文涵盖的许多主题在今天都具有高度相关性，并且可以与多个联合国可持续发展目标（特别是 9、11 和 12）联系起来。我们鼓励读者思考我们讨论的一些与他们自己的生活和经历相关的事情，并在整篇文章的对话气泡中提供了一些标注问题，以开始其中的一些讨论。