Egyptian Artisanry

Egyptian Egyptian ArtisanryArtisanry

• Artisans only produced work for higher class people.

• The same basic materials were used throughout the Egyptian period.

• Woodwork:– Cabinet makers for the rich;

– Lower classes made their own basic furniture

– Shipwrights also for the rich

• Metalwork:

–Gold, silver, electrum, iron, copper, bronze;

–Smelting of copper and tin for bronze, and later of iron;

–Used for funerary items and jewellery for the rich.

• Stone Masons

– Worked on temples, houses and tombs for the higher classes,

– Sculpture for Royalty (‘advertising’),

– Draftsmen and masons separate jobs,

– Stone was polished and painted,

– Bronze saws 3metres long, set with jewels, and jewelled drills used.

Weights and Measures• Standardisation very important for trade

• The DEBEN was a standard of weight/worth

• It was used as a ‘proto-currency’ (“almost-money”)

• Sets of bronze rings were kept as a ‘base’ for exchange (they weren’t exchanged)

• Most Egyptians lived at subsistence level, so could not ‘afford’ luxuries

• (the basically grew enough to feed themselves, with a bit extra for tax),

• 60kg of wheat = Two Deben of Copper

Conversion rates:

• 1/12 deben = one Seniu

• 1 seniu of silver = 8 deben of copper

• 1 loaf of bread = 1 deben of copper

• 1 litre of beer = ½ deben of copper

• Foreman earned 15 sacks of corn (4 ½ deben)

• Worker earned 11 sacks

Taxes

• Temples owned 1/3 of all land and were exempt from tax

• Grain was heavily taxed (and the redistributed by government)

• Peasants were taxed the most heavily

Imports

Product From

Ornaments, oils, wine Afghanistan

Cedar Lebanon

Olive oil, pottery Mediterranean

Gold, ivory, ebony Nubia

Silver Palestine

Incense, resin Punt

Copper, turquoise, malachite Sinai