i,

I

The Wsf Plots in the Wilbour Papyrus and RelatedDocuments : A Speculative Interpretation

SarrvL.D. IGrenv

Among the apportioning entries of TextA ofthe Wilbour Papyrus are more than 400 entries,described in the literature as Variety II and Sub-variety IIA, *rat detail agricultural plots measuredin land-cubits in contrast to the vast majority ofapportioning entries (Variety I, Sub-variety IA,and Variety I/II) that record plots measured inarourasl. Although discussed by a number ofscholars, these entries need to be more deeplyexplored in light of certain anomalies that canbe detected in both their form and distributionthroughout Text A. An examination of theanomalies involved will certainly not be able toresolve all problems involved to our satisfaction,but it may open up new avenues of inquiry thatwill further the eventual understanding of the

* Thorneloe College, Laurentian University.1. A.H. Gardiner, The Wi,hour Pap1rus,3 vol., Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1941-1948, vol. 4 Ind,exby Raylr.or.dO. Faulkner, 1952; Bernadette Menu, Le rigimz juridiEu dcs

terres et d,u personnel attachi d, kt, tene darc lz Paprus Wi,lbour,Lille: Universit6 de Lille, 1970; IA. Stuchvesky, Zzmled,el'tsy

gosud.arstaennogo khoq aista a drnnz go E gipta epokhi Ramzxid,w,The Cultivators of the State Economy in Ancient Egypt duringthe Ramesside Period, Moskla: Izdatel'swo " Nauka ,, 1982summarized in the review article byJac.J.Janssen, " AgrarianAdministration in Egypt During the Twentieth Dynasty ",

plots enumerated in the Wilbour Papyrus andthe rystem underwhich theywere cultivated. Thepaper that follows speculates on a possible inter-pretation of data supplied by the Wilbour Paplrusthat have so far escaped the necessary attentionthey deserve.

The Wilbour Pappus consists of rwo relatedhieratic documents, the larger of which is TextA, an official land register (dnit ?) of the measu-rement and assessment of revenues in grainexpected from some 2800 plots of institutionallyowned and administered agricultural land locatedin a continuous strip of Middle Eglpt in year 4 ofthe reign of a king who must be Ramesses V. Theplots are organized into two different types ofparagraphs, the apportioning paragraphs and

Bibliotluca (himtalis 43 / U,.1986, p. 35f -366; Salty L.D. Katary,Land, Tbnure i,n the Rarnessid,e Period, Lor,dor.: Kegan PaulInternational, 1989; See too BJJ. Haring, " TheAdministration of Temple Fields ", in Diaine Households:Ad,ministratiae and, Economic Aspects of the New Kingd,om furyalMemori,al Templ.es i,n Westem Thebes, Leiden: NederlandsInstituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1997, p. 281-326 and DavidB. O'Connor, " New Kingdom and Third.IntermediatePeriod, 1552-664 BC " in B.G. Trigger et al., Ancir.nt Egpt: ASocial History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983,p. f83-278, especially p. 203-232.

cRrPELzs (2005) r37

SarrvL.D.IGrARY

the non-apportioning paragraphs, and these areorganized into four Sections that follow a northto south geographic sequence, which reflectfourconsecutive periods of assessment fromJuly 8 to24 (Gregorian)2. With'n these sections, the plotsare rearranged according to their relationship togroups of related or affiliated land-owning,/admi-nistering institutions in the order of the House ofAmun, House of Re, and House of Ptah, follo-wed by smaller local temples, and secular insti-tutions. The tr,vo qpes of paragraphs denote diffe-rent schemes of cultivating the plots : thenon-apportioning paragraphs denote a collecti-vely organized scheme of cultivation under low-level agricultural administrators (" agents of thefisc ,,), whereas the apportioning paragraphsdenote the cultivation of plots by private small-holders who are individually identified by nameand occupationS. The much briefer Text B of theWilbour Papyms is a later addition to Text A anddeals only with varieties of khatolands of Pharaoh,cultivated by anonyrnous agricultural labourers(ifuwtyw) under the charge of supervisory offi-cials.

A striking point about the Wilbour Papyrusthat has a major impact upon the understandingof the documents and their purpose concernsthe area of the plots enumerated in Text A andText B. Early on, Fairman calculated that TextA

2. Jac.J.Janssen, " The Day the Inundation Began ,,J IES 46, 1987, p. 136 corrects Gardiner's dating in Wi,hourPap1rusll, p. 10, noting that .il likely refers to an administra-tive activity that would have occurred in an office.Janssenrefers to his earlier article, " Prolegomena to the Study ofEglpt's Economic History during the New Kingdom ", SAK3, 1975, p. 149, n. 9l where he proposed that the WilbourPapynrs was a " fair copy ". See H.W. Fairman, Review ofAlanH. Gardiner, Tht Wi.hou.r P alryrzrs, 3 vols., Oxford, I 94f -1 948,it JEA 39, f953, p. I l9; K Baer, " The Low Price of Land inAncient Egypt

", JARCE I, f962, p. 3940, 40, n. 98.3. Janssen, BiOr 43, 1986, p. 351-366.4. Fairman,rAES 39,1953, p. f f 9-120.5. W. Willcocks , Egptian Inigation, 2nd ed., London: E.

& F.N. Spon, Ltd.; New York: Spon & Chamberlain, 1899.Fairman cites the first edition, Table XVIII, p. 7l as provi-ding the oldest available data thatwould be, nevertheless, far

details plots amounting to a total of 17,324arouras or 11,260 feddan, which amounts to77,7T1 acres4. The area for the land of Text B,which is more difficult to estimate, appears tohave been no less than 74,420 arouras or 9,373feddan, which amounts to 9,748 acres. Datacollected by Willcocks indicate that for thegeographical area concerned, that is, thenorthern half of modern Minia Province and allof Beni Suef Province (excluding the Falyumwhere data are difEcult to come by), a total areaof cultivable landof 453,329 feddan is indicated5.This means that the area represented by the plotsenumerated in the Wilbour Papyrus comes farshort of the total cultivated area.

In the apportioning paragraphs, plots measu-red both in land-cubits and arouras are ascribedto privileged, individual " smallholders " or. piivate possessors , of a wide variety of occu-pational designations under the aegis of variousreligious and secular land-owning/administeringinstitutions with responsibility for the adminis-tration of the revenues these institutions, and ulti-mately the state, could expect to receive fromtheir harvest6. It is probable that these plots werelet on long-term leases to smallholders who wereessentially private owners in that they could sellor sublet the plots and hand them down genera-tion to generationT. Possibly the institutions were

in excess ofpharaonic figures, as he admits.6. Haring, Diaine Households, p. 300-301 questions the

applicability of the modern terms < taxation , and ( state >

in the context of New Kingdom economic documents since

" both 'taxation' and 'state' in ancient Egypt are illdefinedmatters. " This is in contrast to Stucher,sky who considered allland recorded in the Wilbour Papyms as state land wherefields of temples are merely " a special type of state property >

(summarized inJanssen, BiOr43,19B6, p. 353) and said that

" [a]ll grain taxes, from state-owned land as well as from bothcategories of private possessors, are collected in the StateGranary " (p. 354). Stuchevsky does maintain that" [a]lthough Pharaoh appears in the texts as the owner ofthe landed properties of-the state and head of the stateeconomy, this is purely theory resulting from the fact thatthe notion 'state' had not yet developed " (p. 354).

7. Gardiner, Wilbour Pa!ryrus II, p. 75tr.

138 cRrPELzs (2005)

TTTE, I44sT'pLoTs m TTTT WTLBOUR PAPyRUS AND REI-AIED DOCUMENTS

required by the state to offer such leases sincetheir return on the plots was extremely low andwould not financially benefit the institutionsnearly so well as plots cultilated in the non-appor-tioning domains with substantially higher assess-

ment rates8. The wilbour accountant's use of twodifferent land measures within the same text toprovide the area of the plots enumerated in theapportioning paragraphs suggests that there wasa signi{icant difference between plots measuredin land-cubits and those measured in arouras.There must have been a compelling reason todistinguish two categories of cultivable farmlandamong the apportioning entries.

Even the briefest perusal of the apportioningdata reveals that all the entries of plots measuredin arouras (s/j/) of Variety I and Sub-.variety IAterminate in a measure of grain, written in redink, that is invariably 1 2/4mc (per aroura) andinterpreted as 12/4b3r " sacks " (of grain), dueas collectible revenues from the harvested crop.The presence of the grain measure as the finalitem of the entry ensures that the plots are to beunderstood as grain producing. This notationstands in stark contrast to entries of apportionedplots measured in land-cubits, however, whichnever incorporate a measure of grain. Nomeasure whatsoever accompanies the data ofthese entries to indicate what unit of measurewould be appropriate to the crop assessed (if any)or, for that matter, that any revenue at all wasexpected as forthcoming from the harvest ofthese plots.

The 1193 aroura measured Variety I entriesconsist of three figures, the first black, *re secondand third redg. The figure in black represents

8. David B. O'Connor, " The Social and EconomicOrganization of Ancient Egyptian Temples ", in JackM. Sasson, editor-in-chief, Cioilizations of the Ancient NearEast,Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1995, vol. I &2, p.323.

9. The number of cases cited for the di{ferent categoriesof entries will differ slightly fiom those given in the frequency

the size of the plot measured in arouras. Thesecond figure in red ink is also a value in arouras,but consistently very much smaller than the first,while the third figure, also in red ink, is a measureof grain invariably written. This red rate figure isundoubtedly to be interpreted as the u sack ,(fu.3r), to be applied to the second aroura figureor assessed value of the plotI0. The black arourafigure is occasionally preceded by the word<< aroura ,, but, more often than not, a little black

" ditto dot " is entered to recall the land measureof the preceding line. The black aroura figureranges from 1 to 110 arouras, plots of 3 or 5arouras being by far the most common. The redaroura figure most often has the vahrc 1/4, 1/2 or7 aroura, although figures of 2 or more arouraswill occur if the black aroura figure is 10 arourasor more. The 247 aroura measured Sub-varietyIA entries differ from Variety I entries by the addi-tion of a figure in black introduced by the sign Jfollowing the black aroura figurerl.

The 215 Variety II entries analyzed consist oftwo figures, the first written in black ink andpreceded by the word * land-cubit " (ml.t-t3) or ablack ditto dot, recalling a previous mention ofthe word " land-cubit >; the second figure isconsistently preceded by the black ditto dot12.The division of the plot into two very unequalparts reflecs some fiscal operation even thoughthere is no mention of any revenue to be paidout of any harvest forthcoming:

A23, 19 The scribe Amenhotpe .20.80A86, 20 'the ifuwtyllaroco fur tp.f .4.20A86, 6 The ifuwty}Jori land-cubits 4.20

tables ofKatary Land Tenurebecause oferrors detected o!more frequently, decisions about the probable category ofentry that were left unclassified in the original study.

10. Gardiner, Wihour.Pa,plrus I!.9. 60-65;-Katary, LarulTbnure, p.203ff.

11. Ibtary Land,Timura pp. f 1-12,61.72. Ibin., p. 13, 61.

cRrPEL2s (2005) 139

Sar.ryL.D. IGrenv

The 197 Sub-variety IIA entries analyzedconsist of a single figure in black ink precededby the word " land-cubit " or the black ditto dot.Such entries are followed by one of the followingthree expressions that apparently explains whythe plot has not been subdivided :

m Swt ,, being dry "w.ir (??) .waterless ??"

wsl" resting ,r, " idle ", " fallow ,Another 275 entries resemble Sub-,variety IIA

in consisting of a single figure in black ink butare not to be interpreted as measured in land-cubits. These entries often have the r,alue " 3 " thatis followed by the hook that elsewhere in TextAsignifies a plot measured in arouras, as in A75,4547.Yahes of < 5 " and multiples of " 5 " shortof u 100 ", often in close proximity to the hookedhieratic .. 3s ,,, are likely also to be interpreted as

aroura measuredlS. It has been possible to deter-mine statistically that these plots are indeedmeasured in arouras and should be considered aseparate variety, which could be called VarietyI/II, to acknowledge both their resemblance informat to land-cubit measured Sub-variety IIAand their measure in arouras (Variety I)14. Theplots vary in size fiom 3 arouras to a maximum of200 arouras (one case only), the highestfrequenry sizes being 5, 10 and 20 arouras. Theseplots are followed by the expressions m iwt, wir,and bw ptri.f (?) < not seen ? ", " it was notseen ? ,,, after two examples (A89, 37;90,34)where the penultimate sign is not, as usual,written in ligature with its neighboursr5. Neveris a Variety I/II plot described as ws/, most

13. Gardiner, Wi.hotn Palryrus ll, p. 21.+215.l4.l<aw Land, Tinue, p.14, esp.247-50 wrth Table 2 after

p.249.$. Ibin., p. 13, n. 3l; Gardiner, Wihour Pap1rus II, p. 9rt

95.l6.Janssen, BiOr43, f986, p. 357 notes that Stuchevsky

does not adequately address the question of why remarksregarding the condition or status offields almost never occurin non-apportioning paragraphs.

frequently Vaiety I/II plots are described as bwpffi.ft6.

\{hile land-cubit measured plots of Variety IIand Sub-variety IIA constitute nearly 18.5 percentof the plos enumerated inthe2245 TextAappor-tioning entries that are complete enough to bearalyzed statistically, the land area representedby these plots is only 1.7 percent of the total areaof apportioned land enumeratedlT. Arourameasured plots constitute not only 81.5 percentof the apportioned plots detailed in TextA, theyalso represent an astonishing 98.3 percent of theland area detailed. Thus, while the occurrenceof land-cubit measured plots among the Text Aapportioning entries is not insignificant in termsof the number of plots they constitute, in termsof total cultivable land area, these plots do notrepresent a significant area nor can they be expec-ted to produce revenue for the institutions. It isclear therefore that the aroura measured plotsare the central focus of the Text A apportioningentries. If the Wilbour Papyms is centrally concer-ned with the estimation of revenue accruing fromcultivable land under the aegis of secular andreligious land-owning,/administrating institutions,the question must be asked why the non-revenueproducing land-cubit measured plots are includedin TextA in the first place.

Years ago I suggested that land<ubit measuredplots of Variety II and Sub-variety IIA were plotsso small and differed so significantly from thearoura measured plots that they might representgarden cultivationlS. This was supported by theoccurrence of the words m w 3/, " in vegetables >

(,4.6, x + 75;40,l0;44,33) and mfut, " flax " (A6,

17. Katary, Land. Tenure, calculations based uponAppendix E. Today I would make some emendations to thefigures given here, but these are so slight as not to affectconclusions drawn.

B. Ibin.,p.257-58. Gardiner, WihourPaplrus II, p.98-99puzzles over the understanding of l4r-rd:cubit plots, notingthat in modern Egypt plots of extremely small size are to befound. See his n. 2.

740 CRLPEL2S (2005)

THE I46TPLoTS IN THE WILBOUR PAPYRUS AND REI-AIED DOCUMENTS

x + 77; 7, 43. 48;8, 4) in entries of these t1pes.However, not all of the plots are actually so small.The sum of the two black figures in Variety IIentries varies from 6land-cubits to 200 land<ubis(2 arouras), there being 47 plots of 100 land-cubits (1 aroura) and 6 plots of 200land-cubits (2arouras). Plots cluster atl? (42),24 (60), and 50land-cubits (52). In the case of plots of SubrarietyIIA, there are 4l plots of 100 land-cubits (1

aroura), 11 plots of200 land-cubis (2 arouras),and 3 plots of 500land-cubis (5 arouras). Thus,the size of plot is certainly relevant, but does nottell the whole story. Even though mostVariety IIand Sub-variety IIA plots are small compared toaroura measured plots, there are numerous land-cubit measured plots that are comparable in size

to the aroura measured plots and thereforecannot be dismissed as < very small ". That thereare four land-cubit measured plots indicated as

planted with flax (mht) ar:d three plots specifi-cally identified as planted " in vegetables ", mw3d,w};rile no aroura measured plots bear eitherof these descriptions is certainly worth noting butstatistically insignificant. Moreover, the occur-rence of the words m w3d could be seeo as

curiously redundant were the land-cubit plots tobe assumed to be garden cultivation.

Were these land-cubit measured plots to repre-sent gardens attached to the temples, known tous from the offering lists as the source of freshvegetables and flowers for the offering-cult andbrought to the temples by " gardens6 " (k3rywn l.ttp-n1r), the gardens would have to have beenlocated in close proximity to the recipienttempleslg. The lack of speedy transport ofperishables in a warm climate would make itessential to locate temple gardens nearby. Sincethe apportioned plots of the Wilbour Papyruswere located in Middle Egypt, somewhere to the

19. Haring, Di.airu Householl,s, p. 197-98, 24345.20. Sally L.D. Katary, " O. Strasbourg H 106: Ramesside

Split Holdings and a Possible Link to Deir el-Medina ,, inRJ. Demar6e and A. Egberts, eds., Dei,r el-Med,inn in the Third

north of Crocodilopolis (Medinet el-Fayprm) andsouthwards to almost to Tihna just short of El-Minyah, and belonged to temples very oftenlocated far away from the fields themselves, as inthe case of the Theban temples ofAmun and theroyal mortuary temples of Western Thebes, thesefields could not have served the purpose ofsupplying temple offering-cults. Even in the case

of a temple such as the House of Sobek, theShedtite, Horus in the Midst of To (?)-She,actually located in Crocodilopolis (Medinet el-Fayyum) within geographical zone (section oftext) I, where a great concentration of land<ubitmeasured plots is enumerated, there is nomention of gardeners as smallholders as mightbe anticipated. K3ryw (k3rnyw) play no role inText A at all. It is likely moreover that gardensproviding offerings for the temple cults wouldhave been incorporated into temple non-appor-tioning domains rather than left in the hands ofprivate smallholders. In non-apportioningdomains the smdt or non-priestly support staff ofthe temples likely would have cultivated them.

Land-cubit measured plots play a m{or rolein the phenomenon of split holding where anindividual smallholder in Text A is ascribed twoor more plots2O. Vrlhile it is possible for the samesmallholder to be ascribed multiple arourameasured plots, it is much more common forsplit holdings to consist of an aroura measuredplot followed consecutively by one or more land-cubit measured plots. There are also instanceswhere smallholders are ascribed only land-cubitmeasured plots (mostly in the incomplete andfragmentary Section I), just as there are manyinstances over the course of TextAwhere no land-cubit measured plots at all are ascribed to a small-holder. Since there are many smallholders towhom no land-cubit plots are ascribed in Text A

Millmnium A.D.: A Tiibute."taJac.I lgnuyf, Leiden: NederlandsInstituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2000, p. l7l-208, especially,p. 184.

cRrPELzs (2005) t4t

SenvL.D.IGunv

and quite a few to whom landcubit plots are ascn-

bed to the exclusion of aroura plots, it is indeedpossible that *rere were other lists of apportio-ned holdings compiled at the same time as theWilbour Papyrus. While some smallholders towhom only one or two land-cubit measured plotsare ascribed in absence of an aroura measuredplot could be assumed by their occupations toderive their livelihood from sources other thantheir small plots (so scribes and priests, forexample), this is certainly not the case with all ofthese smallholders2l.

First, the readily identifiable pattern of onearoura measured plot followed by one or moreland-cubit measured plots requires some attemptat explanation. The pattern of an aroura measu-red plot followed by one or more land-cubitmeasured plots begins towards the end of theincomplete and poorly preserved Section I wheremany lines are lost. For example :

A77 , 25 The priest Pwacamun, son of Towe5. 1/2,mc. I 2/4

Another measurement (made) for him.10.40

Another measurement (made) for him.12 usf

Here, a Variety I aroura measured plot is follo-wed by aVariety II land-cubit measured plot anda Sub.variety IIA land-cubit measured plot, thelatter identified as wsl both indicated as belon-ging to the same smallholder by the words t(y)

b3y n.f.There are 37 instances of this pattern.AIso following this pattern are another 13 cases

2L.I1atary, Deir el-Med,ina i.n the Third. Mil,lcnniurn, p. I8b.In A23, 19-27 the scribe Amenhotpe, the priest Setemhab,and the scribe Setkhac are each ascribed two land-cubitmeasured plots, one cultivated and one wsl. However, someindividuals identified as il.twty appear to be ascribed only a

single land-cubit plot, especially in sections I and II wherethere are manyland<ubitmeasured plots. The large numberof missing lines/data in these sections makes it impossible,howevet to exclude the possibility that another or other plotswere ascribed to these individuals and are now lost to usbecause of the condition of the text. Whatever the case may

where the aroura measured plot is a P6shB entryrather than an ordinary plot ascribed to a small-holder and the land-cubit measured plot is ascri-bed to the same individual named in the openingof the Pdsh B entry :

A56, 2-3 The ihwty Inwau in apportionment of landcultivated for khataland of Pharaoh under the autho'rity of the Overseer of Prophets

arouras 5.1 1/4,rnc.1 2/44The ifuwty Inwat fur tpf land-cubits 4.20

Occasionally, the individual identified in thesubsequent land-cubit measured plot is the offi-cial whose name follows the preposition r-fut(" under the authority of ") or m-f,rt (" in thehand of ,) as in :

A24,15The ifuwty Amenp[nakh]te in appor-tionment of land cultivated for the Mansion ofHekmacre-setpenamun (in the) domain (underthe authority of) the deputy (idnw) lia

17 The deputy I[ia]40.61/4,mc. 12/4

land-cubits 5.95

In several cases, the land-cubit measured plotfollows a field for horses entry as, for example,in:A52, 35 Field for (horses) which the stable-masterSetemhab named. 5.1, mc.1 2/436Anothermeasurement(made)forhim .5.45

The inter-institutional PoshB and specializedfield for horses entries differ from the patternattested in A17, 25ff. in that the subsequent land-cubit measured plots could be interpreted as

some kind of compensation for services rende-red to an institution as indeed Menu suggested22.

be, such ifuwtyw coridnot make a living on plots of less than1 aroura since it is known that a plot of5 arouras was requi-red to produce a yield per year of 5 b3r for seed and 45 lirfor consumption. Afamily could manage to live comfortablyon a 5 aroura plot if the assessment were as small as thatcharged on apportioning plots. A plot of 2 arouras may havebeen enough for mere subs.istence. See_Christopher Eyre,

" Feudal Tenure and Absentee Landlorili l', in Schafik Allam,ed., Grund, und. Bodm in Altiigpten (Rechtliche und, Sozio-dkono-

rnische Varhdltnisse), Tibingen: Herausgegeben von SchafrkAllam, 1994, p. ll4l15, n. 32.

t42 cRrPELzs (2005)

Tns wsrpI-ors rN rHr WrLsouR PAprr.us AND REI"{TED DocUMENTS

The ordinary multiple holding pattern is morestraighforward in constituting the sum holdingsof a particular smallholder who has no obviousrole to play other than as a private smallholder.Thus, there are at least two phenomena here thatmust be distinguished : individual smallholdingof a combination of aroura and land-cubit measu-red plots and some kind of service forwhich oneor more land-cubit measured plots is received inexchange or compensation. The key here appearsto be the occupations of the individuals to whomland-cubit measured plots are ascribed as willbecome clear below.

The pattern of multiple land-cubitmeasuredplots is a phenomenon especially characteristic ofthe incomplete and badly broken Section I of thetext, but is also found dispersed throughout TextA at irregular intervals. Section I is characterizedby long series of land-cubit measured plots ofboth Variety II and Sub-variety IIA as in A6, x+ 2ff. \A/hile combinations of Variety II and Sub-

variety IIA plots ascribed to the same individualare preponderant, some individuals are ascribedonly one or two plots of either Variety II or Sub-

variety IIA. Section I, the northernmost zone ofplot location, inclusive of the Fayyum, is preci-sely the area where less productive land that wasnot optimally suited for the cultivation of grainwas gradually turned to other uses such as plan-tations and orchards2S. Plots in such arr areawould require more attention than plots on allu-

22. "...les cultivateurs reqoivent... des morceaux deterrain de quelques coud6es carr6es, en r6tribution desservices rendus une i institution poss6dante, pour la miseen laleur de ses exploitations propres >, Ment, Le r4gimz juri-d.ique, p.138.

23. CJ. Eyre, " The Water Regime for Orchards andPlantations in Pharaonic Eglpt ",.p,4 80, 1994, p. 57-80.

24. Gardiner, Wi,lbour PaNrynu II, p. 98 asks the question:

" [w]hy... should unproductive plots have been confined tothose measuringless than 1 aroura ? " His answer is, howevetconcerned with alleged Sub-r,zriety IIA plots that turn out tobe aroura measured after all (Variety I/II).

25. I1atary, Land, Tbnure, p. 295 rariable 13 valid obser-

vial flats well suited to growing crops of grain. Apreponderance of land-cubit measured plots inthis area could indeed reflect local needs. Thebroken condition of Section I, which commencesin the middle of the sequence of the plots ofMemphite temples and reveals the loss of manylines throughout, does of course affect the weightwe can attach to statistics derived from it.

The interpretation of the land-cubit measu-red plots may hinge on one irrefutable fact neveLto my knowledge, given the attention it deserves :

only land-cubit measured plots are ever recordedaswsf, " resting "24. There are in TextA 206 plotsthat can be securely classified as Sutrvariety IIA25.Of these 206 plots, 771 are labelled wsf(" resting r, " idle ", " fallow "). Another 25 aredescribed as w.ir (?) (" waterless ??"), orr,e as mJwr (" being dry,), and 9 as likely cases of Sub-variety IIA though no descriptive phrase follows.An additional dozen cases are broken or inc<.rm-

plete entries that cannot be categorized. Mostare likely to be land-cubit measured but not cate-gorized as such. Not a single Sutr.variety IIA entryis described as bw ptri.f " it was not seen " (?), acomment that frequently describes the aroura,measured Variety I/II entries (5

-' 70 ,, $yv

ptri.f " (?)) which, being aroura measured grainproducing plots, should indeed have been asses-

sed were it possible to do so26. Strikingly moreo-ver, none of these 275 unassessed aroura measu-red plots are labelled zusl How can that be ?

vations total 199 where size of plot is preserved, whereasvariable 2 Format of Entry indicates 210 cases. These 210entries include cases that are lacking quantitative data butarejudged to be Subvariety IIA. The figure 206 representsa correction.

26. Sven P. Meeming, PapytuRdnhardt: AnEgptianLandListfrom the Tbnth Cmtury B.C. fHieratiscfu Papyi aus dm staat-lichen Mueen zu Berlin - Preussischer KulturbesitzLieferung IIIBerlin: Akademie Verlag, p. 65, n.257 comments that, in theWilbour Pap1,rns, unlike (gm) m iw. (" fottnd dry ") andwir ?

(" waterless ? "), ws/ (" fa.llow ") arrd bw ptri.f ? (" it was notseen ? ,) refer to " technical rzther than topographical short-comings. "

cRrPELzs (2005) 743

SerrvL.D. KATARY

If land-cubit measured Sub-variety IIA plotsand Variety II plots were to be viewed as gardenplots, is it to be understood that only garden plotswere left to rest or lie fallow from time to time,while grain producing aroura measured plotsnever were ? Was resting the land necessary ordesirable in the one case and not in the other ?

Moreover, why would garden crop producingland-cubit measured plots be listed at all in a

document so clearly focussed on the estimationof the revenues of grain producing aroura measu-

red plots ? Are the land-cubit measured plotsenumerated simply to let the authorities knowwhat else the smallholderwas planting ? Of whatconcern would such plots be to the authoritiesresponsible for the Wilbour survey if no revenuewere to be derived from them ? Considering thatevery smallholder is likely to have also cultivateda patch of vegetables for his own personal domes-tic use, it does not seem very likely *rat the domes-

tic garden plots of only a select few of the small-holders would be enumerated, especially if thoseplots did not produce revenues for the institu-tions. Quite possibly it is no fluke that these land-cubit measured plots are mentioned. They may beenumerated for a good reason.

First of all, it can be established through statis-

tical analysis that land-cubit measured plots andaroura measured plots represent substantivelydifferent schemes of cultivation irrespective ofhow the difference is to be explained. This wasdone by creating two variables that distinguishapportioned plots according to their landmeasure : Variable 43 Land Measure I Arourasor Land-cubits and Variable 44Land Measure IIArouras or Land-cubits, the first of whichexcludes data of Variety I/[ and Sub-variety IIAand serves as a < control " variable, the second ofwhich includes these data. The variables werethen crosstabulated with a series of qualitativevariables to determine if there are any statisticallysignificant and substantively important diffe-

27. O'Connor, CAAE, vols. I &2, p.323.

rences between the land-cubit and aroura measu-

red plots as signified by both sets of crosstabula-tions. Several directions were found to be fruifulfor continued research : the geographic locationof a plot (and to a lesser degree the zone of plotlocation), the land-owning/administering insti-tution, the occupation or tide of the smallholder,the qpe of apportioning paragraph, and the qpeof land Qt't, idb or Neither) involved. Moreover,a comparison of pairs of Cramer's V statistics forthe two variables in crosstabulation with the same

series of qualitative variables indicates that thedata of Variety l/II ar,d Sub-variety IIA arecorrectly classified as aroura measured and land-cubit measured respectively. It is thereforepossible not only to accept Gardiner's hypothesisthat entries that resemble Sub-variety IIA informat of data but appear to be aroura measu-red are indeed aroura measured and thereforebelong to a separate category Variety I/II, bwtalso to establish that the frequencies for theappearance of descriptive words following thesize of unassessed of plots of both land measuresare relevant to the interpretation of the nature ofthe plos so described and must be taken intoaccounl It matters thatlTT plots of SuLrr,ariety IIAare described as wsland that no plots of VarietyI/lI are ever so described. What is needed is ahypothesis that might explain this most impor-tant anomaly.

Menu's suggestion that land-cubit measuredplots may represent plots siven to temple percon-nel as compensation for services rendered to theland-owning institution as suggested by the corres-ponding Pdsh entries comes into play here.Following Menu, O'Connor also expressed theopinion that the land-cubit measured plots ofVariety II and Sub-variety IIA were plots so smallthat they were " not viable farms , and * genera-ted no surplus income at all " but were supple-mentary plots given to^temple personnel perhapsu for a special purpose ,27. This interpretation

144 cRrPELzs (2005)

THE IAcFPLoTS IN THE WILBOUR PAPYRUS AND REI-ATED DOCUMENTS

would appear to be supported by the pairs ofcrosstabulations involving the variableOccupation or Title of Smallholder. Since land-cubit measured plots tend to occur in associationwith individuals of certain occupations, especiallyw%priests, scribes, prophets (hm-ntr) and ifiwtyw,and much less frequently with the stable-mastersand soldiers who make up such a large compo-nent of the Wilbour smallholders as a whole, land-cubit measured plots appear to be occupationspecific28. Moreover, as Menu notes, the moreoften an occupation occurs in the non-apportio-ning paragraphs, the less frequently its membersare ascribed aroura measured plots and the morefrequently they are ascribed land-cubit measuredplots in the apportioning paragraphs2g.Occupations that are lacking in the non-appor-tioning paragraphs, such as stable-master, are verymore highly associated with aroura measuredplots than with land-cubit measured plots3o.

It is possible that the occurrence of entries ofplots measured in arouras side by side and inter-mixed with plots measured in land-cubits is nota matter of the last m{ority of TextA plots undergrain production vis-i-vis some plots undervege-table or garden cultivation but something muchmore complex. All of the apportioning paragraphplots may be intricately interconnected in a largerscheme of cultivation of which they are compo-nents. Perhaps the marked distinction betweenland-cubit and aroura measured plots reflects the

28. Menu, Le rigime juritliqu.e. pt. lililff.,especially p.137;Katary, Land Tbnure, p. f 49-50 (w) for crosstabulation analy-sis; see too Appendix R p. 299-301 for frequencies of occu-pations in the Wilbour Papyms apportioning entries inclusiveofboth land-cubit and aroura measured plots.

29. Menu, Le rigime jmid,ique, p. 137.30. Ibid.31. P. Tebtunis I, p. 564 cited in DorothyJ. Cra*ford,

Kerkeosiris: An Egptian Village in the Ptolernaic Period,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 11G117;Michael Schnebel, " Die Tgndwirtschaft im hellenistichenAgypten ", Mil.nchene.r Beitrd.geT,1925, p. 21&39; U. Wilcken,

" Papyrus-Urkunden. II. Die Londoner Texte ", APFI,

Egyptian " three-field system " known from theHellenistic period in such texts as P. Tebtunis 115(115-13 BCf;st. It may be thatfrom start to finishthe Wilbour Papyrus is concerned with grainproduction such that the land-cubit measuredplots belong as much to the grain productionregime as do the aroura measured plots. Amongthe apportioning entries, where individual small-holders are involved and certainly play a decisiverole in determining how they individually workthe system, we may have a glimpse of how thatsystem may have worked.

If Hellenistic data are any indication, what wemay have in the assessed (Variety II) and unas-sessed (Sutrr,ariety IIA) landcubit measured plotsare plots that are finished their two years in cerealcrop cultivation. It may not always have been twoyears, and not every field might go two yearsbefore fallowing, but a three-field cycle of rotationwas the normal practice in Hellenistic Egypt,owing to the natural fertility of the land from theannual inundation of the Nile in contrast to thegeneral Mediterranean practice of a two-fieldsystem in the absence of such a favourable pheno-menon32. In many instances, cereal crops couldbe raised for two years in a row, followed by legu-minous crops or grasses to restore the necessarynitrates3S. There was also some limited use ofmanure (pigeon guano), but on the whole itwasnot necessary to add fertilizers to the fields3a.Long ago, Schnebel pointed out that Hellenistic

f901,pp. 157-159. See too the system attested in lease agree-ments: P. Tebt. 108,6 (93 or 60); P. Cairo dem. 30615, 20 (9&

32. Auguste lard6., Les ciriales dans l'antiquiti grecque

lBihliothique dr.s 6cobs frangaises d,Athincs et de Ramt 1 30 I Paris,1925, p. 85-87. This is the system described by Xenophon inhis Oikonomi.kos 16, 12-15. For Eglpt see Schnebel, p.22U228;Willcocks, Irri.gation,2nd ed., p. 57-163, 378, 38485.

33._ Pierre Fromont, L'agrieulture igptimnc et ses lnoblhnu,Paris: Iiditions Domat, 195.4, p. 45.-. ..

34. For pigeon guano, see Crawford, Kerkeosi.ris, p. 176,n.9.

cRrPEL25 (2005) t45

SALLYL.D, KATARY

Egyptian farmers believed that the soil requireda rest and that the word " Ruhe ,, (" rest ") acqui-red the connotation " Brache , (" fallow ,) indemotic texts. This meaning lies behind thechoice of the word ovdnouolq or avoruoupo for

" fallow, in the Greek Hellenistic texts35.The parallels between the Wilbour Papyrus

and Ptolemaic survey documents noted long agoby Heichelheim are to be mentioned as also theforrn of the documents with information providedon various cultivators as well as previous cultiva-tors with later textual additions, as cited byCranford36. In Manning's words, Ptolemaic Egypt

" in many ways was a continuation of earlierpharaonic development of irrigation and agri-culture ,37. Since conditions ofwater availability,soil conditions, the nature of crop production as

well as the relationship betrueen the availability ofland and the labour to farm it varied considera-bly within Egypt, particularly between the NileValley and the Falyrm, no uniformity in the struc-ture of land tenure can be assumed for Egypt as

a whole38. What conditions we see reflected inthe individual sections (geographical zones) ofWilbour Text A cannot be expected to be thesame as those that prevailed in other areas. Evenwithin the area of Middle Eglpt covered by theWilbour Papyrus, local differences are inevitable.

It is also known that in the Hellenistic period,in a three-field system, there might have been a"sliding scale of rents" that reflected the cropsactually grown in the previous yeatsg. The highestrents were placed on land that had been sown in

35. Schnebel, u Die Landwirtschaft,, p. 219-220, onp.220,r.2 cites Sethe, Urkundcn9,11 (= 6.-. P. Heidelberg723) and Sethe's commenta"ry to the text, p. 169f. W. Erichsen,Demotisches Glossa4 Kopenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1954,p. 100 cites the meaning " aufh6ren n foru's/and the Copticword oubsf in W.E. Crum, A Coptic Dictionarl, Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1972, c. 1939, p. 492b in the relevantcontext.

36. F.M. Heichelheim, " Recent Discoveries in AncientEconomic History >, Historia 2, 7953-1954, p. 129-35;Craw{ord, Kerkzosiris, p. 6 and n. 7. Cranford notes that the

the previous year with grasses or leguminouscrops (with beans, lentils, arakos, fenugreek, etc.)since this land was the most fertile. Such revita-lized land then went back into cereal productionas the land with the highest productivity quotient.The distribution of crops over the Ptolemaicvillage of Kerkeosiris suggests *rat trvo-thirds of theland was under grain cultivation in any givenyear4o. As Manning points out, the rotating offields with leguminous crops would be moreqpical of the Falyrm because these fields did notreceive the silt from the Nile inundation4l. Thehigh correlation of land-cubit measured fieldswith Wilbour Text A sections (geographicalzones) I and II would be consistent with thisreality.

It is conceivable that land-cubit measuredplots represent that portion of the smallholder'sland in the phase of the cycle when grain cropswere not being grown : that is, sown with grasses

or leguminous crops and so denoted with achange in land measure. If choices were beingmade as to which leguminous crop was beingsown and some land was under beans, someunder lentils or other crop, and other land was

going under grasses, smaller divisions of landthan are practical using arouras would be conve-nient. The land-cubit measure would not bemerely a convention to demarcate differentschemes of cultivation, but also a convenience.If a marketable crop was being cultivated in thisthird year of the rycle, the authorities would keeptrack of it perhaps with the idea of deriving

classification of the land according to agricultural capacityreveals categories that are < no more thal rough approxi-mations of the Ptolemaic q,stem ". See too Gardiner, WihourPapyrusIl,178-Bl.

37. J.G. Manning, Land and, Poun in hokmaic Egpt: TheStructure of Land Tbnure, Cartbidge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2003, p. 8.

38. Ibid., p. 32 and ru"30.39. Crarvford, Kerkeosiri,s,p. ll?:'40. rbid.

746 CELPEL2S (2005)

THE l4,trFPLoTS IN THE WILBOUR PAPYRUS AND REI-{IED DOCUMENIS

revenue from it in some way or at least to have arecord of the state of the land at the time of assess-

ment: hence the assessments on the Variety IIplots that show a division of the plot into twogreatly unequal parts, one apparently to be asses-

sed, the other not. If the land was sown withgrasses, the farmers of the late New Kingdom mayhave kept track of grass crops separately fromleguminous crops and fodder crops as did theHellenistic Egyptian farmers42.

Itwould make sense for the Wilbour authori-ties to keep track of land being prepared forcereal production with grass or leguminous cropssince the following year they too, like theHellenistic authorities, might have expectedhigher revenue out of land producing the firstof rwo possible years of cereal crops. If they couldidentify a plot under beans and lentils, that landwould be assessed higher in the following year.Land under grasses may have been differentlyassessed the following year. Perhaps the Variety IIplots represent leguminous crops and the Sub-variety IIA plots represent grass crops or simplyuncultivated land, since the overwhelming majo-rity of them are clearly labelled w,f. The idea ofwsf land as simply equated with " derelict land "(desert, dry, unsown, waterlogged, Greekun6l,oyo<) ought not be entertained. The pointis that it may be wrong to view aroura and land-cubit measured plos as a reflection of grain culti-vation as opposed to garden production. All ofthese plots could indeed be part and parcel of

41. Manning, Land and Pouer in l\olemaic Egpt, p.30.42. Crau,ford, Kerkeosiris" Table XIII, The Cultivation of

Crown Land, p. f 83f.43. Eyre, Gnrnd, und Bod,en, p. ll5, n. 34. See too Annie

Gasse, Donniu nouuelbs ad,ministratiaes et sacndotales sur l'm-ganisation du Domai.n dAmon, *xv& d)nasties, i. la lurniire dzs

Paplrus Prarhou, P Rcinhard,t et Grundbu.ch (auee 6d,ition princepsdcs PaNrynu Lnuvre AF 6345 et 63467),2 vols. Biblinthiryc d.'6tudc

104, Cairo: Institutfranqais d'Arch6ologie orientale du Caire,l9BB. p. I35-137: I9l.

44. Manning, Land and Puon in Ptobmair Egpt, p.223-25.

the same three-field system designed to maximizegrain production as was done in the Hellenisticperiod.

The Wilbour Papyms is, of course, only a snapshot of one assessment year where we see thecultivation status of individual smallholders'holdings, these plots likely augmented by otherholdings in other lists. Therefore, the WilbourPapyms does not tell the full story for each andevery smallholder. Since there are many small-holders to whom no land-cubit plots are ascribedin Text A and quite a few to whom land-cubitmeasured plots are ascribed to the exclusion ofaroura measured plots, the existence of otherlists of apportioned holdings appears absolutelyinevitable. Moreover, that the Wilbour plotsconstitute so small a fraction of the cultivableland in the area under survey certainly supportsthis idea, as do the advantages to be gained bythe farmer from cultivating split holdings withina single district as a result of the " special ecologyof the Nile ,'43. When split holdings are somedistance apart, the risk of crop failure and otherunforeseen agricultural calamities for smallholderand institutional owner alike is substantiallyreduced44. Split holdings also result fromEglptian inheritance patterns as is suggested byWilbour data (plots held bywomen (widows ?), ftn 'snw.f/s; m-{rt msw.f/s) and confirmed in thePtolemaic perioda5. Gasse has remarked concer-ning the Late Period papyn she has studied thatthe picture that emerges is certainly one of " un

45. Crarford, Kerkzosiris, p. 73-75, I62-70,Table \{I Split-holdings - Kerkeosiris and Table VII Split-holdings -Kerkeosiris and Neighbouring Villages; W. Clarysse,

" Egyptian Estate-holders in the Ptolemaic Period ', inEdward Lipiflski, ed., State a,nd Tbm.pk Econom,l in the AncientNear East fProceedings of t}le International Conference orga-nized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, April 10-14,19781 vol. 2, Leuven: Departement Ori€ntalistiek, 1979,p.732:ln the demotic papp:i of the P-tolemaic period, "...theusual family-estate consisted of small plots, separated onefrom another, divided among the children and combinedagain through purchase, marriage, and inheritance ". This

cRrPELzs (2005) t47

SALLYL.D. Karanv

paysage divis6 en champs de trds petite taille,certainement s6par6s par un r6seau serr6 depetits canaux, de ruisselets et de chemins sur6le-v6s, image proche de certains aspects de lacampagne 6glptienne actuelle "46. Such is alsothe case with the Wilbour Papyrus where splitholdings do not necessarily occur in consecutivelines. The existence of other contemporary landregisters for the same area would only confirmthe picture already obtained from TextA.

If different grass or leguminous crops wereconsidered to have differentvalues in raising theproductivity of the soil, this may explain the diffe-rent assessment values (1/4, 1/2, 1) of arourameasured Variety I and IA plots of the same size(red aroura figure). Certainly, soil in the secondyear of grain cultivation would be expected tohave a lower productivity because the land is inthe second year of the cycle, one year's cerealgrain already having been produced since thenitrate-fixing legume/grass part of the cycle andthat too may help to explain the variation inVariety I and Sub-variety IA assessment values.\Mhile it may be popular wisdom even today tosuppose that farmers in pharaonic times did notregularly engage in fallowing and crop rotationbecause this was not necessary the Hellenisticpractice surely had pharaonic antecedents4T.

The pattern of a combination of aroura andland<ubit measured plots in the context of a PdshB entry or field for horses entry can also be explai-ned by the alternation of fallowing,/legumeproduction with the production of grain crops. Ifthe parties assigned a land-cubit measured plot

pattern was characteristic of well-todo native families.46. Gasse, Donn4es nouuellesl,p. 191. The example given

is that of a soldier in P. Prachov who cultivates no fewer thanfive plots with a total area in excess of 4 arouras.

47. Wilrr,a Wetterstrom and Mary Anne Murray,

" Agriculture " in Donald B. Redford, editor-in-chief, TieOxford Encyclopedia of Anci.ent Egpt, vol. 1, Oxford, NewYork, etc.: Oxford UniversityPress, 2001, p. 4M1; ChristopherJ. Eyr., " The Agricultural Cycle, Farming, and WaterManagement in the Ancient Near East ", in Sasson, C4-\E vols.

were considered to have rendered service to theland-owning/administering institutions, the awar-ding of plots in recompense may have beenrestricted to plos not presently producing a graincrop. The service personnel would be required tobring the land into a condition wherein graincultivation could commence. Thus, the absenceof aroura measured plots following PoshB entriesand field for horses entries since aroura measu-red plots were already in grain production and,moreover, were usually considerably larger thanthe compensatory plots. This pattern could helpto explain the stronger association of land-cubitmeasured plots with certain institutions andgeographical locations since inter-institutionalcultivation arrangements as represented by thePdsi. entries are not found with all institutionsand those that do participate tend to have theirfields located in certain geographical locations.

Plots labelledwsf are seldom encountered inpharaonic documents outside of the WilbourPapyrus. \A/hen they are found, it is in documentsof the Twenty-frrst or Twenty-second Dynasty thatrelate specifically to the Domain of Amun ofKarnak. These documents provide some indica-tion of the geographic exteot of lands belongingto the largest temple complex in Egypt and givean indication of its economic power.

Most useful is P. Reinhardt, a rare, but sadlyfragmentary, Twenty-first or TWenty-secondDynasty cadastral survey, from the tenth centuryB.C.E., concerningfields of the temple ofAmunat Thebes, located in the tenth nome of UpperEgypta8. P. Reinhardt makes mention of zus/plots

1 & 2, p. 179.48. Meeming, p. 9. See too Gasse, Donnies nouuelbsl,p.

139-66. Meeming, Rdnhard.t, p. 8, gives the probable periodofcomposition ofP. Reinhardt as anywhere from the secondhalf of the Twenty-first Dlrrasty until the middle of the Twenty-second Dynasty, or possibly even later. See his p. 9 forcomments on the locatiori of the..f,elds; Ghsse, Donniesnu,aellesl, p. f 40, 155, 163f., 177-180 where the assumprionis that P. Reinhardt concerns fields in the Theban area andalso originates fiom there.

148 cRrPEL25 (2005)

THE I4SFPLOTS IN THE WILBOUR PAP\T.US AND REI-ATED DOCUMENTS

only in two instances : columns V 33 and \/III 27,where the plots are recorded asl/2, 1/8, and 1

7/2 arowras respectively. These plots appear tohave constituted Iand to be subtracted (fubi " tobreak ,,, .. reduce ,r)49 from the area of grainproducing land along with other varieties ofexcluded land such as w 3/ land, sandy land (.i'),gourd land (b 3nt) , marsh lar,d (ml.tyt) , and lowland or fen (br), the last of which constitutes themost frequent explanation for the subtraction ofIand in P. Reinhardt50. Meeming notes the< apparent insignificance " of w,f land inP. Reinhardt as < an indication of the fact thatthe administration of our text was only interes-ted in the more permanent conditions of thefields "51. It would be more correct to say,

however, that the administrators were only inter-ested in grain producing fields, since the landsidentified as nslwould eventually move into thecategory of grain producing land. No land wouldremain w.f indefinitely; eventually all fallow landswould once again enter the grain producing partof the cycle.

While the types of land detailed in theP. Reinhardt paragraph headings do not exactlycorrespond to those detailed in the WilbourPapyrus, the explanation is likely to be the diffe-rence in the geographic location of theP. Reinhardt plots (tenth nome of Upper Eglpt)and the topography of the land in P. ReinhardtS2.Cultivated plots in P. Reinhardtwere situated onland called iw " 1[e Island ,, or iw n m3wt, <, theIsland of New land ", tenns that more than likelysignify the same kind of land53. This qpe of land,which also occurs in the Wilbour Papyrus (e.g.,

A12, 16; 22,3;85,27) as a term for a new island

49. Meeming, Reinhardt, p. 63. See too Gasse, DonniesnouaellesT, p. 150, n. 14 and 158, n. l. Gasse reads the sign aspi, " apportioned ,, in reference to the administrative statusof the land.

50. Meeming, Rei.nhardt, p. 10, 67f.51. Ihid., p.66.52. Ibid., p. 9.53. Ibid., $ 9, p. a5ff. See Gardiner, Wilbour Pa,pyrusll,

generated by the Nile's shifting course, is likelybest described as land surrounded by water onall sides (without necessarily being in the middleof the river) and, like the " high land " (kiyf-land) so ubiquitous in the Wilbour Papyrus butentirely lacking in P. Reinhardt, was floodedduring the annual inundation so as not to requiremuch attention as regards irrigation after theNile flood subsideds4. Another term used of culti-vated land in P. Reinhardt\s idb-land (III,20), aterrn understood by Gardiner as " riparian land ",that is, land abutting at one end upon the riveror a canal because of the determinative used andconjectured byMeeming as perhaps being " iden-tified with the protruding rim of the embank-ment '55. The idb-land enumerated in III, 20consists of but one plot with marsh land in theamount of l/8 laroura] subtracted with the result1/2l.....l.While there is no mention of w.s/landhere, it is clear tb.at idb-land was not always incondition to produce grain, as was certainly thecase in the Wilbour Papyrus where 54.5 percentof the idbland was land-cubit measuredVariety II,a figure that climbs to 68.8 percent when Sub-

variety IL{ plots are added, the vast majority ofwhich are described as wsl56.

Further description of the fields inP. Reinhardt in the hands of landholders quali{iesthem as " cultivated land " (ifut), " cor-v6e plot "(iht-bh), or . cor6e land " (bh). The first of theseis known from the Wilbour Papyrus where it was

translated by Gardiner as " cultivated land , or

" farm-land " and Menu as << un champ, une'terre' dont l'essence est d'etre cultiv6e >>, << te[e-culciv6e ,57. Meeming takes the position thatilttis best understood as a " delineated piece of

p.27.54. Meeming, Reinhardt, p. 47.55. Gardiner, I4lilbour Pa,lryrus ..11, p. 26; Meeming.

Reinhardt, p. 48 after W. Schenkel, I-Al, p. 782, n. 37 .

56. Ihtary Land Tbrrure, Appe4d!5 G, p. 314.57. Alan H. Gardiner, " Ramesside Texs Relating to the

Taxation and Transport of Corn ", pA 27, 1941, p. 52ff.;Wilbottr Pa|4rus II, p. 66, cf ..JE4 27,1941, p. 21f.; Menu, le

CRLPEL2S (2005) 749

SALLYL.D. KATARY

land " used to denote a parcel, plot or freld58. Itis possible that the juridical connotation of theword denoted the status of land as " calculated,protected, cleared, pefinanent ", which is derivedfrom an occurrence of the term in the donationtext of Penne from Aniba, may apply here, butmore likely the neutral concept of " cultivatedland " is to be understood59.

The P. Reinhardt land described as bl.t or iltt-b/z is likely to have been corv6e fields under theadministration of Theban temples, under thecharge of temple functionaries, but assigned tocultivators, who likely used the corv€e labour ofthe local population in their cultivation60. Suchcorv6e lands would bear no relationship to thefields assigned to individual smallholders in theWilbour apportioning paragraphs since theseindividuals were virtual owners of their fields, butthat does not mean the corv6e lands could not be

comparable to the non-apportioned holdings oftemples and secular institutions and possibly also

to the khato arrd mini-lands of Pharaoh enume-rated in the non-apportioning paragraphs at theend of each section ofWilbour TextA (khatalandalso in Text B), even though there is no concreteevidence of a connection between Crown landand cor-v6e labour61. The relatively large sizes ofthe Wilbour non-apportioned plots, the role oflow-level administrators (Stuchevsky's " agents ofthe fisc,), and the absence of the names of themany agricultural labourers who must have beeninvolved in the ploughing and harvesting suggest

rigime juittiqut.p. 65f.Janssen's undersmnding of the tenn inthe donation text of Penne from Aniba (Janssen, S,4(3, 1975,p. 141, n. 55-57) as probably implying " some, probably legal,meaning, as does its derivative ikwty " is to be noted.Meeming, Rtinha,rdt, p. 51 is not certain this understandingofiftl, based on a single text from Aniba, was identical to theunderstanding further north in Egypt.

58. Meeming, Reinhm'dL p. 52.59. Ihid., p.52 and n. 73.60. Ibid., p.55.61. For khato atd, minAand, see Gardiner, Willmtr PaP)rus

II, p. f 8 (129f., 149f.), 165ff. Meeming, P,einhardt,p.52 notes

cultivation by labourers who need not be indivi-dually identified, as would be the case with cor-v6e

labourers62. Moreover, if blz lands, often underthe control of a < water chief " (( 3-(n)-mw), reqri-red " strong administrative measures " to bring orkeep them under cultivation as Eyre suggests,close control of the water regime by a regime offarming that would be directly managed by insti-tutional staff with optimum control would bepreferable to allotting such plots to individualsmallholders63.

The P. Reinhardt iht, " culivated land ", wouldinclude land that actually produced grain and so

was subject to assessment as well as land that didnot produce grain and had to be excluded forone reason or another. In being excluded fromthe total area of grain producing land, plotsdevoted to the production of n,3d (vegetables,Coptic) and gourds (b 3nt) callto mind Variety IIplots in the Wilbour Papl.rus that are occasionallydenoted as cultivated m w 3d and with flax (mht)and are clearly to be distinguished from grainproducing fields. P. Reinhardt clearly establishesthat, as in the Wilbour Papyrus, administratorswere keenly interested in distinguishing, forpurposes of assessment, between revenue produ-cing grain growing plots and plots that producedother crops or were unproductive, including ws/plots. The size of these frelds had to be providedin P. Reinhardt so that the assessment reflectedonly revenue producing grain fields and a recordwas kept ofthe exact areas that had to be subtrac-ted for comparison with earlier such records64.

that the institution &/r has not as yet been connected with theoperations of khato and, rninElands of Pharaoh, but does noteliminate the possibility.

62. Janssen, BiOr43,1986, p. 351-66.63. Eyre,.JL4 80, 199a, p. 77.64. Meeming, Rcinhartlt, p. 57, notes how the fields of

landholders directly responsible for their cultivation rveresometimes said to har,e been " (fornally (sic) ) 'in the handsof someone else, thus making it possible to check the newlymade P. Reinhardt against previous lists ,. P. Reinhardt wasone of a series of regular assessment lists of grain produc-tion.

150 cRrPEL25 (2005)

THE wSTPLoTS IN THE WILBOUR PAIryRUS AND RELAIED DOCUMENTS

Grain producing land in P. Reinhardt descri-bed as ifut " ir the hands of " (m-/rt) of variousfunctionaries, in contrast to corv6e land underassessment, may perhaps be comparable to someapportioned plots in the Wilbour Papyrus ofaroura measured Variety I and Sub-variety IA.The P. Reinhardt plots described byMeeming as

being " in the hands of " (m-ilrt) men who

" constituted a class of farmers and gentlemen-farmers to who [sic] the appellation 'cultiva-tors'can only be applied as a generic name >)

could be equallywell applied to certain Wilboursmallholders of the apportioning plots who arelikewise identified by a wide variety of occupa-tions and titles that distinguish them from boththe people who were cultivators by occupationas well as from ordinary agricultural labourers(ifuwtyw)65. The occurrence of the expression

" (cultivated) by the hand of (m-flrt) PN " in theWilbour Paplrus shows that some smallholderscalled upon the labour of other parties (subles-

sees ?) to cultivate their own fields in such a waythatwould interest the authorities in these arrafl-gements66.

Plots described as wsf are also known fromthe poorly preserved fragments of a single docu-ment known as P. Ashmolean 1945.94 + Louwe AF6345 (the Griffith and Louvre fragments) as well

65. Ibid., p.57, see too $ 13.66. Safly L.D. Katary, " Labour on Smdlholdings in the

New Kingdom: O. BM 5627 in Light of P. Wilbour ,, jTSSEA 28,2001, p. 111-23. See too Gardiner, WilbowPapyrusll,p.7677.There are 93 such cases that comprise 4.1 percent of theWilbour Papyn-rs apportioning entries.

67. Gasse, Donndes nouaellzs l, p. 42, 83, f 18, 184, 243.For P. Ashmolean 1945.94 + Louvre AF 6345 (Griffith andLour're fragments) see Gardiner .JEA 27,1941,p. 64.70 andpl. \trII; id.. RAD, p. 68-71, Michel Malinine, BiOr16, 1959,p. 219 and Klaus Baet " The Low Price of Land in AncientEgypt ", JARCE r, 1962, p.32-33.

68. The order of the institutions is affected by the recons-truction of the fragments. In his review of Gasse's publica-tion of the text, Sven P. Vleeming, -Enchoria18,1991, Reviewof A. Gasse, Donnies nouuelbs adtninistratiaes et sacerd,otabs surl'organisation du Domain d,Amon, xYluP drynasties, i, la lumilredu Paplrus Prachw, P. Reinhard,t et Ctandburh (auec 6d,itionprin-

as from P. GrundbuchoT. p. Ashmolean 1945.94+ Louwe AF 6345 detail the (net) revenues ofcultivable fields, which appear to have been sownwith grain, belonging to avanety of institutions,organized into rmnyt as in Wilbour Text A, butlocated in the tenth nome of Upper Egypt in anarea of the Nile Valley to the north and south ofQaw el-Kebir. The order of the institutionsenumerated follows that of the Wilbour PapyrusandP. Harris I: Theban, Heliopolitan, Memphite,smaller cult temples, and secular institutions.68The similarity of the document to Wilbour TextA and B is thus remarkable, an obvious differencebeing that the Wilbour Papyms is a " fair copy ,in contrast to the < field-by-field > surveyors' notesthe Ashmolean and Louvre fragments repre-sent69. Another similarity between the Ashmoleanand Louwe fragments and the Wilbour Papyrusis the distinction made between ftjyf-land(" high " land) andnfub-land (" fresh " land),with produce of the former half that of the latterand assessed at one sack ofgrain per aroura andtwo sacks ofgrain per aroura respectivelyT0. Sincethe fields speci{ied in the recto of the fragmentsconsist of khato-land, donated (hnk) land as wellas nmfu-fields indicative of shared responsibilityin their cultivation, it is indeed possible, as Haringsuggests, that all the fields enumerated in the

ceps des Pap1rus Louure AF 6345 et 534G7),2 vols. Bibliothiqtzd'6tud,e 104, Cairo: Institut fiangais d'Arch6ologie orienta.ledu Caire, f988, p. 217-27 , especially p. 219-20, reconstructsthe fragments so that the Ashmolean fragments form theupper half of the document and the Louwe fragments formthe lower half. See too Haring, Diui.ne Houeholds, p. 327 ,328where he places columns I, Y VI, and XIII (Ashmolean frag-ments) as upper halves of longer columns and columns II-IV,XI, and XII (Louwe fragments) as lower halves. Note thatGardiner, Wi.lbour Papyrus II, p. 161, did not know of thel,ouvre fragments a.nd therefore did not realize that therewas indeed a secular institution, n The Storage ('h'y) ofPharaoh ".

69. SoJanssen of the Griffrth Fragments in SAK3, f 975,p. 149. n. 91.-

70. Hai;ag Diuine Householls,f. 5S+. See recto V, 17; XI,14 and 15; XII, 5.

CRLPELZS (2005) 151

SaT,T,vI,.D. KATARY

recto were cultivated under a system comparableto the regime presented in the Wilbour Papyrus,without a distinction being drawn between appor-tioning domains and non-apportioningdomainsTl. The presenc e of nml.t-fields (3fut-nmlt)

in recto column XII (lines 72,15,19) is particu-larly important because of the possibility that theWilbour Paplms apportioned smallholdings wereor were in the process of becoming nmft-frelds,even though the terrn nmhitself is foreign to theWilbour Papy.ms72. Thus, the fields may have hadthe same legal status. The range of sizes of thesenmh-fields: L,40 l/2, and 10 arouras varies almostas much as the range of the aroura measuredapportioned plots in the Wilbour PapyrusT3.

Gasse maintains that the Ashmolean andLouwe fragments likely were composed duringthe reign of Ramesses XI, while Meeming and,later, Haring support the later date of Twenty-first to Twenty-second Dynasty on the grounds ofthe cursive script belonging to a period later inthe Twenty-first or Twenty-second Dynasty, theThird Intermediate period date of the names ofsmallholders, evidence of the institutions cited,and the fact that the document was probably partof a single discovery together with P. Prachot,P. Berlin 3063-8, and P. ReinhardtT4. Acceptingthe conclusions ofMeeming and Haring, there isa difference of at least 150 years between thecomposition of the Wilbour Papyrus andP. Ashmolean 1945.94 + Louvre AF 6345, a factthat might help to explain the increase in theassessment rates applied to the produce of pri'i''ateholdings of institutional 1and75.

71. Ibid., p. 33a, 339 notes that the word pi for u toshare "/" to apportion ) occurs in the text < but not as aqualification of entire domains ,, see especially p. 334, n. 6;see tooJanssen, S,4r( 3, 1975, p. 149, of the Grffith Fr-agmens:

" The domains may have been apportioning domains. "72. Haring, Diuine Househokls, p.339.73. Gasse, Donnies nouaellc.sl, p. 71 notes that the fields

are registered " parmi les champs 'normaux' qui, g6n6rale-ment, paient une rederance foncidre. ,

The badly preserved verso of the text strikin-gly resembles the apportioning paragraphs ofWilbour TextAin being an enumeration of plotsascribed to individual smallholders who are iden-tified by name and title at the beginning of eachline of assessment. There is also an indication offiliation, an element that is usually absent in theWilbour Papyrus. For women smallholders, unlikein the Wilbour Papyrus, the names of mothersare given. The plots are measured in arouras andgrouped into short paragraphs of about fifteenlines, each of which was intended to be introdu-ced by a line that identifies the geographical loca-tion as in column II,79.27 III, 15. If the plot isproductive, the area in arouras is given; if not,there is mention of the reason why no figure isgiven. Sometimes the area of the plot is followedby a second figure that Gasse interprets as givingthe " 'surface corrig6e' du champ, laquelle corres-pond i sa valeur fiscale ,76. No indication of anyamount of grain forthcoming from the plot isindicated. For many lines, only the end is preser-ved with its mention of an area in arouras or anexplanation ofwhy that figure cannot be given77.

When the legible assessment lines of all thecolumns of the verso are examined, almost halfthe plots are ascribed to w'b-priests (56 out of128) with soldiers (w'w), stonemasons (l1rty(-n1r)),

retainers (imsw), and sailors (ny'a;) comprisingmost of the remaining occupational identifica-tions78. There are only two women mentionedas smallholders. In keeping with the modest titlesof the smallholders, all of the plots are rathersmall in size, usually less than 2 arouras in area

74. Gardiner,.JEAzT,7941, p. 65; Gasse, Donnies nouuelksI, pp. 23 (n. 1), 33 (n. 51), 3a (n. 57), 50;Meeming, Reinhardt,p. Bf. and 79;Meeming,Enchoria,78,1991, p. ?20-21; Haring,Diuinc Houscholrls. p. 333-34.

75. Haring, Diuine Houscholds, p.339.76. Gasse, Donnies nouuelbsl, p. 68-69.77. kid., p. 4r-42.78. Ibid., p.69-70.

152 cRrPEL2s (2005)

Tns r4drprors rN rnoWrI-eounPAnRUSAND RELATED DocuMENTs

(berween 1 / 2 arouras and 7 7 / 2 arouras), whileonly a few (especially those of priests) are of asize between 2 and 5 arouras. Only three plotsexceed 5 arouras, the largest being just 8.5arouras. When plots of two or three arouras arereduced in the second figure to what Gasse consi-ders their taxable area (" la superficie taxable "),many reduce to a size of less than 2 arourasT9.There is no clear correspondence between thesocial status of the landholder and size of plot.However, some difference can be noted betweenthe areas of field worked by holders of priestlyoffice and simple w%priests. Priests certainly areascribed larger plots than average: of a sizebetween two and five arouras. \Atren these plotsundergo reduction, however, they experience amore significant reduction than the plots of othersmallholders, being decreased to less than 2

arouras. This suggests that the priesthood bene-fited from what Gasse calls " un allEgement detaxe > more significant than that of other small-holders. Such is also the case with scribes80. Thequestion of why this should be the case remainsto be answered but may be related to preferentialtreatment by virtue of status as personnel of theland-owning institution.

In column III of the verso of the Ahmoleanand Louvre fragments, lines 21, 2+26, there ismention of four plots described as w.r/and ascri-bed to individual smallholders. Two of the small-holders are w'b-priests (III, 24.26) and one isidentified simply as aifuwty (III, 25). These occu-pations are also attested with w,r/ plots in theWilbour Papyrrrs. The occupation of one othersmallholder (III, 21) is lacking, although thename is provided. No stipulation of the area offield that is ws/ is provided other than that it ismeasured in arouras in the case of the fullypreserued line 21, nor is there any indication

79. Ibin., p. 70. See too p. 62 concerning the distinctionbetween red and black ink.

about the type of land involved. All of the otherplots mentioned in column III are measured inarouras and are ascribed to individuals whoinclude w'b-priests, a retainer (imsw), ar,'3 n ist,and also, most notably, soldiers (w'w).

I4ls/is not the only explanation of the absenceof the area of a plot in the verso. There are threeother expressions written in an extremely cursiveform. As in the Wilbour Text A apportioningparagraphs, the recording scribe notes that a plotis " dry " (m iwt), " without water > (wir/m bwwir) or < not seen " (bw ptrifl, the last of whichis the most frequently occurring of the fourexpressions, interpreted by Gasse as indicatingthat the inundation waters had not yet left theplotSl. The correspondence between the versoof the Ashmolean and Louwe fragments and theWilbour Papyrus is thus even more pronounced.Yet, the absence of the size of plot where theseexpressions occur is a striking difference. Thescribes of the Wilbour Papyms took note of thesize of each and every plot, productive or not,while the scribe(s) of the Ashmolean and Louvrefiagments was concerned with recording the areaof only productive plots. While the recto of thefragments was concerned with amounts of grainin barley and emmer, measured in fu3r, forthco-ming as (net) revenues from the plots of culti-vable land of various land-owning institutions inthe tenth nome of Upper Eg1pt, information as

to the crop(s) cultivated is not mentioned on theverso in any of the assessment lines. Thus, it isnot possible to draw any conclusions about thecrops grown on the plots detailed in the versothat might clari$r the understanding of the termwslbeyond what is known from the Wilbour TextA apportioning paragraphs.

The fragments of a number of related papyri,of Twenty-first Dynasty date, published in part by

Ibid., p.70.Ibid., p.4142.

80.81.

cRrPEL25 (2005) 153

SerrvL.D.IkTARY

Gasse as P. Grundbuch (P. Berlin 23257,23252,23253, etc.) are in part distinctly reminiscent ofP. Reinhardt82. However, the state of preserva-tion of these fragments is so poor that any recons-truction must be tentative83. The fields detailedin Gnrndbuch are of modest size. Moreover, thereis no indication of the kind of land they comprise(e.g., l,c3yt, nbb, lni). Only three plots exceed 5

arouras, seven have al area between 3 and 5

arouras, and nine are smaller than one aroura.Since 38 percent of the fields have an areabetween 1 and 3 arouras, they are comparable tothose in the Ashmolean and Louwe fragments.From the lists of landholders, Gasse considers theplots to be comparable to those Wilbour plotsGardiner defined as apportioned (p,i) smallhol-dings8a.

There are numerous instances, notably inP. Berlin 23253,where the scribe of Grundbuchomits the indication of the actual area of the plotas well as the reduced area that characteristicallyfollows and inserts the explanation why no " land121 " is imposed ("... et donc jug6s inaptes a

supporter la redevance fonciEre ")85. These areplots where the already familiar terms m iwt, wir,and wsf occur. The expression &w ptri.f alsooccurs, but there appear to be two writings of theexpression, if indeed the two writings representthe same expressionSo. In the recto of P. Berlin23253, the fragment that presens a geographi-cally arranged list of individuals to whom areascribed small fields that are sometimes reducedin surface area in the manner of P. Reinhardt,the beginnings of the lines are lost. An occur-rence of the term ws/in line 47 of recto, column

82. Ibid., p. 89. Comparison is a.lso made to the verso ofP. Ashmolean 1945.94 + Louvre AF 6345, P. I-our.,re AF 634G7, and P. Prachov, see p. 116.

83. Ibid., p.89f.84. Ibid., p.719.85. Ibid., p.118.86. rbid.

1 (Gasse, pl. 51) is completely without supple-mentary data. When the term occurs again in line5 of recto, column 3 (Gasse, pl. 55), followingthe name Khonsu, the area of:7/2 aroura is thesole piece of information given.

If the enumeration of fields in Grundbuchwas indeed intended to reveal differences in theareas of fields from one year to the next and possi-

bly also the condition of the fields that wouldhave an impact on future expectations of produc-tivity, then it would be one in a regular series ofsimilar registers as Gasse sugges*ST. At the same

time, the lack of indication of the kind of landcultivated - k3yt, nfub, or 1ni - suggests the exis-tence of other contemporary registers, such as

the Ashmolean and Lour,re fragments, to be used' "'38ln coryunctron wrth rt'

However frustrating to scholars today, thereis no uniformity in the content of pre-Ptolemaicland registers and surveys and inconsistencies doabound89. No doubt the differences among themare to be ascribed to differences in purpose as

well as to local differences in administrative prac-tices. It is folly to think we should be able toexplain all and sundry differences among thedocuments we happen to possess. Had we morepre-Ptolemaic documents at our disposal, ouranalysis of their contents still might not providethe answers we seek and might even furthermuddy the waters by identifying even more itemsof variation among them.

It is important moreover to keep in mind thatPtolemaic land registers that detail Hellenisticmethods of registering, administering, and asses-

sing cultivable land do not have antecedents in

87. Ibid.,p.l79.88. tbid., p.119-20.89. Crawford, Kerkeosiris, p. 23, n. 3 recalls Gardiner's

comment in Wihour Pa(yas II, p.-IBJ concerning WilbourText B: " Text B would not be a genuine Eglptian text if itfailed to show inconsistencies... "

t54 CRLPELZS e0A5)

THE I4-6FPLOTS IN THE WILBOUR PAPYRUS AND REI"{IED DoCUMENTS

either Classical Greece or the Hellenistic NearEast90. It is altogether reasonable to presumeantecedents in Egypt proper played a role in theway Hellenistic surveys developed and that theorigins of many administrative and agriculturalpractices found in Ptolemaic texts may be soughtin pharaonic documents. Perhaps the curiousland-cubit measured plots in the Wilbour Papymswith their high frequency of wsl plots areevidence ofagricultural practices already in usein the Twentieth Dynasty. These practices maynot have been fully developed and they may nothave been widely practiced, but they may consti-tute antecedents to the Hellenistic Egyptian agri-cultural q.6tem that is so well attested in Ptolemaictexts.

90. Ibid, p. 7-8, p. 8, n.l-10. Seleucid cadastral surveysnever reached the complexity of Ptolemaic surveys, whereasBabylonian sources and references fi:om Dura-Europus paplri(second century B.C.) provide boundaries of property but

no measurement of fields..Similarly, in ClassicalGreece thereis an absence of records of landed-pioperties based uponregular surveys.

cRrPEL2s (2005) 155