Prolegomena to the Study of Egypt's Economic History During the New Kingdom

Prolegomena to the Study of Egypt's Economic History during the New KingdomAuthor(s): Jac. J. JanssenSource: Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur, Bd. 3 (1975), pp. 127-185Published by: Helmut Buske Verlag GmbHStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25149989Accessed: 23/05/2010 05:44

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PROLEGOMENA TO THE STUDY OF

EGYPT'S ECONOMIC HISTORY DURING THE NEW KINGDOM*

by

Jac. J. Janssen

This is an enlarged version of a paper originally intended to be dis

cussed at the conference on Problems of History at Cairo in January 1975. Circumstances preventing my presence at the meeting the paper was

never send in. Although revised, it still shows traces of its origin. It is not, and never was meant to be, a complete survey of the subject.

CONTENTS

I Preliminary Remarks 128

II The Basic Elements a Geography 132

b Demography 135 c Mentality 137

III Production a Agriculture 139 b Mining 153 c Crafts 158 d Transport and Trade 161

IV Consumption a Food 164 b Rations 166

V Special Subjects a Slavery 171 b Taxes 173 c Money and Prices 177 d State and Temple 180

VI The Structure of the Egyptian Economy 183

" I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dieter Mueller, Lethbridge, for

correcting my English as well as for his valuable suggestions and critical

remarks.

128 Jac.J. Janssen SAK 3

I PRELIMINARY REMARKS

Economic history of ancient Egypt -

history understood as knowledge of

the past -

is as yet virtually non-existent. What has been presented

under this or a similar title in the handbooks largely consists of va

gue and unfounded theories, based on too little evidence, or actually

deals with technology instead of economy proper. Genuine economic histo

ry would discuss problems such as the costs of production, the price

of the production factors, including labour, division of income, mone

tary policy, interregional and international trade, features of eco

nomic cycles, etc.

There is indeed material on the subject available, although the ancient

Egyptians by the very nature of their civilisation have never intention

ally written about economic matters, their attention being concentrated

upon religion, literature and administration. However, the latter type

of written documents in particular does contain information about: eco

nomic questions. They have only to be studied from this specific point

of view, and this as yet has seldom been done. Apart from written do

cuments information is provided by archaeological material as weil, if

only the right questions are put to it.

In order to compensate for the present lack of knowledge concerning

the economy egyptologists have been inclined to study the problems by the diachronic method. Since knowledge about the economy of Ptolemaic

and Roman Egypt is both more extensive and more detailed than that of

pharaonic periods1, and since material for a specific aspect is more

extensive for one period of pharaonic times than for another, they have

attempted to explain facts occurring in the texts by comparing them

with similar facts from anothei age. This practice seems to me in

general unwarranted. It may be, for instance, that the influence of

the Greeks on Egyptian economy after Alexander's conquest has been

fairly small, particularly in the field of agriculture. With their

different background they will hardly have been able to alter much in

the millennia old Egyptian system.2 Likely as this suggestion may be,

1 I may point to the book of Dorothy J. Crawford, Kerkeosiris: An Egyptian Village in the Ptolemaic Period, Cambridge 1971, in which the material from one village is presented. Lack of comparable material has so far prevented as similar study for a pharaonic village.

2 That the system of land-ownership has changed between the XXth Dynasty and the

Ptolemaic Age is possible; cf. Gardiner, The Wilbour Papyrus II, 167.

1975 Economic history during the New Kingdom 129

it has to be proved, and that is only possible by a thorough study of

the pharaonic agriculture in itself, with the help of all available

sources, written as well as archaeological.

The only sound method in my opinion is to start with a study of the

economy of one period of pharaonic Egypt, preferably the one from

which the material is relatively rich and easy to interpret, that is,

the New Kingdom. It may be tempting to begin with the oldest period,

but for this the evidence is fairly small and too difficult to under

stand in all details.3 On the other hand, it should be possible to com

pose a picture of the economy of the period from the early XVIIIth

Dynasty to the end of the XXth in all its facets. Additional material

from earlier times may be taken into account, though it should be used

with caution. Whether, for instance, a word indicating a special type

of agricultural land or an administrative function occurring in the

MK text has exactly the same meaning in the NK documents is open to

question and has to be studied. Hence, the shorter the period, the more

reliable the conclusions.

The present paper attempts to show what material for the study of NK

economy is available; which aspects of the subject have already been

studied, and what the results have been; what more could be done in

the near future. Before entering upon the subject, however, I would

like to draw attention to two points of a general character.

1 One has not to be Marxist to be convinced that the economic structure

of a society is one of the decisive forces in the development of his

tory. From the preceding it may be clear that the influence of the

economy on Egyptian political and cultural history has been underrated.

Wilson in his "The Burden of Egypt11 has been one of the few scholars

who has been conscious of the problem1*, and on several pages he adduces

economic evidence in order to explain historical events. It is apparent,

however, that the basic knowledge is too small for that. In describing

3 I certainly do not suggest that research into the economic features of the Old

Kingdom is altogether valueless. As for an example I may point out the important

study of Mme Jaquet-Gordon, Les noms des domaines funeraires sous l'ancien

empire egyptien, BdE 34, Le Caire 1962. However, only a comprehensive study of the donations during the NK and the Late Period could demonstrate whether

the foundation of funerary domains has been a constant element in the economy, or whether important differences in this respect exist between the main periods.

4 So, too, Eberhard Otto, Xgypten. Der Weg des Pharaonenreiches, particularly in

the chapters on the Ramesside Period.


thfe decline of the XXth Dynasty he refers, among other causes, to the

rise of the grain prices in the middle of that period.5 As will be

mentioned below, a study of the available material shows that the

fluctuation of the prices is restricted to agricultural products.6

The documentation for the question has been known for some time but

had not been previously studied.

For other periods Wilson does not mention any economic causes of poli

tical events; nor did any other scholar. So far as I am aware, for in

stance, it has never been asked from what sources the liberator phara

ohs of the XVIIth Dynasty derived the economic strength to "pay" for

the war against the Hyksos. How has Kamose been able to build the fleet

with which, according to his record, he drove back the ennemy? In which

way and from what sources did he pay for the assistance of the Madjoi?7

We may assume that they were rewarded with fields, like the mercenaries

in later periods; but this calls forth a series of detail questions

such as that of the density of the population in Upper Egypt, the owner

ship of the land, etc. Other questions could be raised: how did Ahmose

pay for the services of his highly skilled chariotry, the new weapon

with its international technique? How did he provide for the horses?

What has been the effect of the influx of products from the "liberated"

North, and of the re-opening of the Mediterranean trade - if indeed the

South has ever been cut off during the Hyksos period, which seems far

from certain. All such questions are still without even the beginning

of an answer. They are here only mentioned in order to show what may

be the ultimate result of a study of the Egyptian economy for the his

tory of the Nile valley in general.

2 The second point is of quite a different nature. Above I have stated

my conviction that we have to be extremely careful in explaining phara

onic economy from our more extensive knowledge of Graeco-Roman times.

Study of the latter may well serve as a source of inspiration, and can

teach us how problems could be solved in the Nile valley. What I wanted

to do was to warn against rashly equating the actual Economic facts

of various periods.

5 The Burden of Egypt, 274 f. 6 See below, ch. V c. 7 For the immigration of the Madjoi (= the Pan-Grave People) cf. Bietak, Aus

grabungen in Sayala, Graz 1961, 61 ff. and Hofmann, Beitrag zur Herkunft der

Pfannengraber-Leute, in: ZDMG, Supplementa III, 1969, 1113 ff.

1975 Economic history during the New Kindgdom 131

There is, however, another source of inspiration which seldom is used.

Although it may be still too early to draw an overall picture of the

Egyptian economic structure it is obvious that ancient Egypt belongs to the category of what the cultural anthropologists have called

"peasant societies".8 The social-economic systems of these societies,

for example in ancient China or India, or in the higher developed Afri

can states before the economic revolution caused by Western influences,

show dispite their fundamental differences common features distinguishing

them from the industrial world. On the other hand, they are equally

far removed from the primitive subsistence economies which recently

still existed, for instance, in the African forest zone. It seems to

me that study of these peasant societies offers means to discover how

they solved economic problems which do not exist in the Western world.

In general it seems to me that egyptologists would gain from studying

the so-called "primitive" peoples or whatever better name may be used

to indicate the subject of cultural anthropology.9 Doubtless this holds

true for the economic aspects of the Egyptian civilisation. I do not

suggest that there are historical connections between ancient Egypt

and more recent peasant economies, but I do think that their study

will open our eyes for unsuspected alternatives in the possible signi

ficance of the data. On the other hand, odd as it may seem to be, pro

found knowledge of the modern market-directed economy proves to be

of little value to the egyptologist and may even be obnoxious since it

tends to blind him to the fundamental difference between the modern

Western world and ancient Egypt. 10

8 That this type also occurs where no actual peasantry is involved is shown by the study of Raymond Firth, Malay Fishermen. Their Peasant Economy, London 1946.

Cf. also for the defense of the use of the term p. 22. 9 Cf> Morenz, Prestige-Wirtschaft im alten Xgypten, SBAW 1969/4, Munchen 1969,

6 ff. 10 For the relation between primitive and modern economy cf. for example, Daryll

Forde and Mary Douglas, Primitive Economies &n: Man, Culture and Society, ed.

by Harry L. Shapiro, Oxford 1956; reprinted in: Tribal and Peasant Economies, ed. by George Dalton, Garden City, New York 1967). In the latter edition

particularly 23 f.


II THE BASIC ELEMENTS

a Geography

There is no reason to repeat the usual platitudes about the influence

of the desert climate or the role of the Nile for the Egyptian civili

sation.11 What the economic historian needs is actual facts about the

physical and human geography of pharaonic Egypt; for example:

1 the extent of the cultivation in the various nomes

in different periods;

2 the fertility of the soil and the average production

of the nomes;

3 the exact structure of the irrigation system;

4 the function of the cities in relation to the

countryside;

5 the pattern of settlement and its development.

These and similar questions are fundamental for the understanding of

the agriculture, which in its turn constitutes the basis of the taxation

system, of transport and trade, nutrition, etc.12

The most important contribution of recent years in this respect is an

article by J.A. Wilson13, where he discusses, among other subjects,

the width of the strip of arable land in various modern provinces,

the ratio of fertile to infertile soil in each of them, their productiv

ity in cereals and vegetables, and the density of their population.

Although the data for his study are derived from statistics of the

years A.D. 1937 and 1938, since "the figures for ancient Egypt are

11 A fact usually forgotten is that Egypt is more or less free from catastrophes such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, vulcanic eruptions, etc. The disasters

of its history are of smaller dimensions: too high or too low inundations, locust plagues, etc., no less obnoxious for the population but without a lasting influence on the land itself. The only permanent changes in the landscape are

those caused by changes in the course of the Nile within the valley.

For an important study of the influence of climate and inundation on the

Egyptian history before the MK cf. Bell, in: AJA 75, 1971, 1-26. 12 In a recent article (in: BSFE 67, Juin 1973, 27 ff.) Yoyotte mentions some

difficulties of geographic research concerning pharaonic Egypt. On the other

hand, he himself demonstrates what may be done despite the handicaps. 13 Buto and Hierakonpolis in the Geography of Egypt, in: JNES 14, 1955, 209 ff.

An attempt to summarize the geographical features of various nomes of Upper and Lower Egypt is found on p. 228 ff.


impossible to establish", Wilson argues that "nevertheless, in the

broadest terms, (....) the comparison of different sections of Egypt

in terms of area, population, and productivity seems to have relative

meaning for the past." In view of the fundamental changes in the

irrigation system - from basin system to perannual irrigation -, in

population density and, probably, in agricultural methods, the results

drawn from modern evidence cannot very well convince the economic

historian without further proof of their validity for pharaonic Egypt.14

It seems to me not improbable that geographers will be able to supply

us with more reliable evidence, as Butzer in his study of the natural

landscape may have proved. Although he too has stated15 that the hori

zontal extent of the arable land in ancient times is virtually unknown,

his researches together with Kaiser16 at least provide some indications

as to the development that has taken place within historical times in

the region between Balanstira and el-Minya. Moreover this particular

study demonstrates what may be expected from the close cooperation of

a geographer and an archaeologist.17

The irrigation system of ancient Egypt mentioned above has never been

studied for its own sake.18 Admittedly, the material is still scanty,

but here a combined approach by archaeologists, geographers and philo

logists may yield results. At present our knowledge is restricted to

the Greek period. Here I may mention the thesis of Dimitri Meeks19

which, though dealing with the landed properties of the Edfu temple

14* It is to be expected that the Tubinger Atlas of the Ancient Near East at present

in preparation (see Universitas 13, 1973, 255 ff.) will provide us with a reli

able map on which the agricultural area along the Nile will be indicated. 15 Studien zum vor- und friihgeschichtlichen Landschaftswandel der Sahara III. Die

Naturlandschaft Agyptens wahrend der Vorgeschichte und der Dynastischen Zeit, Wiesbaden 1959, 69. See particularly the chapter "Die Schaffung des heutigen

Siedlungsraumes: das Alluvium" (23 ff.). 16 In: MDAIK 17, 1961, 46 ff. and 66 ff. See also Butzer, Archaeology and Geology

in Ancient Egypt, in: New Roads to Yesterday. Essays in Archaeology, ed. by

Joseph Caldwell, London 1966, 210 ff. 17 One can also cite the researches of the Austrian excavators of Tell ed-Dabca

into the geography of the Delta, about which Bietak offered a lecture at the

Congress of Orientalists at Paris, July 1973. 18 The pertinent section in Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology II, Leiden 1955,

22-30, is poor, based on antiquated literature, and combining material from

Graeco-Roman Egypt with evidence from pharaonic times. The summary of Schenkel,

in: LdX I, col. 775 ff. is mainly based on the study of Willcocks and Craig,

which is rahter old (1913) and does hardly relate to ancient Egypt, while his

article in GM ll, 1974 seems to me quite speculative. 19 Le grand texte des donations au temple d'Edfou, BdE 59, Le Caire 1972.


during the Ptolemaic Period, in its geographical details and Egyptian

terminology offers at least some reference material for the study of

the irrigation in pharaonic times. Whether the geographical situation

and the terminology as reflected in this text resemble those of the

NK is a point of further research.

Very little is as yet known about the towns and villages of ancient

Egypt, their plan, extension and function.20 Exceptions are the work

men's settlements at el-Lahun, el-'Amarna and Deir el-Medtna, which

all three may represent a rather rare type since they are no peasant

communities. The city of el-'Amarna is equally, though perhaps to a

lesser degree, uncommon since it was built within a short period and

soon deserted. We further possess some knowledge concerning the town

of Ahmose in Abydos21 and the temple-town of Medinet Habu22, but these

too were not normal Egyptian towns.

About the living quarters of the capitals such as Memphis, Thebes23

and Ramsestown our knowledge is insufficient, and we know next to

nothing of smaller cities such as the nome capitals and other admini

strative centres. We may assume that Memphis with its harbour quarter

had a population of craftsmen24, and a similar quarter has probably

existed at Thebes. Kemp, in his valuable article on Temple and Town

in Ancient Egypt25, describes the North Suburb of el-'Amarna as a dis

trict inhabited by middle-class land-owners and craftsmen and suggests

that the same pattern of settlement was found in other Egyptian towns.26

It is the task of the excavators to establish whether this is correct.

A last subject to be touched upon in this connection is the pattern

of settlement throughout the country, i.e. the spread of villages and

local centres. An interesting contribution to this question, actually

its first discussion, is given by O'Connor in the samme collection of

20 Cf. Posener, Lejon inaugurale, 1961, 14 f., and Badawi, Architecture III, 55 ff. 21 Cf. Badawi, op.cit., 56 f. 22

Op.cit., 68 ff. and 73 ff., and Uphill in: Man, Settlement and Urbanism, ed.

by Peter J. Ucko, Ruth Tringham and G.W. Dimbleby, London 1972, 726 ff. See

also Kemp, same work, 666. A similar type of settlement is excavated S.E. of

the sacred lake of Karnak; cf. Lauffray, in: CRAIBL 1971, 557 ff. 23 For first archaeological traces of the living quarters of Thebes cf. Leclant,

in: Or 42, 1973, 408. 2t* For a summary of what is known about the dockyard of Prw-nfr near Memphis, cf.

Wall-Gordon, in: MDAIK 16, 1968, 174 f. 25

Man, Settlement and Urbanism (see note 12), 657 ff. 26 Cf. the reconstructed scene from some talatat extracted from the IXth Pylon

of Karnak: Lauffray, in: CRAIBL 1971, 566 f.

1975 Economic histroy during the New Kingdom 135

papers on settlement and urbanism.27 Studying the evidence provided

by the Wilbour papyrus he concludes that there existed "a concentration

of agriculturists around the nome-capitals of Ninsu and Hardai", bet

ween which stretched a region with a thin and scattered population con

cerned mainly with the pasturing of animals. He also suggests that

this distribution of the population is the result of a deliberate po

licy of the goernment in order to control the agriculture and facilitate

the collection of its surplus, as well as to raise forced labour.

Whether these suggestions are correct can only be proved through further

research.

b Demograghy

Besides a knowledge of the land, that of the population and its compo

sition is essential for the understanding of the economy of a country. The present state of demographic studies of the Egyptian population

during the dynastic period is, unfortunately, rather unsatisfactory.

Recently the Nubian campaign has produced a lot of material in this

respect, but for Egypt itself except for the prehistoric periods very

little has yet been done. A complete survey of our knowledge would be

beyond the scope of the present paper; hence I will only point out

some recent studies and mention possible investigations.

In the Journal of Human Evolution (I, 1972, 161 ff.) there has appeared an article by Mansali and Chiarelli28 who concluded from the study of

human remains preserved at Turin (originating from excavations in the

cemeteries of Gebelein and Asytit) that there are indications for a

low fertility rate of the Egyptian woman during the pharaonic period. This would mean that the population, from a demographic point of view, was not expanding, and that it was well fitted to it" environment as

an equilibrium was maintained between the resources of the country and

the reproduction rate of its inhabitants. Economic historians would be

glad to see these conclusions confirmed by more material. It is to be

27 The Geography of Settlement in Ancient Egypt, op.cit., 681 ff. 28

Reprinted in: Population Biology of the Ancient Egyptians, ed. by D.R. Broth

well and B.A. Chiarelli (London -

New York, 1973). Most articles in this

collection are outside the scope of the present paper, but note the conditions

on which according to Nemeskeri (op.cit., 172 f.) the results of an excavation

can be of use to demographers.


expected that the excavations at Tell ed-Dab'a will yield valuable evi

dence in this field of study.

For one region our knowledge of the population is more extensive than

usual, namely the area between Matmar and Etmanieh, south of Asytit.

This part of the country is fairly rich in agriculture, but otherwise

not especially significant, hence probably more or less representative.

David O'Connor has recently devoted an article to its population in

predynastic and pharaonic times.29 From the number of burials discovered

in this reasonably well explored area he has drawn up a table which,

although not presenting absolute data, may be assumed to be reliable

as regards the general demographic trends. Whether, however, high num

bers of burials in a specific period indicate a high mortality rate,

or a relatively dense population, must be decided by the historian from

his knowledge of the circumstances of the period. Moreover, since the

main NK cemetery (near Khawalid) is still unexcavated, O'Connor could

not provide evidence for those ages for which our knowledge is widest

in other respects. Methodologically the article is highly important;

that the results for our purpose are rather poor is not the fault of

the author. The importance of a complete and systematic excavation of

the Khawalid cemetery is obvious.

The articles mentioned are quoted in order to indicate the type of

research recently published. For a reliable historical demography of

ancient Egypt the time is not yet ripe. This is readily apparent in

the discussion concerning the size of the population in the Nile valley

summarized by O'Connor;30 the most likely estimates oscillate between

4 1/231 and 7 million inhabitants. Clearly this is too vague to be of

value to economic historians.

I want to point out quite a different approach to demographic questions.

Undoubtedly there is no community in ancient Egypt for which the data

are as abundant as for that of the necropolis workmen of Deir el-Medlna.

Various scholars in their publications of stelae and other epigraphical

29 O'Connor, A Regional Population in Egypt to circa 600 B.C., in: Population Growth: Anthropological Implications, ed. by Brian Spooner, Cambridge, Mass,

and London 1972, 78 ff. 30

Op.cit., 82 f. 31 The figure calculated by Baer, in: JARCE l, 1962, 43 f. This is not the place

to discuss the merits of the argumentation.


material from the site32 have reconstructed genealogies of the work

men,33 and Cern^ in his posthumous study3** has largely increased our

knowledge of the subject. It seems to me possible, particularly once

the systematic French studies of the genealogies have reached an ad

vanced stage,35 that we will be able to draw a picture of the demogra

phic structure of the community, with evidence about mortality and

fertility rates, distribution of age and sex, etc. Although the work

men's community was not typical, even quite exceptional, the study

would provide us with a point of departure for further research.

c Mentality

It may be superfluous here to argue that ancient Egyptian conceptions

of life and death, nature and history, etc., differed fundamentally

from those of our time. I need only to mention some key-words well

known to every egyptologist: the conception of Maat, called by Morenz

the innermost element of Egyptian ethics; mythopoeic thought and multi

plicity of approaches (Frankfort); stress on community and the general as against individuality and the typical (Wolf and de Buck); Geschichte

als Fest (Hornung); aspective art (Brunner-Traut). Each of these terms

attempts to indicate a characteristic aspect of the pharaonic civili

sation.

If indeed the conceptions of life and world so fundamentally differed

from ours, it becomes highly unlikely that the Egyptian attitude in

economic matters was the same as that of modern times. It is easy to

point out such an improbability; to establish the actual economic

conceptions of the ancient Egyptians is quite another matter. It may

be obvious that the concept of Maat and the emphasis on the community

has influenced them, but in what manner?

There has been as yet very little study of the problem, so that I am

unable to mention any generally accepted theory. In the following I can

32 Apart from the excavation reports of B. Bruyere I mention: BM Stelae, Part 9, London 1970 and M. Tosi-A. Roccati, Stele e altre epigrafi di Deir el-Medina, Torino 1972.

33 See also Tosi, Una stirpe di pittori a Tebe, Quaderno del Museo Egizio di

Torino 7, Torino 1972. 34 A Community of workmen at Thebes in the Ramesside Period, BdE 50, Le Caire 1973. 35 Cf. Sauneron, in: BIFAO 71, 1972, 205.


only attempt to indicate where, in my opinion, possible differences

between ancient Egypt and our time seem to be reflected in the texts.

It is a well known fact that administrative documents bristle with in

accurate figures. They are too numerous simply to be explained by

incidental carelessness of the scribes and seem to reflect a typical

Egyptian attitude. As one example out of so many I may refer to an en

try in the Giornale della necropoli (17B, vs. A, 9) ,36 where a fisher

man is stated to have delivered two quantities of fish, one of 120

deben and one of 275 deben. His monthly dues were 400 deben* and it

is obvious from the context that 120 + 275 deben were supposed to be

sufficient, the 5 deben he had failed to deliver being of no consequence.

Another example occurs in pCairo 65739.37 In line 1o ten deben of

copper are valued at 1 kite of silver, but in lines 8-9 eighteen deben

of copper equal 1 2/3 kit&, while in lines 9 and 10 both fourteen and

sixteen deben are stated to be equal to 1 1/2 kite. The main reason

for the inaccuracy is the impossibility to express the exact equivalent

of 14, 16 or 18 deben of copper in terms of the silver measure, but

whereas we would try to find means of making the expression of the

actual values more correct the Egyptians appear not to have bothered

about it.38

The reason for this attitude is to be sought in the "realism" of the

Egyptians.39 This realism, or, as I formulated it,40 vagueness with

respect to the (abstract) prices and eoncreteness with respect to the

objects concerned, is one of the features of Egyptian economy.

Another example of the problems discussed here is the question whether, as usually taken for granted, the Egyptians attempted to make "profit",

or, rather, what was the function of "profit" in their economy. The

concept is so common in the Western world that scholars unconsciously seem to assume that it played the same part in ancient Egypt. However,

I doubt whether making profit was indeed a dominating force41; it cer

tainly is not in several "peasant societies".

36 BottirPeet, pi. 29.

37 Gardiner, in: JEA 21, 1935, 140 ff.

38 More examples in my Commodity Prices, e.g. the frequent neglect of small frac

tions, so that the price of 1 3/4 sack of corn is the same as that of 2 sack. 39 Cf. Gardiner, The Wilbour Papyrus II, 64: "The Egyptians were greater realists

than ourselves, or if we prefer to turn the compliment in our favour, they had

less power of abstract thinking.11 *

Commodity Prices, 540 ff. **1 The dominating force may rather have been "prestige", as Morenz attempts to

demonstrate in his 'Prestige-Wirtschaft im alten Agypten1 , SBAW 1969/4, Munchen

1969.


Of course the Egyptians were human and enjoyed the possession of riches,

attempting to obtain them even by illegal activities, as the tomb

robberies prove. But this is not the same matter as profit making in

industry and commerce, which implies the application of the law of

supply and demand, production for the market, etc. Prices, for instance,

were largely traditional,*2 and if a particular object, e.g. a chair

or a coffin, is stated to have been sold for a price higher than usual

this was seldom due to its specific qualities, but mostly to the wish

of the buyer to aquire this particular chair or coffin, to the pride

the manufacturer took in his product, the ability of the buyer to pro

vide the seller with those objects the latter wanted to obtain at that

very moment, etc. There is hardly any connection with the costs of pro

duction since its main component, labour (in other words: time) possessed

only a very vague value.

I do not suggest that making profit was entirely unknown to the ancient

Egyptians, but it seems to me highly unlikely that it was the pivot

of the economy. That was rather redistribution.**3 It is in this connec

tion that I once more refer to the study of the peasant societies by

ethno-economists, which can stimulate our awareness that there are other

types of mentality in economic matters than that of the modern world.****

III PRODUCTION

a Agriculture

Any study of the Egyptian agriculture during the New Kingdom has to

begin with the most important document preserved, the Wilbour Papyrus. One cannot but agree with its editor Gardiner when he wrote: MCould

(the) purpose (to be served by the figures) be revealed in full, doubt

less we should find ourselves in possession of a fairly comprehensive

picture of Late Ramesside agricultural finance".**5 However, despite the

42 See below, ch. V c. 43 See below, ch. VI. 44 For other aspects of the Egyptian mentality, cf. below ch. V b and e. 45 The Wilbour Papyrus, vol. II, Commentary, 201. Two important reviews of this

publication have been published, one by Edgerton, in: JAOS 70, 1950, 299 ff.

and one by Fairman, in: JEA 39, 1953, 118 ff.


editor's splendid commentary and later studies devoted to the text46

the purpose is as yet far from clear and many details remain quite obscure. Here we cannot do more than repeat some of the outstanding

conclusions, of Gardiner as well as of others, and point out the

major problems.

With its enormous length (over 10 m) and its over 5200 lines (102 co

lumns of text A, 25 of text B) the Wilbour Papyrus is one of the lon

gest non-religious texts we know. Text A records the results of the

field-work of surveyors in four adjacent areas in Middle Egypt, from

the north of the Faiytim to Tihna, that is over a length of 140 km.

The survey took place in year 4 of Ramesses V, in about 23 days47,

during the months II and III 3ht, that is, from late July to the middle

of August.

Here we encounter one of the major problems, since the season seems to

be unsuitable for a survey, as it fell into the time of the inundation.48

Gardiner attempted to solve the problem by suggesting that the assess

ment (st)49 itself was made during this period, though it was based on

earlier measurements. Fairman suggested50 that only areas under summer

crop were surveyed. If this were correct, it would also explain why

the rate of assessment in the majority of the entries of normal domains

is 5 mc.51, which means that it was k3yt-land. Gardiner's translation

of k3yt as "arable (i.e. normal) land" ,may not be quite correct.52

The problem may be connected with another raised by Fairman, namely that the total area recorded in text A (some 17,324 arouras or c.4750

ha) seems to be only a small portion of the total surface of the

**6 The most important are: Helck, Materialien zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Neuen

Reiches, vols I and III, Wiesbaden 1961, and Bernadette Menu, Le regime juridique des terres et du personnel attache a la terre dans le Papyrus Wilbour, Lille

1970. Important remarks are also to be found in Klaus Baer's article 'The Low

Prices of Land in Ancient Egypt', in: JARCE 1, 1962, 25 ff. I have not seen

I.V. Vinogradov's thesis, an "autoreferat" of which has appeared in 1970. See

also his articles in VDI 107 and 110, 1969. **7 The survey was divided into 4 sections, the heading of the first one being lost.

Hence the date of the beginning of the survey is unknown. 48 Doubted by Baer (p. 40, note 98), but whereas he thought that the date falls

before the inundation Graefe (in: CdE 48/95, 1973, 44 ff.) argues that it falls after its culmination. Whatever the correct solution, the moment seems unsuit

able for a survey in view of the yearly variation in the date of the inundation. **9 The word occurs in the headings of the four sections. For its meaning, see below. 50

Op.cit., 119 (cf. note 45). 51 For mo , see below. 52 See however Baer, loc.cit.


districts covered by the surveyors. The explanation is that text A,

like text B, deals with a specific category of fields. Edgerton thought53

that it was the land owned by divine or royal institutions, and suggested

that there also were privately owned fields which were not included in

the record. His evidence for the existence of this category is meager

and mainly dates from the XVIIIth Dynasty (pBerlin 9784 and the In

scription of Mes); from the XlXth he could only mention pValenjay.

In this connection I would like to draw attention to the word iht so

frequently used in the text. Gardiner translates it as "cultivated

land"54 though he is well aware of the possibility that it bears a more

specific meaning. In the Donation Text of Penne55 the expression 3ht

iht occurs several times, demonstrating that iht is not simply a cul

tivated field56 but implies some, probably legal, meaning, as does its

derivative ihwty**7

Whether, however, the solution to the question why only a portion of

the total area is recorded in text A has to be sought in this direction,

or whether Fairman's first suggestion - summer crops only

- is the

correct one, or alternatively whether both are more or less correct,

has to be a subject for further study. Obviously we have to keep in

mind that, our knowledge of the agricultural organisation being largely

based on the Wilbour papyrus, the picture may be distorted since the

text by no means deals with all kinds of fields.

The organisation of landed properties and their administration as

shown in the Wilbour papyrus is extremely complicated, so that I cannot

do more than indicate the main lines. I will restrict my remarks to

the temple land, the system for the lay institutions being virtually

the same.58

53 P. 100 (cf. note 45). See also Baer, loc.cit. st* P. 66. In an unpublished article he once paraphrased it as "land leased direct

ly from someone". 55

Steindorff, Aniba II, pi. 101. For a not quite accurate facsimile, cf. LD III, 229c. The text, dating from the reign of Ramesses VI, is almost contemporaneous

with the Wilbour papyrus. 36 Helck's suggestion (Materialien II, 240) that it is an older term for "Domane

ohne genauere Unterschiede" seems to me quite uncertain, although for the many occurrences of ihwt during the XVIIIth Dynasty (e.g., Urk. IV, 172.746, etc.:

3howt made into ifa)t) some such explanation may be correct. 57

Menu, 139 ff. 58 A survey of the organisation, based on Gardiner's comments though with

minor but not unimportant modifications is presented by Helck, Materialien II,

240-293.


In general text A deals with two types of domains, each corresponding

to a particular type of paragraph. There is first the normal domain,59

of which there were in most sections several for each of the main tem

ples, each being under the authority or supervision (r ht) of one of

the high officials of the temple or the state. One official may be in

charge of several domains, even belonging to different institutions.

The direct responsibility for a separate domain is delegated to a con

troller (rwdw), most times a scribe. When the temple is a minor one

and has only one normal domain no controller is needed.

A domain consists of plots which sometimes seem to be rather far apart

and certainly did not constitute one joined area. In this respect the

organisation may be compared with that of a curtis in the European

Middle Ages. The plots themselves are identified in the text by the

names of their "cultivators" (ihwtyw), though these persons seem to

be of no consequence for the purpose of the record. Mile Menu has ar

gued that they acted as assistants of the controllers, being "cultiva

teurs-fonctionnaires"60 - whereas in the other type of paragraphs the

word Ifywty indicates the actual field-labourer.61

The main characteristic of the normal domain is that it was directly

exploited by the temple through its personnel, as appears from the

figures in the entries for the separate plots. The description of the

field is followed there by three red figures, the first of which in

dicates the total area of the plot (in arouras), the second a rate of

assessment, and the third the product of both. There are three rates

of assessment: 5 (450 instances), 7 1/2 (16 instances) and 10 (25

instances). Gardiner has argued, doubtless correctly, that the rates

correspond with the terms k3yt, tnl and nhb occurring in text B,62

which according to him reflect different qualities of the soil,63

59 Menu (see p. 26, note 56) prefers the translation "departement" for rmnyt,

reserving "domaine" for pr, since rmnyt is first and foremost an administrative

unity. If I follow in the main Gardiner's renderings, that does not imply any

judgement concerning Menu's argumentation; it is only for the sake of clarity.

However, Gardiner's term "non-apportioning domain" seems too awkward to keep; hence I have called them after Helck "normal domains".

60 Menu, 64-77, particularly 77.

61 Op.cit., 139 ff.

62 Note that y.3yt is here used as an agronomical term, whereas it occurs in text

A (and in other documents) as a topographical term meaning "high lying lands". 63 For a different opinion, cf. Vinogradov, in: BECTHMK 4 (110), 1969, 18-23.

See also Schenkel, in: LdX I, 779 f.


though he was unable to explain why tni, "tired land", was valued

higher than k3yt, "normal arable land".

The second and third of the three red figures are expressed in a measure

which Gardiner thinks to be the khar,e* and I am inclined to follow

him here. This would mean that the majority of the plots is stated to

yield to the temples 5 khar per aroura. Gardiner and Menu have both

argued that this cannot be the total yield, which may have been about

10 khar per aroura," but that it is also too high for taxes. Below I

will argue after Menu that it indicates the net revenues of the plot.

The second type of paragraphs in text A is called by Gardiner "appor

tioning paragraphs" on account of the word pS in their headings. The

domains of this type of the main temples are called rmnyt pS,66 while

the paragraphs devoted to the smaller sanctuaries begin with the words

Smw (n) pS.e7

The main characteristic of these paragraphs is the stress the entries

put on the individual plots and their holders, each entry beginning with a name, usually preceded by an indication of his occupation.

There are two varieties of entries, one (Type I) in which three' (or,

in Type I A, four) figures occur, one (or two) in black ink, two in

red, the last one always being 1 2/4. Moreover, the first black figure, or in Type I A the second one, is in the majority of the instances

either 3 or 5,68 which indicates the area in arouras.

6* Edgerton is certainly justified in questioning whether a scribe would be able

tousesoiconsistently and without one single mistake the basket sign in one type of entry and the corn-measure in the other, though both indicating the khar

(JAOS 70, 1950, 303). If he is right in suggesting that the corn-measure in dicates oip&, the correspondence between the Posh entries (see below) would

disappear, while some of the conclusions drawn below would be incorrect. It

is, however,possible that Menu's argument (p.80, note 134) is correct. The

subject requires further investigation. 65 So also Baer, op.cit., 30. In

pValenjay, vso 5-8, 4 arouras are said to yield

40 khar. 66 In these instances the management was assigned to the governmental administration,

as appears from the mention of a nome-capital or suchlike centre in the heading. There occur in the papyrus only three of these centres; cf. Gardiner, 39 ff.

67 From the form of the entries it is clear that some rarer types of paragraphs called "herbage" and "white goats" paragraphs belong to the same type, although no word ph occurs in the headings. Some of the domains called "Landing-Place of Pharaoh" belong here as well.

68 Proved by Menu (107 ff.) after a last moment discovery of Gardiner (Additions, 211 f.). In the sub-variety I A the black figures are separated by J , which

indicates, according to Menu, that more plots, each consisting of the number

of arouras recorded after this sign, to a total area as given in the first

figure, belong to one and the same person (Menu, 106). Hence the majority of

the plots of type I A also measure actually 3 or 5 arouras. Even fields the measure of which is noted as 5 J 1 are possibly 5 or. plots, though because of the local situation they consist of 5 small portions, each of 1 aroura.


These fields are tenures, portions of the landed property of a temple or a secular institution granted by the pharaoh to persons performing

special, duties for the state: military officers, foreign soldiers

(Sherden),Egyptians soldiers(w w), charioteers, stable-masters, herds

men, etc. The tenures appear to be hereditary (131 tenants are women

called Qnh-n-nlwt, which may mean "widow"; some entries mention children

of former tenants); they are possibly alienable69 but, at least in

theory, not private property. The holders pay a remuneration to the

temple or institution of 1 2/4 khar per aroura (the last figure), but

only on a portion of their fields, its area being indicated by the

first red figure.70 The portion liable to payment differs,71 but whether

this depends upon the personal circumstances of the tenant72 is uncertain.

The second variety (Type II) is characterized by the occurence of two

black figures separated by a dot, or only one (Type IIA) followed by

one of four abbreviated expressions explaining for what reason the land

was not assessed. Moreover, most of the plots of Type II are small and

measured in square cubits (from 6 to 200), the square cubit being 1/100

of an aroura. Since no red figures occur it seems that the possessors

did not pay any remuneration to the temples. Those of the small plots

seem to have been virtually private owners of the fields, and there is

even proof that they could sell them. Most of them are priests, scribes

or Ihwtyw, that is, they belonged to other categories than the holders

of the 3 and 5 aroura fields of Type I. Since this is the kind of people

who controlled the management of the fields in the normal domains Mile

Menu has suggested73 that they received this fields in payment for their

services, but it seems ,to me that this is not yet proved. Why the area

in type II is divided into two parts (separated by a dot), the first

usually being smaller than the second, is obscure; Gardiner74 and Menu75

suggested that it was for fiscal purposes, but that remains open to

doubt.

69 Gardiner, 76; Menu, 126 ff.

70 The Egyptian administration preferred to use throughout a r*ate of 1 2/4 khar

per aroura (even in the Posh B entries; see below), and hence decreased the

area on which the remuneration was paid, the result being the same as when one

had to pay a lower amount than 1 2/4 khar per aroura on the entire field. 71 For the plots of 3 ar. the second figures are 1/4 (15! instances), 1/2 (123),

1 (36), or 2 (1); for those of 5 or.: 1/4 (181), 1/2 (315), 1 (167), or 1 1/2 (1), while numbers higher than 1 are rare and occur only with large plots; cf.

Gardiner, 91, and Menu, 105. 72 So Helck, Materialien II, 259, and Menu, 123, without adducing proof. Helck's

explanation of type IA seems to me less likely than that of Menu. 73 P. 138.

P. 98. 75

Pp. 102 and 138.


Leaving aside most of the minor - though by no means unimportant

-

details I will point out only one rather essential type of entry. In

the normal domain paragraphs several entries of the usual type are

followed by a line stating that a certain amount of grain, always ex

pressed in khar, is "appointed to" (ps* n) another temple or secular

institution. This type is called by Gardiner posh A. The amount of

khar is always 7 1/2 % of the net revenues, that is, the last red fi

gure of the preceding line. In the apportioning paragraph devoted to

the receiving institution there appears a corresponding entry (Posh B),

recording what may be the same amount of grain. Here the last figure

is 1 2/4, as throughout in these paragraphs; there precede two figures,

the first one (in black) indicating the total area of the plot - the

same figure as appears in the entry in the normal domain paragraph -

the second (in red) being its quarter. The product of this quarter and

1 2/4 is equal to the amount of Posh A, at least when 1 2/4 mc. means

1 2/4 khar.

The explanation of the Posh-entries may be that one temple (Posh A)

paid 7 1/2 % of the net revenues of a field to another institution

(Posh B), probably in return for the hire of its personnel.76 Conse

quently the 7 1/2 % is recorded in the apportioning paragraph, for it

is income of the institution dealt with there, while mention in the

normal domain paragraph under the heading of the paying institution

was necessary since the amount was to be deduced from its revenues.

If this reconstruction is correct, it appears that the Wilbour papyrus

records the revenues of the temples and institutions - and not the

taxes!

So much about text A. Text B deals (also?) with land of one single type,

this time the so-called fc/zato-lands of pharaoh. The fields are said

to be situated on the land of temples but put in charge of high offi

cials, lay ones as well as priests. The explanation suggested by

Gardiner is that, for unknown reasons, one did run the risk that the

fields might not be cultivated in one particular year; they were put

under the personal responsibility of officials on behalf of the crown,

in order to ensure the production.77 In accordance with the explanation

the total area of khato-lands seems to have changed continuously. All

76 Menu, 89 ff. Gardiner thinks that these fields were leased by one institution

to another (p. 209). 77

Gardiner, in: RdE 6, 1951, 123 f.


entries of text B are accompanied by black figures indicating the size

of the plots, but only in some instances (the entries preceded by a

red dot) red numbers are added indicating actual assessment. The numbers

themselves are hard to explain.78

We now have to face the main problem of the Wilbour papyrus, namely the

question for what purpose the red figures have been recorded. Do they

represent taxes or revenues? As stated above, the figures in the normal

paragraphs seem too high for taxes and too low for the total yield of

the plots. Hence Mile Menu may have found the correct solution in

suggesting that they represent the net revenues after deduction of the

costs of production, that is, the seed-corn and the sustenance of the

field-labourers and the animals used for ploughing, transport, etc.

The apportioning paragraphs also may record the revenues of the in

stitutions. Gardiner thought79 that they indicate the rent paid by

the holders to the temples which, in theory, remained the owners of

the fields, and Menu, though not agreeing with Gardiner as regards the

legal status of the holders, is generally of the same opinion.80 However,

although speaking of revenues of the temples, she throughout calls them

"revenues taxables".81 In this connection the entries of Type II and

II A pose a problem, since they contain no figures at all. Gardiner

suggested that this means that the plots were not taxed,82 but if the

papyrus is meant to record taxes, why are these fields mentioned at all?

Menu prefers to think that the reason they were recorded is that indeed

they were taxable - which contradicts her opinion that the papyrus was

only concerned with temple revenues. The problem is as yet far from

solved.

Apart from this doubtful evidence, however, I cannot find a single

indication that the land of the temples recorded in the papyrus Wilbour

was indeed taxed. Gardiner, in the Epilogue to his edition83 and again in the Postscript,84 has argued that in the Ramessid period temples

were obliged to pay taxes to the State. Helck, on the other hand, rejects this view.85 In my opinion the problem is still open, but so much is 78 Cf. Gardiner, 183 ff. and Fairman, 120 ff. 79

Pp. 207-8. 80

Pp. 129-132. 81

E.g., pp. 102 and 122. 82 P. 199. S3 p. 102 . 84

Pp. 201-204 and 207-8. es

Pp. 285-6.


clear that the Wilbour papyrus contains no proof for the taxation of

temple lands.86 The amounts of grain here recorded are the revenues

of the land-owning temples and royal institutions. In other words: the

economic relations between Temple and State are as yet unknown.

It may be that the Griffith Fragments (see below), which also contain

a list of temple domains with their separate plots actually record

taxes.87 There a number of khar of grain (specified as emmer or barley)

is recorded for each domain, which for the k3yt-land is equal to the

number of arouras and for the nhb-land ("fresh land") twice as much.

The tax would then be 20 % of the gross revenues, which seems quite

possible. However, the text is badly damaged and various other ex

planations are equally possible. That these fragments prove the taxa

bility of the temples seems too bold a conclusion.

Besides the Wilbour papyrus several more texts about agricultural

matters are known, too many indeed to discuss them all. Some of them

we will briefly describe here.88

1) pAmiens (= RAD 1-13) Ramesses VII

Of this text only half the pages have been preserved. The recto records

the transport of grain from various threshing-floors on domains of

Amun in the Xth and Xlth Upper Egyptian nomes by the fleet of the temple.

The grain was brought to the Karnak temple of Amun and its dependencies.

Some of the domains may have been "apportioning domains" since they

were called after administrative centres, while others probably were

normal domains.

The verso records the movements of two (?) ships going from place to

place in order to collect small quantities of grain from domains of

Amun.

86 The same opinion is expressed by Baer (p. 41), though he calls the revenues

"rent". Whether this is correct depends upon the legal status of the cultiva

tors. For the tenants of the apportioning domains it may be correct if the

word "rent" is taken in a wide sense, but the amounts of grain mentioned in

the entries of the normal domain paragraphs -

about half the yield of the

fields - seem to me rather revenues than rent.

87 So, too, Baer, 32 f.

88 Most of them published by Gardiner in his Ramesside Administrative Documents

(London, 1948) and discussed in his article in JEA 27, 1941, 19 ff. This group of texts is translated and discussed by Helck, Materialien IV, 541 ff. For

important remarks, cf. Baer, in: JARCE 1, 1962, 31 ff.


2) Turin Taxation Papyrus =

pTurin 1895+2006 (= RAD 35-44) yr. 12 of Ramesses XI

Record of the collection of large quantities of grain by the scribe of

the necropolis Dhutimose assisted by two guards. According to the first

column the grain came from khato-lands of pharaoh. It was collected in

some towns south of Thebes and in the capital itself, and shipped to

the west bank of Thebes in order to be delivered partly to the granary

under the supervision of the mayor of western Thebes, and partly direct

ly to the necropolis, for which all was probably intended. The verso

(dated in the year 14) records among others the receipt of small

quantities of grain mainly delivered by foreingers ( 33w), which is

probably the same kind of people called Sherden in the Wilbour papyrus.

The occurrence of some technical terms (imw, it n p3 h n Pr-C3, sk3)

presents serious difficulties. One gets the general impression that

the grain went directly from the temples and cultivators to the necro

polis, although it was income (or taxes?) of the State.

3) pBrit.Mus. 10447 (= RAD 59) yrs. 54-55 of Ramesses II

Record of grain delivered to a statue of Ramesses II from a place in

the neighbourhood of Nefrusi (XVth U.E. nome). The grain was delivered

by two cultivators (ihwtyw) of a small domain, each of them due to

deliver yearly 200 khar. 89

4) Gurob Fragments L, AA and M (= RAD 30-33)

Fragment L is dated to the years 67 of Ramesses II and 1 of Merenptah. From their provenance it is apparent that the texts pertain to the ad

ministration of the harem at Miwer (Faiyum), but since the fragments are small and badly damaged their exact nature is obscure. The frequent

occurrence of the expression It m ms, sometimes abbreviated to ms, in

fragment L is conspicuous, its exact meaning, however, uncertain.90

Fragments AA and M deal with Smw, which may refer, as in the Wilbour

papyrus, to normal domains of small institutions.

89 The quantity proves that this cannot be an apportioning domain, 200 khar probab

ly being the revenues of the fields.

The same quantity, 200 khar for an iftwty, also occurs in Hier. Ostraca 82, 2

and pBologna 1086, 25, while in pTurin A, 2, 3 (- LEM 122,9) 300 khar are mentioned as excessive. The Wilbour papyrus offers no explanation for this

apparently fixed amount, so that the status of these tljwtyw remains obscure.

Still, the relatively frequent occurrence of 200 khar could hardly be accidental. 90 Gardiner (pWilbour II, 206, note 10) suggests "interest"; rejected by Helck,

Materialien IV, 576.


5) Griffith Fragments (= RAD 68-71)

Remains of a register of fields in or near the Xth U.E. nome, belonging to the domains (rmnywt) of some smaller temples in Thebes, dependencies of the Amun temple. The document seems to be a rough copy91 and is much

like the pWilbour. However, the larger paragraphs (cols. I <md III)

end with summaries recording grain, which may have been taxes (see

above). The grain is said to be delivered to the granary of Amun (I, 7 and 16). The domains may have been apportioning domains.

6) pValengay (= RAD 72-73; cf. Gardiner, in: RdE 6, 1951, 116 ff.)

Letter of a mayor of Elephantine, probably to the Chief Assessor

( 3-n-it),02 concerning khato- ields on the land of the House of the

Adoratress of Amun, which are supposed to be under his responsibility.

The mayor states that they are actually fields of private persons

(3>iwt n nmfryw) for which "money" has been paid to the Treasury. Here

we may catch a glimpse of a type of fields not occurring in any official

document mentioned above, and about the importance of which nothing is known.

The mayor also states that he has ordered the cultivation of another

field which has, however, only partly been inundated. 4 arouras yielded

40 khar, which has been delivered completely.

7) Louvre Leather Fragments (= RAD 60-63)

A very fragmentary document93 recording the assessment of mostly small

plots, the rate being 1 2/4 as in the case of the apportioning domains

(type I and IA) in the Wilbour papyrus.

8) pLouvre 317l9*

Each of the two columns published so far records the grain delivery of

one cultivator, evidently a rwdw since the quantities are 1000 and 1421

khar. The grain, called imw, may thus have come from a normal domain.

It was due to the granary of Memphis, so that it may have been a secular

institution. Part of it is stated to have been "taken by the quarter

master of the army" (2,6), another quantity is left to the cultivator

for seed-corn (3,8).

91 Obviously the headings, written in a clear uncial hand and mentioning the rmnywt, were noted down first, the entries, in a very cursive hand, being filled in after

wards. I suggest that the document lists the field-by-field notes of the surveyors. The Wilbour papyrus may be a fair copy of such a document.

92 Gardiner's rendering "Chief Taxing-master" may not be quite correct. 93 For the existence of more fragments, cf. Baer, loc.cit., 32, note 53. 94 The two columns are published by Spiegelberg, Rechnungen, pi. 18; cf. Gardiner,

in: JEA 27, 1941, 56 ff.


Several more documents containing evidence for the study of the NK

agriculture could be quoted,95 while most of the texts mentioned above

offer minor problems passed over here. I shall only mention one special

category of texts which, until now, has been inadequately used, namely

the donation texts. For the period here studied the most important is

certainly the donation of Penne from Aniba,96 mentioning five different

fields. Where their boundaries are described, several adjoining fields

are mentioned, providing us with a wealth of technical terms. It is

clear that a comprehensive study of the donation texts will further

our knowledge about the agriculture, although the majority dates from

periods later than the NK.97 I would like to single out one special

point: the study of the size of the plots, in comparison with data on

this subject provided by the Wilbour papyrus.

One more source for the present subject has to be briefly mentioned.

Although I am strongly convinced that the NK economy has to be studied

from contemporaneous documents there is a group of texts from a slightly later period which may certainly be used in the discussion if only for

the sake of comparison; they probably reflect a situation not much

differing from that of the pWilbour. I mean the group of early "abnormal

hieratic" documents, dating from the XXIst-XXIInd Dynasties recently

referred to by Malinine,98 to which may be added the so-called stela

of Everot.99 Publication and discussion of these documents is one of

the most urgent tasks of those interested in Egyptian economy.

Of course there are more aspects to the NK agriculture than those dis

cussed, but lack of room as well as the absence of written documents

are the reasons they can only briefly be touched upon.

95 E.g.: pHarris I, the Nauri Decree, pBologna 1086, various passages from

the Miscellanies, etc. 96 See above, note 55. Gardiner quotes the text in pWilbour II (111 f.) and

wrote a short article on it which was never published. Cf.-also Helck, Materialien II, 231 f. and 295 ff.; Menu, in: RdE 22, 1970, 118 ff.

97 According to Kitchen (in: BIFAO 73, 1973, 193) Mme Jacquet prepares a study on the donation stelae.

98 In: Textes et langages de l'Egypte pharaonique. Hommage a Champollion I, 1972, 32. 99 Also called "stele de l'apanage"; cf. Legrain, in: ZXS 35, 1897, 13-16,

and Erman, in: Z&S 35, 1897; 19-23.


Apart from grain the economically most important product of the fields

may have been flax, the raw material for textiles.100 Evidence about

it, however, is extremely scanty.101

Vegetables constitute an essential part of the daily food, and a large

number of kinds are known. They may have been grown in gardens as well

as on the fields,102 but quantitative data with respect to their eco

nomic significance are extremely rare.

Dates too played an important part in the diet,103 perhaps more than

any other kind of fruit, of which there are several mentioned in the

texts. Megally suggests104* that date-palms were grown in gardens, in

the inner courts of the houses and on the river banks, as in modern

times, so that their production and commerce was mainly in the hands

of private persons and the state institutions had to barter for them

in order to provide its dependants with dates. Although this may well

be correct the only proof for this barter is at present the pLouvre E 3226.

Still another subject is the viticulture, its organisation and the

economic significance of its products. To what extent has the consumption

of wine been restricted to the temple and the well-to-do? Who were the

owners of the vineyards? Was the viticulture indeed, as suggested,

restricted to the Delta and the oases? It seems to me that these ana

other problems require a special study, with attention not only to the

technical but also to the economic aspects of the viticulture.105

ioo The significance of wool for the articles of clothing may be underrated.

Actual woolen garments have been found (cf. Lucas-Harris, Materials, 146 f.) and are referred to in the texts (pBologna 1094, l, l: n3 Snw d3iw SO; stela

of Ahmose-Nofretari 9: ifd n Hnw). 101 Cf. Helck, Materialien V, 810 f. The cultivation of flax is mentioned in

the Hekanakhte Letters and is frequently shown in tomb reliefs and paintings. 102 I do not quite agree with Helck's suggestion in Materialien V, 798. 103 See below, IV a. 104

Etudes sur le papyrus E 3226 du Louvre II, Paris 1969, 396 f.; this second part of the thesis is still unpublished.

105 The study of Lutz, Viticulture and Brewing in the Ancient Orient, Leipzig 1922, is at present antiquated. This may be the place to mention a study of the technical aspects of

agriculture in general which, though also somewhat out-of-date, is still the only comprehensive survey, namely Fernande Hartmann's thesis "L1agriculture dans l'ancienne fcgypte", Paris 1923.


Although Egypt was first and foremost a country of farmers, the bree

ding of cattle, sheep and goats, and even of pigs, was not without

economic significance. Recently much attention has been paid to the

origins of domestication,106 while the tomb decoration illustrates many

technical aspects of breeding.107 All this, however, does not add up

to the economic function of domestic animals. Material on this subject

has been presented by Helck108 but has as yet never been studied in

its own rights. The Wilbour papyrus, for instance, presents information

concerning fields intended for temple-herds of cattle and white

"goats".109 These fields seem to produce grain, and if that was not

exclusively meant for the sustenance of the personnel connected with

the herds one has to conclude that cattle and goats were fed with

grain,110 and hence mainly kept in stables.

Another problem is that of the situation of pastures. Usually the Delta

is indicated as the main pasture region,111 but even if this were

correct it has to be asked whether a large portion of the cattle-herds

was not at home in Middle and Upper Egypt. Cattle was certainly not:

rare there, and goats and sheep may have been kept in large numbers.112

Still another problem is the relative importance of pigs,113 a question

for which excavations of settlements may adduce a solution if the ex

cavators will carefully assemble and count the bones of the domestic

animals.

106 Cf. Peter J. Ucko and G.W. Dimbleby, The Domestication and Exploitation of

Plants and Animals, London 1969; for ancient Egypt particularly the article by H.G. Smith (307 ff.). For the economic history of pharaonic Egypt it is of

little value. See, too, H. Epstein, The Origin of the Domestic Animals of

Africa (2 vols), New York 1971. 107 See particularly Vandier, Manuel V, chapters I and II, but also the thesis of

Mile Hartmann (note 105). 108 Materialien III, 473 ff. 109

Gardiner, 22 ff. I use inverted commas ("goats") since I am by no means con

vinced that nh always means "goat"; in many instances it will include sheep as well, replacing the older word Wt.

110 Unless the entries pf the pWilbour present a completely false picture and the

"sacks" and oipes point not to actual products but to their value (for a similar

possibility suggested by Megally in relation to pLouvre E 3226, cf. part II

of his thesis, p. 382 f.) At present I do not know of any indication in this

direction in the Wilbour papyrus. 111

Cf., e.g., Kees, Kulturgeschichte, 18 ff. O'Connor (Man, Settlement and Urbanism,

695; cf. above, Ila) suggests that large areas of Middle Egypt were mainly used for pasturing, which may be correct.

112 This can be concluded from the numerous instances of nh, but also of cattle,

occuring in the ostraca from Deir el-Medina. 113 The information by Herodotus that pigs were impure (11,47) may have had too

much influence on egyptologists.


The last point I will mention is the apiculture114 and its economic

significance, a question to be studied in connection with the role of

honey in the diet of the population.

Several more problems of this kind may be raised, but the above will

suffice to indicate how little we know about the economic aspects of

agriculture in ancient Egypt.

b Mining

Doubtless gold has been one of the most important products of ancient

Egypt.115 Several varieties are mentioned in the texts, among them d m,

"electrum", either a natural or an artificial alloy of gold and sil

ver. 116

The geographical aspects of gold mining have been studied by Ver

coutter.117 The gold bearing area is situated between the Nile valley

and the Red Sea, from the latitude of Qena in the north to that of

Dongola in the south, and can be divided into three regions correspon

ding to the Egyptian indications "gold of the desert of Coptos", "gold

of Wawat" and "gold of Kush". Although some gold was imported from

Asia during the XVIIIth Dynasty, either as tribute or as booty, most

of the precious metal certainly came from the mining districts.

The technical processes of mining and refining gold are fairly well

known,118 but the econojnic aspects of the gold production are still

largely obscure. We would like to know, for instance, the yearly out

put of all mines together and that of each district and each mine

separately; the fluctuations of the production through the ages; the

amount of labour required and the way it was enlisted and paid for;

the destination of the gold, that is, the percentages going into the

11Xf For a survey, cf. Leclant, in: Traite de biologie de l'abeille V, Paris 1968,

51-60, and in: LdX I, 786 ff. 115

In, this section Egypt and Nubia are treated as a unity. 116 For an exhaustive discussion of the words indicating gold cf. Harris, Lexico

graphical Studies in Ancient Egyptian Minerals, Berlin 1961, 32 ff. 117 In: Kush 7, 1959, 128 ff. Cf. the map indicating the ancient mines on p. 129.

See also Lucas-Harris, Ancient Egyptian Materials, 224 ff. 118

Op.cit., 228 ff. Cf. also Vercouttter, op.cit., 139 ff., for the organisation of the production.


royal treasury, the treasuries of the temples,119 and those distributed

among the subjects of the pharaoh; the quantities used to finance foreign

commerce; etc. For all these problems there is some evidence in the

sources, though most of it is rather vague. Since a study of the eco

nomic implications of gold mining and the function of gold in the

Egyptian society has not yet been undertaken, I cannot do more than

offer a few remarks on the subject.

The annals of Tuthmosis III contain indications regarding the gold

production of the Nubian administrative districts Wawat and Kush. They

record the amounts delivered by Kush in six different years, those from

Wawat in four years.120 The average yearly production of Kush in that

period appears to be c. 15 kilogrammes, that of Wawat c. 248 kilogrammes.

Unfortunately, the output of the mines in the Coptos region is virtually

unknown, although there are reasons to believe that it was much higher

than that of Nubia. According to Urk. IV, 630, Tuthmosis III gave to

the temple of Karnak - probably in the course of his reign

- in total

over 152107 deben, or c. 13840 kg., to which should be added 613 deben

of "gold of cAmu"121 mentioned separately for an unknown reason; to

gether 152720 deben or c. 14000 kg. Moreover, besides this enormous

amount said to have given in the shapes of lumps and rings, there is

also depicted a number of golden objects which the king donated to the

god,122 so that the total may have been at least 15000 kg.123

It is obvious that this quantity could not come from Nubia alone if

the mines in that country produced c. 265 kg. yearly. That most of it

came from Asia is unlikely; the tribute of Retenu, for instance, is

said to be 45 deben in the year 33 and 55 deben in the year 34, while

the booty from Megiddo is stated to have been 1784 deben or 162,3 kg.

(Urk. IV, 666). From such figures a total donation of 15000 kg. can

not be attained, all the more so if we assume that it was not all the

booty that was turned over to the god.

119 The gold from Wadi Mia, for instance, is stated to be assigned by Sethos I to

his temple at Abydos; cf. Schott, Kanais, NAWG 1961, Nr. 6, 175 ff. 120 Cf. Helck, Materialien VI, 948 f. Since mineral wealth seems to have been the

exclusive property of the pharaoh (cf. Morenz, Prestige-Wirtschaft, 24) the

deliveries to the king here recorded will have comprised the total output of

the mines. 121 The "mountain of cAmu" is, according to Vercoutter (op.cit., I3l) the mining

district near the Third Cataract, but see Karola Zibelius, Afrikanische Orts

und Volkernameh, Wiesbaden 1972, 99. 122 Urk. IV, 629 ff. 123 A comparable figure occurs in the tomb of Puyemre (Urk. IV, 526), namely 36692

deben or 3339 kg. of dPm (cf. Davies, Puyemre I, pi. 36). This quantity is also

stated to have been given to the temple of Amun. whether the figure is reliable

may be doubted, but see Davies, op.cit., 89.


Whether the figures are reliable is a point requiring careful study.

Here we may compare them with another record mentioned in a dedication

inscription of Amenophis III in the Montu-temple at Karnak,124 in which

the god is said to have received 31485 1/3 deben of electrum (= 2865 kg.)

and 25182 3/4 deben of gold (= 2292 kg.), besides precious stones,

bronze, etc. Since the Montu-temple was of less importance than that

of Amun it may be that the higher figures above are roughly reliable.

For the XXth Dynasty papyrus Harris I provides information. Here the

yearly donations of gold from Egypt and Nubia together are said to be

569 deben and 6 1/8 kite (12a,9). The quantity is said to be delivered

by the subjects of the temple, and most of it came from Nubia, which

may indicate a decline of the production in the Coptos region.125 Ramesses III also donated golden objects to the Karnak temple to a

total of 92,7 deben, while the other temples received together 2464,6

deben.126 All together the temples received according to the papyrus

gold at a value of 2557,3 deben or 232,7 kg. Comparing these figures

with those mentioned above one is forced to assume a sharp decline of the total gold production. The assumption that Ramesses III kept a far

larger portion of the production for other purposes is not in agreement

with the usual picture of the political development during the XXth

Dynasty, which shows the increasing power of the clergy, also in economic

matters - although the actual proof for this point of view may be slight.

Not only are we unable to provide reliable figures concerning the total

gold production, which may or may not have been far higher than the

quantities donated to the temples, we are also uncertain what the

amounts recorded actually mean. Comparison with the modern value of

gold is quite useless. Since the production seems to have been relatively

abundant during the NK, or at least during the XVIIIth Dynasty, the

value of gold may have been low in comparison with that of other goods. On the other hand, silver was relatively scarce, and hence expensive.

Cerny has demonstrated that the ratio gold:silver was usually 1:2,

while that between*gold and copper was 1:200 during the XVIIIth Dynasty and 1:120 during the XXth Dynasty. Since, according to the ostraca

from Deir el-Medina, the price of an ox was 100 to 120 deben of copper127

124 Cf. Karnak I, pis. 20-29 and p. 12 f. See also Urk. IV, 1668. 125 Cf. Save-Soderbergh, Xgypten und Nubien, 211. 126 Cf. Helck, Materialien VI, 953 and III, 416. The total recorded in pHarris I,

68b, 6 (2289, 4 deben) is clearly a scribal error, as Breasted has suggested (BAR IV, 386, note c).

127 See my Commodity Prices, 173.


we may state that 1 deben of gold was sufficient to buy such an animal.

Moreover, during the reign of Ramesses III the price of 1 khar of grain

(c. 76 litres) was 2 deben of copper, meaning that 1 deben of gold was

the equivalent of 60 khar or 4560 litres of grain. These data may lend

some perspective to Ramesses' statement that he donated to the temples

c. 570 deben of gold yearly. For the time of Tuthmosis III there is at

present not such material available for comparison.

Modern economists would be interested in the costs of gold production.

Lucas-Harris, for instance, mention that the gold industry has been

revived early this century but was discontinued on account of the

costs.128 The main factor in this respect was certainly labour. Per

haps in ancient times the Nubian mines were worked by the local popu

lation, the total production being delivered to the pharaoh.129

The miners in the Coptos region may have been slaves, prisoners of war

and convicts,130 and possibly the same categories were also used in

Nubia. That would mean that the costs of production were rather low,

although it was of course relatively expensive to supply the miners

far out in the desert.

The above remarks may suffice to show the importance of a special

study of Egyptian gold mining in which the economic aspects are taken

into account. The list of data drawn up by Helck131 may provide a

useful starting point.

The other economically important mineral found in Egypt was copper.

So far as we know the Egyptians themselves did not mine copper in the

Sinai during the NK,132 although the mines may have been exploited by

the local population. The main copper producing region was again the

eastern desert where copper was won at various places.133 The total

output is, however, completely unknown. Lucas-Harris, discussing the

question, point out the relatively low consumption of copper and

suggest that the production of the eastern desert together with that

128 Lucas Harris, 226. 129

Save-Soderbergh, op.cit., 87. 130

Op.cit., 188. Vercoutter (op.cit., 142) argues that the overseers of the

miners were educated men. 131 Materialien VI, 947-967. 132 Cf. Inscr. Sinai II, 7. 133

Lucas-Harris, 205.


ot Sinai may have been indeed sufficient. There is, however, ample

evidence for import from Asia and Cyprus, though the amount is unknown.

Recent excavations in the Wadi Araba (Timna)134 suggest that for the

Ramesside Period an important source for the mineral has to be sought

here. However, as far as I am aware the excavator has not yet offered

any estimate of the total production of the area. The discovery of

Timna may have increased our knowledge concerning the technical aspects

of mining and melting the ore, and the excavator may have correctly

indicated the sea-route along which the copper was transported to Egypt,

but the influence of this mining district on Egyptian economy is as yet

obscure

It is clear that copper was by no means rare during the NK. That it

was used as a common measure of value, as the ostraca demonstrate,

may not be decisive; silver, which was certainly fairly scarce, was

also used for this purpose, at least until the early XXth Dynasty. But

in several sale contracts scrap copper occurs among the commodities

exchanged, and the workmen of the necropolis had at their disposal

large numbers of copper tools. On the other hand, most of the tools

were property of the pharach, and even a single blade was sufficiently

expensive to be the subject of a lawsuit. The tools handed out to the

workmen were carefully registered, which also shows their value.

In general is seems that Egypt possessed the amount of copper required

for its industry (and army), though wq are unable to offer even a guess

as to the total quantities produced or required. Here I would like to

mention a particularly interesting suggestion of Wilson in "The Burden

of Egypt"135 where he argues that the beginning of the Iron Age in the

time of the XXth Dynasty has been one of the decisive causes for the

decline of the NK, particularly since the destruction of the Hittite

Empire by the Sea Peoples deprived the Egyptians of the possibility

henceforth to exchange their products (grain, gold, etc.) for iron.

The question certainly requires further study. What exactly has been

the role of iron during and just after the NK? The archaeologists will

have to consider the problem and may be able to suggest a solution.

So far as I see the written documents are silent in this respect.

134 Cf. B. Rothenberg, Timna, London 1972. 135 P. 274.


About other mining products, minerals, precious stones, building stone,

etc., there is not sufficient material available to assess their econo

mic value.136 Some of them, such as tin, were imported, but the origin as well as the quantity of the imports are unknown. Silver too will

have been mostly imported, although part of it may actually have been

electrum, which was a natural product of the country.137 The sharp decline in the value of silver during the XlXth Dynasty as compared with the value of copper

- from 1:100 to 1:60138

- constitutes an eco

nomic problem. Whether in fact it means a rise in the value of copper, or whether it is due to the influx of large quantities of silver, is

uncertain, as is the question to what extent the government may have

influenced the depreciation of silver.139

In summary, it appears that data for the economic aspects of mining and minerals are fairly scarce. The subject will require much study and more material as yet unknown.

c Crafts

While our knowledge concerning the ruling classes during the NK is

rather extensive written documents tell us little about the craftsmen, their work and organisation. The technical aspects of the various

occupations such as carpentry, metal working, weaving, etc., may be

fairly well known,11*0 from the actual products as well as from the

representations in the tombs,1*1 but the economic aspects are still

obscure. Problems such as the existence of a body of free craftsmen

producing for the market, the legal position of the workers attached

to the temples, the economic function of the temple workshops, the

supply of raw materials for the workmen, the cost of production and

the way in which the prices were established, all these have never

been studied. There is, indeed, little material on the subject, and

136 por tfie sources, see Helck, Materialien VI. 137

Lucas-Harris, 248. 138 Cf. Cerny, Prices and Wages in Egypt, Cahiers d'histoire mondiale l, 1954,

905 f. See also my Commodity Prices, 106 ff. 139 See below, chapter Vc. 140

Cf., e.g., Petrie, Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt, London-Edinburgh 1910, and, more up-to-date, Lucas-Harris, Materials.

1**1 It is appropriate to mention in this connection the invaluable collection of

material published by Luise Klebs in her "Die Reliefs und Malereien des

Neuen Reiches I", Heidelberg 1934.


the reader can therefore not expect to find in this section more than

a few disconnected remarks.

The most comprehensive question seems to be whether there existed

during the NK a class of free craftsmen working for a free market or

not, the alternative being that all craftsmen were dependent either

on the temples or on the governmental institutions, with the possible

exception of those closely attached to members of the upper class.

In a recent article Kemp has pointed out142 that in el-cAmarna the

houses of the officials were surrounded by those of the lower classes,

in which he saw an indication of the existence of free labourers. Un

fortunately the written documents seem to be silent in this matter.

The related problem whether there was a free market dominated by the

law of supply and demand besides the governing system of redistribution

by the state - for which indications indeed are abundant (see chapter

VI) - has as yet never been studied. Still it may be possible that

there were craftsmen working on their own account, but that no free

market existed. The question will be dealt with below in connection

with the prices (chapter V c).

In estimating the economic function of craftsmen in the Egyptian society it is important to keep in mind that most objects of daily use certainly

were made by the peasants themselves. Luxury goods made by specialized craftsmen in the royal or temple workshops will only by exception have

come into the possession of the lower classes . From the ostraca of

Deir el-Medina it appears that only few craftsmen were connected with

this community - of course its members were themselves specialized in

decorating the tombs - the most important group being the metal workers.

Woodwork and basketry were made by the consumers themselves. Probably the same holds true for the peasant population.

Apart from metal objects it may be cloth and pottery that were most

times produced by specialized workmen. As regards pottery, it seems

to me an important question whether all of it was made locally, or

whether there have been regional or even national centres, at least

for particular types of pots; that is, whether we may speak of some

kind of concentrated industry.143 An answer to this question can

142 Man, Settlement and Urbanism, 668 ff., particularly 673 ff.

143 An indication for its existence may be seen in the phrase X1&3d3iw of Coptos" (Hier.Ostr. 88.6).


perhaps be found through a statistical and technical analysis of the

ordinary household pottery found during the excavations. 1<*i#

It seems that weaving in particular was concentrated in temple and other

workshops.145 There is at least one testimony that a temple "sold"

garments,14*6 and it seems likely that they were products of its own

shop. The economic importance of this production in relation to that

of other workshops or, possibly, independent weavers and household

weaving is completely unknown.

In conclusion I may refer to two documents of importance for the eco

nomic history of the period, namely pBrit.Mus. 100561*7 and pLeningrad 1116 vso.1**8 The former contains records of the royal dockyard of Prw

nfr from the time of Tuthmosis III and sheds some limited light on

the organisation of the yard. Its economic function is, however, not

alluded to. The other text, from about the same period, seems to record

the manufacture of objects made of valuable materials such as ebony and ivory, hence probably joinery, part of which was intended for the

royal ships. The workmen mentioned were mostly Syrians. Again the eco

nomic function of the shop is obscure. All we are able to state is, that

there were royal workshops, which is hardly a surprising conclusion. It

may be that further study of these two texts11*9 will allow to draw

conclusions in relation to the economy, but not much of this kind can

be expected. As usual, we know that there existed royal dockyards and

workshops, but nothing about their relative importance, the size of

their production, the position of their personnel and its payment, the

cost of production, etc.

144 Modern methods of chemical and thermoluminescent analysis (cf. Radiocarbon

Variations and Absolute Chronology, ed. by Ingrid U. 01sson, Stockholm 1970, 129 ff.) may offer valuable possibilities in this respect. For a practical tech

nique of handling pottery in an archaeological study, which may be of importance for economic researches, cf. Fairservis, in: JARCE 9, 1971-1972, 21 ff. and

Eggebrecht, in: SAK 1, 1974, 147 ff. 145 CF. Bogoslovski, in: BECTHMK l (103), 1968, 87 ff. 146

pTurin 2008t20l6; c . my Two Ancient Egyptian Ship's Logs, whether the merchants

attached to the temples, who are fairly frequently mentioned in the NK (cf. op.

cit., 100 ff.) were "selling" (in fact, bartering) temple products is uncertain. 147 Published by Glanville, in: ZAS 66, 1931, 105 ff. and 68, 1932, 7 ff. 148 Published by Golenishchev, Les papyrus hieratiques no. 1115, 1116 A et 1116 B

de l'Ermitage imperial a St.Petersbourg, St.Petersbourg 1913. For translation and comments, cf. Helck, Materialien V, 890 ff.

149 One may here also mention certain account papyri from the time of Sethos I; cf. Spiegelberg, Rechnungen, pi. 9, and Helck, Materialien V, 895 ff.


There is one clear exception to this rule, namely the community of

necropolis workmen at Deir el-Medfna. For this settlement, its organi

sation, daily life and economic structure the ostraca and papyri from

the area provide us with abundant material, so that it is at present,

besides the agriculture, the only sector of the economy about which we

are well informed150. It must be stressed, however, that it was quite an exceptional community, in fact a royal workshop with a unique pur

pose, namely the construction and decoration of the royal tombs. To

what extent conclusions to be drawn from the documents found there may

oe applied to other parts of the economic life of the NK is an open

question.

d Transport and Trade

That the role of transport, mainly by ship along the Nile, has been

very important for the Egyptian economy appears from the large number

of documents related to it.151 How important in fact it was is, however,

uncertain. We do not know, for instance, to what extent the population

was dependent upon local production and to what extent upon products

from other regions. pTurin 2008+2016 shows that garments, which were

probably made in workshops at Thebes since the ship transporting them

belonged to the August Staff of Amun, one of the dependencies of the

Karnak temple, were bartered for oil in the neighbourhood of Memphis.

Whether such a long-range trade within the country was an exceptional

occurrence or common, whether it mainly concerned luxury goods or also

commodities for daily uise, is unknown, as is its relative significance

compared with local production.

Another aspect of the subject is the question whether transport mainly

existed as part of the redistribution economy,152 e.g. the transport

of grain to the royal and temple granaries (pAmiens), or whether there

150 Various aspects have been studied in my Commodity Prices from the Ramesside

Period. 151

Material concerning the geographic base of transport, particularly harbours,

has been collected by O'Connor in the first part of a study about the Birket

Habu; cf. Barry Kemp and David O'Connor, An Ancient Nile Harbour. University Museum Excavations at the 'Birket Habu', in: The International Journal of

Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration 3, 1974, 101 ff. 152 See chapter VI.


indeed existed a home trade of any considerable size. If the latter

supposition were correct, in how far lay the trade in the hands of

private merchants, or was all of it part of the temple and state eco

nomy, with the possible exception of the trade by private estates owned

by the upper class? Evidence of the latter may be seen in the relatively

frequent mention of merchants connected with high officials - besides

those in the service of temples -153 but the possibility can not be

excluded that it was not the officials personally who were trading but

the institutions they controlled. Clear evidence for private trade is

scanty. A possible example may be pCairo 65739,154 although the merchan

dise there is a Syrian slave girl, which could indicate an exceptional situation. Moreover, we are not informed about the legal position of

the merchant, so that this instance too may actually be an example of

state or temple trade.155

The existence of a commerce in articles of food is attested by pBoulaq

Xi156 recording the sale of meat, wine and cakes to what seem to be

wholesale dealers. Very probably the products came from the offerings

in the temples,157 as Peet already has suggested.158 The people who

ultimately bought and consumed the food may have been the well-to-do,

since so far as we know wine and meat did not belong to the daily diet

of the labouring class. The possibility that the products were partly

intended for lay institutions, hence to their managers, is not to be

excluded.159 The document seems to be at present unique, demonstrating once more how defective our knowledge concerning various aspects of

Egyptian economic life still is.

153 See my Ancient Ship's Logs, 100 ff., and Helck, Beziehungen, 464 f., n. 7. 15Z* Published by Gardiner, in: JEA 21 , 1935 , 140 ff. 155 Helck1s suggestion that the merchant (called Raia) may have been a Syrian

(Beziehungen, 462) is quite speculative. 156

pCairo 58070, published by Peet in: Melanges Maspero I, 185 ff. To this papyrus

may belong some unpublished fragments in the Cairo Museum numbered 21367 and

known to me from a transscription made for the Berlin Worterbuch, in which

some of the same names occur, while the date of one fragment (II 3ht 30) is only 12 days remote from the last day mentioned in pBoulaq XI (the year is unknown

in both instances). Another fragment is dated to the year 53, clearly of

Tuthmosis III. Some fragments bear a text of exactly the same type as those on

pBoulaq XI, although others seem to be of a slightly different nature, whether

all belong to one and the same document has to be established. Publication of

the fragments would certainly contribute to our knowledge of the economy. Some

fragments are translated by Helck, Materialien III, 454 f. and IV, 682.[See now

also Megally, in: BIFAO 74, 1974, 161 ff.]. 157 One fragment of pCairo 21367 (see the preceding note) indeed mentions an ox

belonging to the offerings (htp-ntr). 158

Op.cit., 194. Cf. also Weill', in: REA l, fasc. 1-2, 1925, 76. 159 Another fragment of pCairo 21367 mentions the House of the Divine Adoratress, but

whether as deliverer or as buyer of food is uncertain from the transcription T have seen.

19 75 Economic history during the New Kingdom 163

Quite a different document is pLouvre E 3226, recently published by

Megally.160 It records barter of grain against dates by traders be

longing to a department of the Royal Granary, being an example of

state commerce. Moreover, it proves that the government was not limited

to taxation to acquire the goods it needed for redistribution among

its servants. The text presents many minor problems but its main aim

seems to me clear.

I would like to mention one further point of outstanding importance

for the present subject. In his discussion of the barter161 Megally

states that it appears from what we know about the structure of

Egyptian economy that trading has been a state monopoly. I am afraid

that I cannot agree with him, unless we would use the word 'state' in

a very loose sense including at least the temples. Moreover, that

trading, as virtually every other economic activity, was formally -

one would be inclined to say theologically - conceived to be a royal

privilege is of slight importance to the actual economic life. The

pharaoh may have granted the right to temples and even to private

merchants, so that in fact the role of the state in this field became

rather small.162 At present there is no material available to prove

that this is what happened, although there is also no document proving

the contrary, namely that trade was in practice restricted to state

organisations.

It is with regard to, foreign commerce that a royal monopoly has been

suggested.163 According to Egyptian conceptions foreigners are always

bringing their products as "tribute", but this is clearly the typical

"theological" view according to which pharaoh rules the world. A more

practical explanation of the role of high officials in whose tombs the

scenes of foreign tribute occur is presented by Merrillees in his study about Cypriote pottery in Egypt,164 namely that the officials acted as

160 Mounir Megally, Etudes sur le papyrus E 3226 du Louvre, 3 vols., Paris 1969.

Vols. I (the transcription) and III (dealing with the hieratic writing) are now

published by the IFAO (BE 49 and 53), while vol. II (the commentary) which

constitutes a mine of information concerning economy, administration and accoun

tancy, is at present only known to me in typescript. 161 P. 384 ff. 162 In my thesis (p. 103) I pointed out the absence of documents concerning merchants

attached to the government. Megally1s thesis has proved that they indeed existed,

although they are mentioned in this text under a special name (bnrtyw). Perhaps

by understanding the documents more evidence will come to light. 163

E.g., Morenz, Prestige-Wirtschaft, 24. 164* R.S. Merrillees, The Cypriote Bronze Age Pottery Found in Egypt, Lund 1968,

173 f.; also p. 194. See also his article in: AJA 76, 1972, 281 ff.


middlemen, although it is not yet certain that this suggestion is in

deed correct.

More fertile for the advancement of our knowledge of economic history

than these speculations is the approach of Merrillees to his main sub

ject, a method which he also applied in later articles.165 Studying the evidence concerning types of foreign pottery found in the Nile

valley he attempts to define its quantity and date, and to draw conclu

sions from these about commercial relations which are based on figures.

Even when his results - throughout formulated with the outmost caution

_166 win not be confirmed in every detail by further research his

methods seem quite sound, particularly since they allow for some measure

of quantification. It would be of importance for the economic history

when clearly Egyptian objects as well as local imitations thereof,

discovered in other countries, were studied with similar methods in

order to provide us with hard facts concerning foreign trade.

IV CONSUMPTION

a Food

The daily food of ancient Egypt consisted mainly of bread and beer. Wages

of labourers were mostly paid in these kinds of food, as many documents

from all periods attest. Nevertheless, our knowledge about bread and

beer is still limited. For the latter there is now a recent study by

Helck,167 for the former a slightly older and mainly technical one by

Max W&hren.168 Neither of them contains a chapter on the economic

aspects, though Helck makes several remarks about them. Problems an

economic historian is interested in are e.g. the average daily con-^

sumption of the population; the quantities of offering bread and beer

distributed among them - or did the priests and lay personnel of the

temples receive them all? -; the proportion of daily food consumed in

165 Cf. particularly R.S. Merrillees and J. Winters, in: Miscellanea Wilbouriana l,

1972, lOl ff., about Bronze Age trade between Egypt and the Aegean. 166

Cf., e.g., in: Miscellanea Wilbouriana l, 1972, 127. 167 Das Bier im alten Agypten, Berlin 1971. 168 Brot und Geback im Leben und Glauben der alten Agypter, Bern 1963.


the form of bread and beer as compared with other kinds of food such

as vegetable, fish, oil, etc.; the quantities, if there were, of bread

and beer not baked and brewed in the households - did there exist a

number of professional bakers and brewers not connected with temples or state institutions? -; etc. Material for the answers to these questions as well as to several others has been collected by Helck169, but as

yet never properly studied.

In his Materialien170 Helck has listed various words for different

types of bread and loaves as mentioned in NK documents. Valuable as

the list certainly is, the economist wants to know which types actually

occurred in daily life of an ordinary household, which words in fact

indicate "cakes" or suchlike, which are used to indicate merely offering

bread. Also, as an other method to divide up the words into categories, which of them indicate loaves, that is, a particular shape, and which

bread, that is, a quality.

To the two fundamental articles of food, bread and beer, four more can

be added as far as I know, namely vegetables, fruit, oil, and fish.

Helck listed the evidence of a long series of various types of fruit,171

but not only are several of their Egyptian names as yet unidentified,

their economic significance is still obscure. Best known among them

are the dates, which will have constituted an essential part of the

diet,172 though they were also used in the preparation of a special

kind of beer called srmt.^73 The line of division between vegetables

and fruit is not always clear, large numbers of species of the former

being known.174 As regards oil, of which also different kinds were in

use, sesame oil (nhh) seems to have been by far the most important for

the working class.175 Fish belonged to the daily food of the popula

tion;176 it was the main source for proteins since meat will seldom

have been consumed except by the rich and, possibly, by temple personnel.

169 Materialien IV, 64l ff. (bread) and 680 ff. (beer). 170

Op.cit., 666 ff. 171

Materialien V, 754 ff. 172

Megally, Etudes sur le papyrus E 3226 du Louvre II, 330'. Cf. also Wallert,

Palmen, 28 ff. 173

Helck, Das Bier, 32 f. 174

Helck, Materialien V, 793 ff. 175

Commodity Prices, 330 ff. 176

Helck, op.cit., 816 ff. Gamer-Wallert, Fische und Fischkulte im Alten Xgypten, Wiesbaden 1970, gives only little material concerning the value of fish for

the diet.


It is of slight importance economically to determine all kinds of

food that have been consumed. The problem is to define the role of

each of them within the diet of the population. For this there is,

unfortunately, still little material, the main source being the ostraca

of Deir el-Medlna. From these texts I have attempted to collect at least

some quantitative data, one being the astonishing fact that at a cer

tain period each of the necropolis workmen is recorded to have received

for himself and his family no less than 92 deben, that is, 8,4 kilo

grammes of fish monthly, or an average of 1/4 kilogramme a day.177

There are also references to a similar quantity of vegetables,178 but

since they are throughout measured in "bundles" of an unknown size,

and it is never stated what kind of vegetables are meant, the impli

cations of the figures are uncertain. In order to estimate the value

of the evidence from the ostraca it may be useful to keep in mind

that the necropolis workmen were relatively well off - as their strikes

prove, really poor workmen never having the opportunity to strike -

so that the information collected here does not mean that this was the

situation of other categories of workers too, e.g. the field-labourers.

It is obvious that the nutrition of the Egyptian population requires

still much more study.179 Excavators may be able to add to our material,

not only by carefully noting all traces of food they discover - domestic

animals included - but also by attempting to quantify their data.180

It appears that nutrition in general is as yet one of the most neglec

ted parts of Egyptology.

b Rations

Of course consumption in the economic sense is more than a question

of food only. In a complete survey, other subjects have to be studied

too, such as clothing, housing and - in Egypt particularly - the care

for the dead. Each separate item would require a number of lines and

together they would exceed the available space here. Moreover, a mere

description is not sufficient to indicate the role of each article

177 Commodity Prices, 48l.

178 Op.cit., 477.

179 For a brief survey, cf. Saffirio's article in: Population Biology of the

Ancient Egyptians, London-New York 1973, 297 ff. See also the important

bibliography added to the article. 180 Cf. the remarks by Adams in his report on Ecology and Economy in the Empire of

Kush (Journees internationales d'Etudes meroitiques, Paris 1973; still unpublished), 4.


within the framework of the economy. A more productive way of approach

may be the study of commodity prices, connected with a discussion of

the relative importance of each commodity. For the correct understanding

of the meaning of prices, however, a number of problems has to be solved

first, for example, the measures of value in which prices are expressed.

Some material on the subject will be discussed in chapter Vc.

Here I would like to raise another problem reflecting the characteristic

structure of the Egyptian economy as well as the bulk of the documenta

tion concerning it. The Egyptians did not know money. This means that

wages were always paid in kind, there being no distinction between

wages and rations.

Here we come across the most fundamental aspect of the pharaonic eco

nomy. Far more than in modern western countries, or in modern Egypt

for that matter, it was not the production but the redistribution

which was the core of the economic structure (see chapter VI). Hence

our documentation largely pertains to either the collection of goods

(food, etc.) by the state and its organs or their redistribution among

the people. The direct subsistence economy, that is, the system in

which people produce the goods they consume themselves, has hardly

left any traces. Nearly all we know about the economy relates to the

economic action of the state -

eventually also of the temples -

in

collecting products and distributing them among its (their) servants.

There is, in this respect, no difference between the unskilled labourer

and the highest official; all receive their "wages" in kind from the

administration. It is a typical feature of the Egyptian civilisation -

and a definite proof of its highly complicated nature - that every stage in this process of collecting and distributing goods was recorded by a written document.

It follows that some of these documents relate to handwork, and hence

contain data about; the rations (wages) of the labourers, while others,

for instance, relate to the royal harem.They are all together too numerous

to be discussed here; it may suffice to refer to a few instances in

order to indicate various main points.

From the papyri belonging to the administration of the royal harem at

Miwer in the Faiytim during the NK several fragments have been published

by Gardiner (RAD 20 ff.). Some record the delivery of garments

apparently made in the harem to the royal court. On the other hand, the


harem was provided with fish, which seems to have been the responsibi

lity of the majors of Southern She (RAD 15,7) and Miwer (17,14; 26,18),

while in one instance (17,3-4) the harem delivered, in exchange for

fish, mats which may have been woven in its shops. Another document

(RAD 15-16) records the delivery of oil. Although these texts teach

us more about the nature of the economy than about the actual signifi cance of the various goods they constitute an essential contribution

to our knowledge.181

Another document to be mentioned here is the pLeningrad 1116 A,182

recording quantities of grain delivered to the In^w183 of the harem,

but also bread and beer distributed to various categories of people,

among them a number of Mariannu from Djahy. Other entries record de

liveries of offerings to divine statues, which may have been standing in the offices of the administration in which the papyrus was written.

Since one entry mentions the gods of Prw-nfr it seems that it was the

office of the granary in that place. Not only deliveries are noted,

but also the delivering institutions. It seems to me that the text

requires a new study, since it may prove to be a mine of information

concerning the economic history in general and the problems of the

redistribution system in particular.

A roughly similar group of texts has been published by Spiegelberg under the title Rechnungen aus der Zeit Setis I.184 Some record de

liveries to royal bakeries and are connected with the daily maintenance

of the court, others, however, mention fowl, wood, leather, garments,

etc.

As stated above (ch. IVa) the workmen's settlement Deir el-Medfna is

the main source of information about daily life during the NK, several

181 They are to be compared with the well known pBoulaq XVIII (Scharff, Ein Rech

nungsbuch des koniglichen Hofes aus der 13. Dynastie, in: ZXS 57, 1922, 51-68

and l^5'-24*55') recording an instance of redistribution during the late MK. 182 Published by Golenishchev, Les papyrus hieratiques.... de l'Ermitage a Peters

bourg, pis. 15-22. For translation and comments, cf. Helck, Materialien IV, 620 ff. What was called by the editor the verso is actually the recto (cf.

Parker, Fs Wilson, 76). 183 Helck (loc.cit.) translates s*n by "Muhle", although according to Wb IV, 508

its meaning seems to be much wider. Helck himself notes (p. 63l) that they also baked bread and brewed beer, while some entries record deliveries of dates.

18Z* Strassburg, 1894. Translation and comments by Helck, Materialien IV, 633 ff.

Connected with this group of texts is the papyrus from the collection of the

Duke of Northumberland, published by Barns, in: JEA 34, 1948, 40 ff.


texts bearing upon the provisions delivered to its inhabitants. The

documents are ostraca as well as papyri.185 As regards to the latter,

I refer to the verso of the Turin strike papyrus,186 some columns of

the Giornale della necropoli,187 and pTurin 19078.188 From all texts,

ostraca included, we are able to reconstruct a fairly reliable picture

of the way in which the workmen were paid,189 both regular rations and

irregular deliveries, while we also know the institutions delivering

the "wages". It seems superfluous to repeat what I have written else

where; two points only may be briefly mentioned.

First, the size of the rations delivered to the workmen. The most im

portant part consisted of a monthly ration of 4 khar of emmer (bdt),

the grain for bread, an 1 1/2 khar of barley (it) for beer, while the

chiefs of the gang and the scribe received more.190 Other rations were

paid with less regularity, though fish, firewood and vegetables are

mentioned numerous times.191 The settlement was also continuously

provided with water and pottery. Extra provisions (mkw), e.g. meat

and wine, were delivered on festive occasions, while garments may have

been distributed only once a year. Moreover, the government provided

tools for the work, as well as lamps and oil for these, but all these

seem to have remained state property.

It is difficult to quantify the rations , except for those in grain.

The general impression is that the workmen were, at least in normal

times, well provided for. It must be pointed out - as mentioned above -

that they themselves made their furniture, most of their tomb equip

ment, and, possibly, their basketry. All together the texts reflect

a community life almost completely dependant for its subsistence on

the administration. In how far this was exceptional, or rather, for

how large a proportion of the population the same holds true, is a

difficult problem, though it seems unlikely that other workmen were

equally well off.

185 Several of which as yet unpublished. Cf., e.g., the notes in J. cerny, A

Community of Workmen at Thebes, BE 50, 1973, which refers to several of these

unpublished documents. 186

RAD, 45 ff. 187 Botti and Peet, II giornale della necropoli di Tebe, Torino 1928. 188 In: JEA 52, 1966, 81 ff. 189 See my Commodity Prices, 455 ff. 190 For details, cf. op.cit., 460 ff. 191 For fish and vegetables, see ch. IV a.


Various texts concerning other categories of the population refer to

the same redistribution system, e.g. the stelae of Sethos I192 and

Ramses II193 concerning quarrymen. Of course the personnel of the

expeditions, for instance those to the Wadi Hammam&t, were provisioned

by the administration, but that would also be the case in a modern

society. So far as I am aware it is impossible to deduce from the

pertinent texts of the NK reliable evidence for the size of the

rations.19**

The second point which I would like to raise is the question whence

the provisions came and which institutions were responsible for the

maintenance of the various categories of workers. For the necropolis

workmen we can offer at least some answers. It appears that the food

and the other goods came from the royal treasury, the royal granaries

and the royal storerooms,195 but also from various temples,196

particularly - but not exclusively

- the mortuary temples on the West

bank. Once more we encounter here the typical Egyptian cooperation of

state and temple (see chapter V d).

In conclusion I may refer to still another aspect of the present sub

ject, namely the question what happened with the temple-offerings.197 It is generally accepted that they went to the priests and, perhaps, the lay personnel of the temples and sanctuaries, though the extent

of this group is unknown. Hence the list of offerings on the temple

walls may constitute a source of information concerning the diet and

the provisioning of the population. In this respect a study of the

festival calendar of Medinet Habu may be of outstanding importance,198

while other similar lists offer material for comparison. So far as I

know they have never been studied for their economic implications. Whether they contain material for calculating the number of persons

receiving the offerings I do not know.

192 The Rock Stela of East Silsile; cf. Kitchen, Ram. Inscr. I, 59 ff. 193 Cairo 34504, from Heliopolis and of the year 8; cf. Hermann, Die Agyptische

Konigsnovelle, LXS 10, Gluckstadt 1938, 53 ff. and pi. II. 194

Something along these lines can be done for the MK. In this connection I can

also refer to pReisner I, II and III, recently published by W.K. Simpson, which

contain important material concerning the workmen of the MK (cf. Dieter Mueller's

review article in: Or 36, 1967, 351 ff.). Unfortunately the content of these texts is still largely obscure, so that no scholar has as yet attempted to

present a survey of their meaning. 195 Cf. Commodity Prices, 457, ff. 196 The grain recorded in the Turin taxation papyrus (RAD 35 ff.; cf. ch. Ilia) was

collected by the scribe of the necropolis Dhutmose and evidently intended for

the workmen. Whether it was collected from the temple's own revenues is not clear

(see above, Ilia). 197 For the problem of the "circulation" (Umlauf), cf. Morenz, Prestige-Wirtschaft, 36 f. 198 Cf. the discussion by Harold Nelson, Work in Western Thebes 1931-33, OIC 18,

Chicago 1934, 1-63.


V SPECIAL SUBJECTS

a Slavery

No discussion of Egyptian economic history would be complete without

some remarks on the role of slavery. Restricting ourselves to the NK

we have to note that it is not clear what exactly has been the legal

position of the slaves,199 nor even which words in a particular instance

indicate a social and legal status corresponding to our concept of

slavery. Although Bakir in his thesis200 has done a lot to establish

the facts, he covers in this work the entire Egyptian history, which

tends to obscure eventual changes and developments during the ages.

So much is certain that slavery of a particular type indeed existed,

but each possible mention of slaves in the texts still requires a care

ful study.201

Three problems concerning slaves may be briefly mentioned: their prices,

their ownership, and the importance of slavery for the Egyptian economy

as a whole.

Material for the study of slave prices during the NK is rare and usually

hard to assess, since we do not always know what exactly is sold: the

slave himself, or (part of) his/her labour.202 Clear prices are noted

in pCairo 65739, pMayer A, 8 and pBrit.Mus. 10052.203 In the first two

instances female slaves are sold for 4 1/10 and 4 deben of silver

respectively, in the third one a male slave for 2 deben of silver. These

data are too few to allow any conclusion, though comparison with other

prices may provide at least some insight into their meaning.

As regards the onwership ofslaves Bakir204 demonstrated that it was

fairly well spread even among the lower middle class. We know of

slaves in the possession of a stable master, an attendant, a singer

199 Cf. Wilson, The Burden of Egypt, 187. For a survey of slavery in Egypt cf. the

relevant article in Posener et al., Dictionnaire de la civilisation egyptienne, Paris 1959.

200 Abd el-Mohsen Bakir, Slavery in Pharaonic Egypt, CASAE 18, Le Caire 1952. 201

Cf., e.g., Cerny, A Community of Workmen at Thebes, 180 f. 202 xhis holds particularly true for the evidence of pBerlin 9874+75 and pGurob I

and II, published by Gardiner, in: Z'AS 43, 1906, 27 ff. 203 Cf. Commodity Prices, 530 f. 20i*

Op.cit. (note 200), 99 f.


and even a sandal-maker. A particular aspect of the problem is the

common ownership of slaves by a community, if the suggestion of

ThSodoridSs205 is correct; evidence about the female slaves attached

to the settlement of necropolis workmen may support this suggestion.206

The occurrence of community slaves would explain the sale or hire of

"days" of these people.207 The importance for the economic aspects of

slavery is obvious.

Attempting to assess the function of slavery within the Egyptian

society, it seems to me, as I have once tried to argue,208 that the

necessary conditions for it, at least for slavery on a large scale,

that is, as an industrial system, are absent. It seems unlikely that

there still were so-called "open resources"209 during the NK; in other

words: fields, which could produce crops with the available techniques,

but were not tilled for lack of labour. If this supposition is correct,

no slaves were required for the production as a whole; the agricultural

population, unable to leave their fields in order to find others else

where, was virtually bound to the soil, so that no legal coercion such

as the slavery system was required.

The conclusion would be that in Egypt slavery was only connected with

households ancl the production of luxury goods, a situation usually re

flected by the social status of the slaves.210 This suggestion is

confirmed by the low number of prisoners of war brought into the country

during the wars of the XVIIIth Dynasty. Most of them seem to have

belonged to the 61ite of the conquered areas, either as rulers and

officials or as artists and high-skilled craftsmen. Others may have

been used for the building activities of the period and in the royal

and temple workshops, but there seems to have been hardly any need to

use them as peasants or field labourers211; hence the numbers mentioned

205 In: RIDA 15, 1968, 92 ff. 206 Cf. Cerny, op.cit. (note 201), 175 ff. 207

Cf., e.g., the papyri listed in note 202 and Gardiner-Cerny, Hier.Ostraca, 54,1. 208 In: JEOL 17, 1964, 141 ff. 209 Cf* J.H. Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial System, The Hague 21910. 210 There are indications that the social position of a slave did not differ much

of that of his owner; cf., e.g., the royal barber who nominated his slave as

his Successor and married h^m to his niece (de Linage, in: BIFAO 38, 1939, 217 ff.). In such circumstances the economic meaning of slavery is almost nil;

only the juridical aspects remain. 211

Cf., e.g., Urk. IV, 1649, and pHarris I, passim. It may be useful to remind

the reader that such general statements are of a traditional character and not

always in accordance with reality. Even where they are they do not provide us

with information about the numbers of slaves of the various categories.


are low. Perhaps their most important function was that of klerouchoi,212

but since they were soldiers in the first place they cannot very well

be called slaves - at least when we attach to this word the meaning

it has in modern languages.

In summary, the economic importance of slavery during the NK seems to

be rather small,213 although publication of new documents may alter

our present views. For a more reliable result one should also take into

consideration questions such as the legal obligations of the entire

population, the meaning of special terms for what is usually supposed

to be corvee-labour (fc/O,21** and also the possibility that a decline

of population in a particular period may have caused special obligations

imposed by the government in order to secure the cultivation of all

fields.

b Taxes

There is as yet only one technical study of taxation in ancient

Egypt,215 namely the lemma "Abgaben und Steuern" in the first fascicle

of the "Lexikon der Agyptologie",216 written by Helck. From col. 5

onwards it deals with the NK. For that period Helck notes four termes

for fcaxes: b3kw, Smw, &3yt, and tp-dt, stating that b3kw indicates

deliveries outside the agriculture (e.g,. fish); Smw the grain deliveries

of the domains, but also deliveries of a portion of the grain harvest

by settled soldiers and other categories of settlers; S3yt fixed de

liveries by individuals; and the rare term tp-dt (or tp-drt, lit.:

"head-hand") deliveries connected with special functions. In the

following columns Helck comments upon the system of taxation, referring

to a large number of texts, while dealing at the end with bh, "corv6e

labour", and %t, "the body of taxpayers".

212 Cf. the status of the Sherden in the pWilbour and the "foreigners" in the Turin

taxation papyrus. The Syrian slave in pBologna 1086 was certainly a field-labourer. 213

So, too, Morenz, Prestige-Wirtschaft, 22. Whether the situation was different

during the MK, as pBrooklyn 35.1446 seems to suggest, is not quite certain (cf.

Hayes, A Papyrus of the Late Middle Kingdom, New York 1955). 214 For the MK hsbw, cf. Berlev, in: BiOr 22, 1965, 266 ff. (review of Simpson,

pReisner I), whose remarks on the NK, however, seem to me as yet unproved. 215 The article of Redford in: Studies on the Ancient Palestinian World Presented

to Professor F.V. Winnett, Toronto 1972, I4l ff., valuable as it certainly is, could hardly be called a technical study although it describes various aspects of the present subject.

216 Wiesbaden 1972, cols. 3-12.


The first problem is whether Helckfs reconstruction of the system is

essentially correct. Is it correct to combine deliveries and taxes in

the way he did? Land-rent, for instance, is certainly, when paid in

kind, a delivery, but it is not a tax if that word bears any specific

meaning. Taxes are contributions imposed by the state in order to ful

fill its obligations to its own subjects, including the head of the

state, as well as to foreign countries. Other deliveries, either by

individuals or by institutions such as temples, may be land-rent, com

pensation for services provided by the government, etc.; they are not

taxes. Deliveries by private persons to landlords, temples, etc, are

also not to be called taxes in order to avoid misunderstanding,217

The second point to be mentioned here is the meaning of b3kw, a word

clearly used in many senses. In lawsuits about donkeys, for instance,

several of which are recorded on ostraca from Deir el-Medina, the

word is used for the hire of the animal. In pCairo 58057,9,218 on the

other hand, the writer of the letter complains that for a donkey which

should have been surrendered to him before but never has arrived one

still collects (s*d) "its b3kw from year to year". In this instance it

is likely that b3kw indeed means "taxes".

Moreover, from Helck's own references it appears that his definition

of b3kw as "die Ablieferungen von Produkten aufierhalb des landwirt

schaftlichen Sektors" is not quite correct. In col. 9 he quotes

pHarris I, 12b, 3, where corn is called b3kw ihwty, whereas according to Helck's system we would expect the word %mw.

The explanation for the problem is of course the extreme vagueness -

one may be inclined, from a modern point of view, to call it sloveli

ness - of the Egyptian use of technical terms. In the field of taxation, as anywhere else,219 the Egyptians used common words to indicate

217 It may be that s*mw, apart from "harvest", meant "harvest-tax" as well as "lessor's

rent". Such seems indeed certain for the Saite Period (cf. Baer, in: JARCE I,

1962, 30, note 43). Just in cases where the Egyptian terminology may have been

vague and ambiguous our terms should be as destinct as possible. 218 Cf. Moller, Hier. Lesestucke III, 8 and Sh. Allam, Hieratische Ostraka und

Papyri, Tafelteil, 86. 219 One may quote as one example out of several the names of mathematical figures,

such as 3ht for square area of a quadrangle or a triangle. See also for the

expression of religious concepts Bleeker, in: Travels in the World of the Old

Testament (Studies presented to M.A. Beek), Amsterdam, 1974, 12 ff.; for the

juridal terminology cf. Theodorides, Textes et langages III, 26 f.


specific concepts, while even in the same texts these words may also

occur in their general all-day meaning. It seems to me that the only

way to define what meaning a particular word in connection with taxa

tion could have is to start with texts which by their very nature may

be expected to use it in a specific way. Such would be a document from

the office of the state tax-collectors. Now there happens to be pre

served at least one document of this kind, namely the verso of the

famous royal canon of Turin.220 I venture to suggest that this text

is almost as important for the economic history of the NK as its recto

has been for the chronology of the Egyptian history.221 Unfortunately

it is so badly damaged that hardly a single line is entirely legible,

and this may be the reason why it has never been adequately studied.

I am unable to do more than offering a few remarks to its contents.

From the use of red ink one may conclude that the following words in

dicate particular kinds of taxes: b3kw (which indeed seems to have,

in col. Ill, 1-3, the meaning suggested by Helck) S3yt, Sdyt and

tp-drt. That the latter indicates some kind of tax paid by lower offi

cials may follow from its use in the entries of col. VI.222 Whether

sdyt, which seems to occur in a specific sense only in this document -

it is derived from td, used for "to collect (taxes)" - indeed indicates

a distinct type of taxes is still obscure.

Starting from this papyrus one should collect all occurrences of the

terms likely to be used for different types of taxes which occur in

other texts. Important in this respect seem to be: the Bilgai-stela,223

the inscription of the high-priest Amenhotep,22** some passage from the

Miscellanies and from administrative documents,225 the pHarris I, etc.

In each instance the specific character of the text has to be taken

into account. Thus the Bilgai-stela and pHarris I may use the words in

their true technical sense, and the figures here are at least intended

to be correct. The Miscellanies226 too will have applied the terms

220 Published by Gardiner, RCT, pis. 5-9. For a correction to pi. 7 cf. von Becke

rath, in: Z'AS 93, 1966, 17; for a translation with comments, Helck, Materialien,

III, 468 ff. 221

So, too, Redford, op.cit. (note 215), I5l. 222

Clearly pi. 7 of the publication does not contain 4 cols., as Gardiner numbered

them, but only 2, while fragment 85+64 bears the end of the lines of the prece

ding col. The word tp-dpt (in red ink) on fragment 34 indicates where the lines

of the second col. on this plate begin. 223 Cf. Gardiner, in: Z&S 50, 1912, pi. IV. 224 Cf. Helck, in: MIO 4, 1956, I6l ff. 225 For imw, cf., e.g., pLouvre E 3226. 226

E.g., pAnastasi III, 6,ll -

7,1; V, 17,2-3; pChester Beatty V, 7,8 -

8,6.


correctly since they were meant for the instruction of young scribes,

but the figures here are fictitious. That an autobiographical document,

such as that of the high-priest Amenhotep or that of the overseer of

the seal Sennofre227 was quite reliable in the use of the terminology

is less certain.

It may be of value to refer here to a detail which shows the way in

which the Egyptians used their terminology. Helck states228 that the

word htr - most times written htri - which is frequently used in

connection with taxes and other deliveries, means "Soil". Although that may be generally correct, the word also occurs in several ostraca

from Deir el-Medtna, and from the outset it is highly unlikely that

the workmen, who were receiving all their wages from the state (the

pharaoh), were still obliged to pay taxes. It is true that for the

sake of equal rights and obligations civil servants of modern states,

though receiving their wages from the government, are liable to taxa

tion, but this would be unlikely in ancient Egypt. In studying the

evidence229 I have become convinced that in the workmen's community

1o.tri is used for exactly the opposite of taxes, namely the deliveries

received, not paid, by the inhabitants.

The explanation may be that htri was thus used because it indicated

the "dues" of the pharaoh against "his" workmen. But it seems also

possible, and more in accordance with the Egyptian way of thinking, that the food and other commodities received by the workmen were

called htri since they were originally "dues" paid by others to the

state. The word was then so closely connected with the goods that it

adhered to them even when they were distributed and actually became

"wages". It is obvious that no modern civil servant would ever call

his salary "taxes", but Egyptian thinking followed other patterns

than ours.

More problems could be raised in connection with taxation, for instance

the much debated point whether the temples were exempt of taxation,230

the height of various taxes, the question whether smw indicates taxes

or land-rent, or, rather, in which instance the former and in which

the latter, and that whether the two-yearly taxation system, which is

227 Cf. Urk. IV, 530, 14-16 and 536, 11-13. 228 Ld'A I, col. 5. 229 Cf. Commodity Prices, 456 ff. 230 See chapter Vd.


supposed to have existed during the Old Kingdom according to the re

cordings of the Palermo Stone had completely disappeared in later

ages or not.231 In order to arrive at reliable conclusions we should

have to know more about the juridical status of institutions (temples)

and private persons during the NK, as well as about the economic

structure of the Egyptian society. So much is clear, however, that we

have to keep in mind the differences between the Egyptian mentality

and ours.

c Money and Prices

Coins were unknown in ancient Egypt, but there are other forms of money,

as study of the so-called "primitive" peoples amply shows. All commerce

in Egypt took place in the form of barter, while the value of the

commodities exchanged was expressed in quantities of copper, silver or

grain, although usually none of these was involved in the transaction.232

The system is called money-barter and is known from other peoples and

countries. It is fairly intricate and poses a number of problems.

Of the three units of account,or perhaps rather measures of value,

copper -

always measured in deben, a weight of c. 91 grammes - is the

most usual during the NK. Silver only occurs until the first years of

Ramesses III, while grain was mainly, though not exclusively, used to

indicate the value of cheap objects such as baskets.233 It may be that

in the case of baskets grain was preferred as measure of value since

they were the containers in which the grain was carried, and there are

even indications that in some instances the price of a basket was equal

to the quantity of grain it could contain. If this would be correct,

it is another example of the "concrete" way of thinking of the Egyptians.

This is not the place to discuss in detail the various aspects of the

Egyptian monetary system. I can only point out some interesting pheno mena. It seems, for instance, that the relation between copper and grain

when the latter is used as a measure of value -

1 khar of grain =

231 Cf. Schott, in: Fs Ricke, 71. 232 It does happen that a quantity of grain or scrap copper occurs among the commo

dities exchanged. In those instances the former was usually valued in deben of

copper, the latter never, its weight equalling its value. However, the total

"price" of a transaction never consisted of grain or copper only. 233 Cf. Commodity Prices, Part II, chapter I (101 ff.) and Part III, chapter III,

2 and 3 (514 ff.).


2 deben of copper - is not influenced by the actual price of the grain

at the moment of the transaction. Also, it is almost never indicated

what kind of grain is meant. Elsewhere, in the case of actual corn,

quantities of emmer (bdt) are written in red ink and those of barley

(it) in black, and since the figures are nearly always in black where

corn is used as a measure of value it seems that barley was meant. It

is equally possible, however, that in these instances no difference

was made, the measure of value simply being "corn". Although the values

of barley and emmer were not always equal during the XXth Dynasty, such

was probably the case during preceding ages, and it is this situation

that is reflected by the indiscriminate use of grain as a measure of

value.234

Both phenomena mentioned clearly demonstrate the strong power of tra

dition in economic matters, while we have also to take into account

the vagueness of the Egyptians in relation to the abstract prices as

against their concrete way of thinking in relation to the object bartered.

The latter appears not only from the prices of baskets, as said above,

but also, for instance, from the fact that the value of copper or bronze

objects, tools or vessels, was with a very few exceptions expressed

in deben of copper. Since the deben is essentially a weight, there

seems to be no difference between the price and the weight of the ob

jects, the costs of their manufacture being neglected in several

instances.

In view of the power of the tradition it is still more conspicuous that

silver was depreciated in relation to copper somewhere during the

XlXth Dynasty.235 The exact moment of the depreciation is unknown, but

it seems to have happened between the middle of the reign of Ramesses II

and the first years of Sethos II. It is equally uncertain whether it

occurred gradually in the course of some years, or at a definite moment.

In the latter case it was due to a decision of the government and would

point at a monetary policy. Unfortunately, the question is as yet even

without the beginning of an answer.

That the state indirectly influenced the monetary system is, however,

certain. For a price expressed in khar of grain, the exact content of

this measure is decisive. Once more, like the deben, the khar is not

23i* Op.cit., chapter II, 9.

235 Cf. above, chapter III b.


an abstract unit. It was divided into 4 oipS, and the word oip& (ipt)

also indicates an actual grain container of 19.22 litres. The oipe in

turn was divided into 40 hin, and we know of a lawsuit concerning an

actual 0^p -container which appeared to measure 38 instead of 40 hin.2^&

Although there is no evidence that the measure was guaranteed by the

state - society itself, presented by the local authorities, may have

been responsible for it - it seems most likely that this was indeed

the case, since the deliveries of grain to the government were measured

with the oipS (and the khar), and that so far as we know throughout

the country.237 Whatever the frauds by the officials, in theory the

measure was uniform, and this means in practice the existence of a

monetary policy, whether conscious or not.

For a study of commodity prices the material from Deir el-Medlna

appears to be a suitable starting point. The c. 1250 prices I have

collected offered the possibility to draw up some sort of price-list,238 which can be used as a means of comparison for single prices occurring

in documents from other places and periods.239 It is obvious that one

has to reckon with possible changes in the measures of value, but the

fairly large number of data from ostraca and papyri from the workmen's

community at least constitutes a reliable base for the study of this

aspect of the economy.

The texts from Deir el-Medtna mostly date from a period between the

middle of the XlXth and the end of the XXth Dynasty, a time sufficiently

long to allow for some conclusions as to the movement of the prices.

It is here that we encounter a striking phenomenon. Whereas prices of

grain, probably also of oil and possibly of vegetables, bear witness

to a pronounced fluctuation during the second half of the XXth Dyna

sty,240 prices of other commodities such as cattle, furniture, garments

236 Gardiner-Cerny, Hier. Ostraca, 34, 4. Cf. also pGeneva D 191,9. (terny, LRL, 57).

237 Nowhere in the administrative texts any other measure of grain is mentioned.

One may compare the variations in the measures of length, which seem to have

slightly differed from one region to another (cf. Graefe, in: JEA 59, 1973, 73 f.), although here too an "official" measure indicates a central policy.

238 Commodity Prices, 523 ff.

239 Cf., e.g., the prices of slaves mentioned in chapter Va.

240 For grain this has already been established by terny in his article "Fluctuations

in Grain Prices during the Twentieth Dynasty" (ArOr 6, 1934, 173 ff.).


and tomb equipment of the same years show an equally clear stability.241

For an explanation of this unexpected phenomenon242 once more "primitive"

economies offer material, since there the same situation sometimes

occurs. Prices appear to be far less mutually connected than in modern

societies. Since time, by far the most important factor among the costs

of production of manufactures in ancient Egypt, was hardly recognized as an economic value, it was only the prices of agricultural products

which fluctuated since they were dominated by the yearly fluctuating

yield of the fields. Manufactured goods such as furniture or coffins,

not dependent on the harvest, stayed on the traditional price level.

It has not been recognized that the changing costs of living would

require adaptation of all prices. This seems to me to be the explanation

for the stability of the commodity prices in general.

d State and Temple

On various pages above we have come across problems concerning the

economic functions of the temples: did they pay taxes? Were the pro

ducts of the temple workshops made in order to be sold, and, if so, in

what proportion did these workshops contribute to the total production?

What was the economic significance of the "circulation" of the offerings, etc.? It seems to me that the solution of these questions is one of the

principal duties of the economic historian.

For the economic function of the temples one may refer to two types of

documents. Firstly, there are the exemption decrees, of which examples

from all periods have been preserved. For the NK I mention the Redesieh

decree,243 the Nauri decree,244 and the (fragmentarily preserved)

Elephantine decree.245 Remarks on the subject are to be found in other

texts, e.g. pHarris I and the Decree of Haremhab. How far spread was

the phenomenon? Do the decrees reflect a fairly normal situation or

241 Commodity Prices, 530 ff.

242 It may be obvious that it has consequences for the usual picture of the history of the XXth Dynasty and the causes of its decline.

243 Kitchen, Ram. Inscr. I, 65 ff.; Schott, Kanais. Der Tempel Sethos I im Wadi Mia, NAWG 1961, Nr. 6.

244 Kitchen, Ram. Inscr. I, 45 ff.; Griffith, in: JEA 12, 1927, 193 ff. See also

Edgerton, in: JNES 6, 1947, 219 ff. and Gardiner, in: JEA 38, 1952, 24 ff. 245

Griffith, in: JEA 13, 1927, 207 f.


rather an exceptional? To what extent were they really enforced after

their enactment, and for how long after this date? In short, in how

far do they belong to the theological sphere of life and in how far

are they part of actual daily practice?

The second group of documents is of quite a different nature. Probably

for no other side of the actual life in Egypt could our information

be so abundant as for temple households, but, unfortunately, some of

the major collections of records are as yet unpublished (the Illahun

papyri in Berlin246) or not yet sufficiently studied (the Abusir

papyri247). It may be that in the near future we will have at our dis

posal a large amount of material on the subject from various periods,

so that a comparison may even enable us to draw some conclusions as

to the development of the Egyptian economy through the ages.

Returning to the NK I would raise the question whether indeed, as

usually suggested, we have to conceive of state and temple as economi

cally distinct entities. Is not this dualistic view too much the pro

duct of European history with its antithesis between the two powers

of church and state, from the Middle Ages to recent times? It seems

that there are sufficient indications to the opposite, at least with

respect to taxation, tQ reconsider the problem.248 I certainly do not

suggest that there was no real difference between the economic functions

of state and temple, but it may be that the religious concept of

pharaoh as the only high-priest in every sanctuary has had more practi

cal consequences than usually realised.

In order to adduce some material I list a number of observations which

seem to demonstrate the mutual penetration of both powers in the field

of agriculture,

a The control of the apportioning domains of the main temples

was in the hands of local state officials;249

b Some of the "normal" domains of the temples were in charge of

high officials;250

246 An inventory of the 679 papyri in Kaplony-Heckel, Agyptische Handschriften I

(Wiesbaden, 1971). 247 Published by Mme Posener-Krieger and de Cenival: Hieratic Papyri in the British

Museum. Fifth Series. The Abusir Papyri, London 1968. 248 Cf. a remark by Kemp (Man, Settlement and Urbanism, 659): "at times the temples

emerge clearly as just one branch of government administration". 249

Gardiner, The Wilbour Papyrus II, 39 ff.; Menu, Le regime juridique, 100. 250

Menu, op.cit., 53 ff.; Helck, Materialien II, 244 ff.


c The pharaoh established new domains, normal as well as apportioning

ones, on temple fields,251 and evidently liquidated others establish

ed by his predecessors, allotting their fields to his own foundations;

hence so few fields recorded in the pWilbour belong to the older

mortuary temples;252

d The khato-fields, though in several, if not in all instances

property of a temple, were tilled on behalf of pharaoh -

possibly

since lack of labour or other causes endangered the cultivation;

e The workmen of Deir el-Medina, although being in the service of

the king, were partly paid through the temples,253 whereas we have

not a single scrap of evidence that the temple was allowed to

detract the amounts delivered from the total of its taxes to the

state - if indeed temples paid taxes.

That similar facts are not (yet?) known from other fields of economy,

workshops, transport, etc., may be due to the deficient state of the

documentation preserved. It seems obvious that relations between

temple and state require new study, the result of which may be of

significance for the history of Egypt in general. There is, for in

stance, a suggestion of Gardiner that a disproportionate growth of

the wealth of temples, particularly that of Amun at Karnak with its

dependencies, constitutes one of the decisive factors in the decline

of the- XXth Dynasty.254 I have no convincing evidence to refute this

thesis, but the circumstances seem to be far more complicated than

a simple scheme of temple versus state would suggest,255 as simple

schemes are usually insufficient to explain the always complex reality.

251 The pharaoh settled klerouchoi on temple fields (pAmiens 5, 4; in 5,3 mention

of a domain founded by Ramesses III for criminals -

whatever this exactly may

mean). That both domains belonged to the property of Amun may be concluded

from the nature of the entire text, which records transport of grain by ships of the temple to granaries of the temple.

252 Helck, op.cit., 221 f. On the other hand a few of these foundations remainded

in existence for a fairly long time, as pWilbour shows. 253 Cf. Commodity Prices, 458 ff. In the Turin taxation papyrus possibly the

harvest of khato-fields was recorded. 254

Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, 297. Cf. also Wilson, The Burden of Egypt, 272 f. (quoting Gardiner, though very cautious). Otto, Agypten.

- Der Weg des

Pharaonenreiches, Stuttgart ^1958, 197, speaks of a "gefahrlich grofier Teil

des Volksvermogens" directly administered by the temples, but he does not

mention it among the causes of the fall of the XXth Dynasty. 255 Cf. Otto, op.cit., 200: "dafi eine praktische oder theoretische Trennung von

"geistlicher" und "weltlicher" Gewalt nicht bestand".


VI THE STRUCTURE OF THE EGYPTIAN ECONOMY

What this study has attempted to do, namely to deal with the economy

as a separate subject unconnected with society as a whole, is in fact

impossible, particularly with respect to a civilisation like that of

ancient Egypt. Far more than in modern societies the various aspects

of life there constituted one indivisible unity.Therefore, a study of

the economy without taking into account other aspects, particularly

religion, cannot be any more than a transitional stage in scientific

research, useful in that it enables us to pose special problems and

to apply special methods; ultimately the results have to be incorpo

rated into the study of the Egyptian history as a whole. In other

words: the final aim is to draw a picture of the structure of the

economy as an aspect of the entire civilisation.256

The only extant study of Egyptian economy as a facet of the civilisation

is Morenz' small book in which he describes it as a "prestige economy".

It seems to me that this point of view, though certainly revealing

various relations between economy on one hand and government, religion

and personality on the other hand, is not the most suitable to detect

the economic structure.257 Morenz' most successful pages are those in

which he explains the funeral cult as a manifestation of the general

strive after prestige, so that what may seem to us a waste of wealth

appears to be in fact a logical and even rational means to acquire

the happiness a people as well as every individual desires to acquire.

In other sections, however, Morenz has somewhat overstressed the

concept of prestige, so that it actually becomes to mean no more than

pursuit of happiness.

A purely economic point of view would be more productive for the ad

vancement of our knowledge in this field of studies. It looks likely

that the best approach is to conceive of the economic structure as a

system of redistribution,258 which is one of the three possibilities,

the others being reciprocity, found with more "primitive" peoples,

256 Cf. Morenz, Prestige-Wirtschaft, 7. 257 It is also obvious from almost every page that the material available was

insufficient, for which of course not Morenz but the state of our egyptological science is to blame.

258 Recognized by Morenz as a dominant factor; op.cit., 14.


and market exchange, the system of modern societies.259 Of course, in

every developed society all three systems are present, but it is their

relative importance which may widely differ. Just as market exchange

is the dominant factor in the western world,260 so redistribution was

in Egypt, a relatively large part of the production of the country being collected by the state through its various organs in order to be re

distributed among a fairly large number of categories of its servants.

It is from this sphere that most of our documents come, recording either the collection of goods and their transport to central magazines, or their distribution among the population.261 It seems to me that the

economic function of the temples is best understood as a special section

of this system. From this point of view problems such as the taxation

of temples or the economic role of the circulation of the offerings find their solution most easily. Moreover, the system of redistribution

explains the central position of divine kingship better than the con

cept of prestige, even in the economy.262

How far the range of the redistribution system extended, that is, what

was the relation between it and the subsistence economy of the peasants, is a problem for which there appears to be hardly any material in our

documentation. By their very nature written documents mostly belong

to the administration, recording the dues of rent and/or taxes, trans

port of products, decrees concerning special rights of temples, lawsuits, etc.263 They do not show much of the daily life of a peasant or field

labourer and his family, eating the grain he himself has grown, building his own house, making himself most of his objects of daily use. What

we know about him is mainly derived from pictures in the tombs - though

even these were influenced by the views of the tomb-owner who himself

was always a member of the administrative class -264 and that type of

259 Cf. Commodity Prices, 558, with the literature quoted there. The studies of

Polanyi c.s., though overstressing certain aspects, constitute stimulating lecture for everyone dealing with Egyptian economy.

260 Reciprocity is Restricted to the personal sphere: gift-giving in the form of

birthday and marriage presents, etc., while redistribution is indeed an important aspect of the modern Welfare State.

261 E.g., the court and its servants, including the royal harem, the necropolis workmen, the administration (scribes), the army and the temple personnel.

262 I do not want to suggest that Morenz' views are wrong, but that my way of

approach is better suited to solve the major problems. 263

Perhaps letters excepted, as the Hekanakhte correspondence demonstrates. 264 Cf. Waltraud Guglielmi, Reden, Rufe und Lieder etc., Bonn 1973, 214 and passim.


document reflects an ideal situation, never providing us with reliable

figures.265 In how far the picture from these representations can be

wrong may be seen from a subject such as dress. Both the actual objects

and the texts on ostraca and account papyri demonstrate that the work

man was not always clad in a loincloth only, as the pictures would

make us believe; he indeed possessed a galabieh (mss).2ee Similar

misinterpretations may be numerous. Hence it is open to question

whether we will ever be able to draw a picture of the basic structure

of economy as it functioned in the life of the ordinary peasant and

workman. For the present, a study of the redistribution system in all

its aspects seems the only possibility.

265 The same holds true for literary documents such as the "Satire des Metiers". 266

Commodity Prices, 249 ff.