Source: Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur, Bd. 3 (1975), pp. 127-185
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Altägyptischen Kultur.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
