Work and Compensation in Ancient Egypt

Author(s): David A. Warburton

Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology , 2007, Vol. 93 (2007), pp. 175-194
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40345836

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 WORK AND COMPENSATION
IN ANCIENT EGYPT

By DAVID A. WARBURTON

A discussion of the two documents confirming the sale of shabtis provides the platform for a discus-
sion of various aspects of the Egyptian economy, beginning with the faience makers who sell their
objects. The specific intention is to isolate the value of labour in Egyptian society, which requires
touching on the fundamental structure of the economy. Whereas the shabti documents serve to
illustrate the importance of the market, the titles do not demonstrate control or administration. This
allows the quality of labour to emerge as an independent entity with a value of its own.

In JEA 91 (2005), F. Poole published an important contribution on the documents

concerning the sale of shabtis which, despite its brevity, is full of insights, relevant
parallels, useful details, and persuasive philological argument.1 Poole's article will
serve as a greatly appreciated reference, both for those scholars who have in the
past worked with this peculiar subject, and for those who have hitherto not had the
opportunity to appreciate the delights of this particular issue.
Aside from his own extensive research, Poole's treatment of the subject was partially
influenced by another article,2 which 'in general seems to have attracted little notice'.3
Poole notes that in that article, I had argued that one should distinguish two different
operations concerning the payment for the purchase of shabtis, both in the Neskhons
decree (Louvre E 6858; BM EA 16672) and in the 'bill of sale' (P. BM EA 10800).
One operation would have been the payment of the craftsmen who made shabtis for a
living, and the other was one which seemed to imply that the shabtis themselves were
somehow also supposed to have been rewarded or treated in a fashion which obliged
them to work in the Beyond.
At that time (as still today), I was slightly mystified at this situation, and that was
part of the reason for the original article. However, Poole has inadvertently increased
the degree of mystification by suggesting that I then resolved these two operations
into a single payment, and suggested that I had written that 'it is the shabtis themselves
who are the recipients of the payment'* - which I did not. This misunderstanding is
probably the result of a regrettable lack of precision on my part, and I will endeavour
to rectify this shortcoming here.

1 F. Poole, '"All that has been done to the Shabtis": Some Considerations on the Decree for the Shabtis of
Neskhons and P. BM EA 10800,' JEA 91 (2005), 165-70. In preparing this article, I have not only benefited from
the commentaries provided by Poole but also by the remarks of the Editor of the Journal, and the two referees,
and thus I owe my sincerest thanks to all.
2 D. Warburton, 'Some Remarks on the Manufacture and Sale of Shabtis/ BSEG 9-10 (1984-5), 345~55-
3 Poole, JEA 91 , 168.
4 Ibid., 165. Italics in original.

The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 93 (2007), i75~94

ISSN 0307-5133

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 176 DAVID A. WARBURTON JEA 93

There is no question that justice would b

to have been paid for their work in the Be
work for all eternity, which is the opposite
to spend eternity (and actually precisely t
such an outcome might be, it never appear
was actually intended for the shabtis. At
the payments to the manufacturers, and w
does Poole clarify an issue which was left
and philological skills have enabled him to
demonstrate that the documents cannot b
guarantee that the shabtis received payments
of the payment.
Nevertheless, there remain some fundame
documents since the shabtis are clearly involv
they themselves are called upon to respect th
craftsmen who sold them. Thus, beyond t
interpretation, this new discussion was so
that quite aside from their indisputable t
can serve as a perfect introduction to cert
economy of Ancient Egypt. We will retur
remarks about Poole's contribution.

Part of the argument in the original article was based on the astonishment at the
peculiar phrasing in P. BM EA 10800, which terminates by stating that piy-tn hd
'your silver' or 'your price' had been received. The second person plural pronoun can
only refer to the shabtis, since the craftsman refers to himself with the first person
singular and to the client with the second and third person masculine singular. When
dealing with this crucial phrase, Poole translates:

[. . .] Say 'we are ready', whenever he will summon you for the service of the day; I have
received from him your silver.6

Addressing himself to the shabtis in the second person makes it obvious that the
shabtis themselves have an obligation, and the formal syntax of the text suggests that
this obligation can only have arisen through the payment of their money.
There is a slight theological problem here, since the craftsman has clearly received
the money from the client, who is designated with the second and third person mas-
culine singular, and yet this same third person masculine singular is used to designate
the person who will call upon the shabtis to work. By contrast the shabti spell(s) in
the Book of the Dead, and inscribed on shabtis themselves, suggest that some other
authority (usually the indefinite pronoun 'one') calls upon the dead person to work.
In the spell(s), the shabtis are instructed to respond immediately, without hesitation
or outside intervention, when the name of the deceased is called, and to represent the
deceased in carrying out their functions in the Beyond in his name and place. Here, in

5 Warburton, BSEG q-io, W2 (cf. infra).

6 Poole, J£,4 91, 1 66.

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2oo7 WORK AND COMPENSATION 177

P. BM EA 10800, we have an indication that the

shabtis would respond automatically, and was a
that he might have to prompt them. And we mu
the phrase be translated 'any hour of summoning
person singular clearly referring to the client pu
By contrast, the theological logic implies tha
on the shabti should suffice, and the commer
now the legitimate possessions of the client. T
peculiar situation doubt arises, since it is very
the money paid to the craftsmen for the figur
shabtis to respond with alacrity in the other w
this case is thus two-fold as (a) the theology di
any shabtis at all is exclusively so that they wo
situation which demands that the payment be m
any prospective work in the Beyond, and over
assuring the validity of the contract.
In fact, the situation was ordinarily exactly the
could not even expect to be paid on time for w
in one case in our limited documentation, the
This situation can be related to two others m
plight of the family of peasants, where the scr
appear, the peasant's neighbours 'abandon the
their obligations, this automatically entailed arre
ments to state employees. Such delays and lack
employment in Ancient Egypt. Thus, one has
would not be persuaded that the shabtis would
required cast-iron guarantees that the necessar
It would not help him if they waited a few th
thus he even added in the possibility that he c
obligations.
However, the fact that this is not an ordinary contract is not so much based on
the exact wording or the general concepts, but on the use of a what is obviously a
reflection of the shabti-spell of the Book of the Dead in the payment clause, and
in the fact that the witnesses who confirm that the money has been paid are gods.10
Thus, regardless of parallels and details, this particular type of contract is ultimately
a contract for the execution of work, but clearly work of an otherworldly kind. In this
sense the contract is quite different from the sale of land or of slaves or of objects
where something physical changes hands, and the purchaser can be certain that he
(or his descendents) play at least some role in deciding whether the slave or the land
or the object is put to good use. The fact that the shabtis are physical objects is

7 I. E. S. Edwards, 'Bill of Sale for a Set of Ushabtis', JEA 57 (197O, 124.

8 J. J. Janssen, Commodity Prices from the Ramessid Period: An Economic Study of the Village of Necropolis
Workmen at Thebes (Leiden, 1975), 464.
9 R. A. Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies (BEStud 1; Oxford, 1954), 247 (= LEM 65, 4).
10 Edwards, JEA 57, 122-3. Edwards read the names of Bastet, Ptah, and Horus.

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178 DAVID A. WARBURTON JEA 93

immaterial from a theological standpoint, sin

which made them valuable - and yet this w
purchaser to guarantee. Only the vendor an
Poole stresses the philological argument
suggesting that the text is phrased in the f
to others where the contract concerns a trans
Poole and I are probably in full agreement
money, and that it was in no way the intenti
was the case. It was certainly the craftsmen w
For the current writer, the economic issu
paid for: the relatively worthless physical fig
out by these figurines? On the basis of th
Poole has persuasively demonstrated that the
of the monetary payment, and thus the cr
manufacturers. They abandoned their righ
of the clients. The ownership of the shabtis
craftsmen can be viewed as custodians wh
the shabtis in any fashion. The purpose of th
had changed hands in exchange for goods.
However, there remained the distinction
time, I speculated that this payment 'to th
meant.11 Poole likewise allows that the 'pa
the shabtis.12 This is of some import sinc
payments were made in kind, and thus we
of one of those transactions like those kn
is no 'money' anywhere in sight, yet the 'p
recipients of the silver have been clearly dist
level, the difficulties of 'money' and 'paym
There is, however, a further difficulty in th
is more nuanced. In his criticism of my int
places the emphasis on the verbs jrj and rd
the craftsmen uses the verb rdj, and that r
is convinced that there was a mistake in my
lated 'tout ce qu'on a fait aux oushebtis', P
was given'.14 And here, Poole justly poses t
in this context?'.15 And he then goes on to
the issue of 'what has been done'.16 He the
of this scheme, and that:

11 Warburton, BSEG 9-10, 351.

12 Poole, JEA 91, 170.
13 Cf. the sources for Janssen, Commodity Prices, such a
14 Poole, JEA 91, 166. I have been unable to find the refer
shabtis themselves have been paid' (Warburton, BSEG 9-
170), so he cannot be referring to this.
15 Poole, ^91, 169.
10 Ibid., 170.

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 2oo7 WORK AND COMPENSATION 179

The phrase 'all that has been done to the shabtis in e

these actions, and their payment in kind.17

In order to reach this conclusion, Poole propo

interpreting jry.tw-w as 'those things (scil. tasks
admits that he is not satisfied with the results f
I also share his misgivings about the philologic
understanding of the jry.tw-w is not necessar
thus still a matter of debate. It is crucial that
tions, one of which is the payment to the crafts
to the shabtis'.
We will now skip back to what I had originally written:

It could be speculated that the price of the shabtis - paid to the manufacturers - was
considered to be, 'all that one has done for these shabtis in exchange for causing that
they replace a man at his tasks ...' [...] and thus that the price of an ordinary amulet
is all that was demanded. The problem is that the Neskhons Decree separates these
two payments from one another. This of course does not prohibit such a logical inter-
pretation, it merely raises a question, one which we are not able to answer at present.
It could also be speculated that something completely different was undertaken, e.g.,
a religious ritual or something along those lines. One hint that this might have been
the case is the use of the word rdyw ('what has been given') in line 18 referring to the
fayence workers, while iryw ('what has been done') is used in line 23 referring to the
compensation of the shabtis.19

Poole thus proposes as a 'hypothesis', 'that the makers' actions nevertheless still
played an important role in ensuring the shabtis' proper performance in the nether-
world' .20 Except for the fact that I termed this 'speculation' , Poole is virtually repeating
what was written 'a couple of decades ago'.21
However, this 'hypothesis' concerning the Neskhons document can in no way
negate the fact that the 'bill of sale' terminates with a formula linking a fragment
of the text of the shabti spell of the Book of the Dead with the statement that their
money had been received and that the gods have witnessed this,22 and evidently I will
still be inclined to take these shocking elements seriously. Furthermore, after having
disputed that the shabtis are participants in these deals, Pooles states that they were
in some way beneficiaries of 'their payment',23 exactly as I argued.
Obviously, we are back where we started. However, the high scholarship of Poole's
contribution simply suggests to me that one can do no more, and that these issues
cannot be resolved.

17 Poole, JE A 91 y 170.
18 Ibid., 169-70.
19 Warburton, BSEG 9-10, 351-2.
20 Poole, JE A 91, 170.
21 Ibid., 165.
22 Ibid., 166.
23 Ibid., 170.

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 180 DAVID A. WARBURTON JEA 93

The Payments

Rather than press this issue further, I now

to the payments made to the craftsmen
such a fundamental dispute. Significantl
that the payments involved are the basis
the Beyond, regardless of whether the s
not. They are also confirmations that m
thus ownership, in exchange for 'money
monetary value remained in the hands of
What is extremely interesting in this c
of the Temple of Amun' specifically state
has made, and that his client is a wr6-pries
the Neskhons decree were able to get the
shabtis would work in the Beyond, and th
payment which went to the benefit of the
From an economic and social standpoin
manufacturers of faience and amulets in
their work, which is indisputably the c
character and significance of any 'paym
workers affiliated with one of the most
(either through their titles or through t
who are serving the private market, selli
Given the sanctity of the documentatio
suggesting that these transactions repre
given the titles of the vendors, it woul
manufacture of these objects represente
this as a commercial transaction in which
with the Egyptian state, retail their produ
tives of the state. As Poole suggests, it i
Deir el-Medineh - were able to command
some mystical capacity on their part.25 An
were directly involved in the retail trade,
middlewomen of the market scenes in the

Administration vs independent craftsmen

However, these facts bring us to the central issue of the character of the Egyptian
economy, and particularly the importance of work, titles, occupations, commerce,
and compensation. This remains a burning issue since, even today, after decades of
a gradual awakening, one frequently reads in works by reputable scholars that the

24 Edwards, JEA 57, 122-3.

25 Poole,^^ 91, 170.
26 Cf. C. J. Eyre, 'The Market Women of Pharaonic Egypt', in N. Grimal and B. Menu (eds), he commerce en
Egypte ancienne (BdE 121; Cairo, 1998), 173-91; B. J. Kemp, Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization (2nd edn,
London, 2006), 325; C. Pino, 'The Market Scene in the Tomb of Khaemhat,' JEA 91 (2005), 95-105.

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2oo7 WORK AND COMPENSATION 181

Egyptian economy was basically a 'redistributi

that commerce did not play an important role as
Part of the logic of this approach seems to b
some kind. In discussing the glass and faience

Whilst there is some evidence for the persons in con

for example, in the form of names and titles of off
faience manufacture at Amarna including the num
and conditions, and the officials that controlled t
from texts describing the remuneration of workers
pottery, sculpture, metalworking and others, were
administrator and part of the ruling elite [...].28

In support of this last assertion, Shortland

others'. And there can be no doubt that he wa
as an exhaustive list of the major Egyptologist
be quite lengthy.
Now, despite a seeming consensus, the situatio
the original statement by Drenkhahn in her co
she found, on the contrary, that the sources rev

aber zahlreiche Handwerker belegt, die nur ihre

Angaben fiihren, wodurch eine exakte Einordnu
Denn es erscheint unzulassig, von vornherein in ih
Gruppe zu sehen, die weder einem Privatmann noch
ist es wahrscheinlich, dass diese ,,herrenlosen" H
dem anderen Dienstverhaltnis zugeordnet werde
auch selten - nur aus dem szenischen Zusammenh

It is true that Muller-Wollermann has demons

that the tomb inscriptions make it abundantly
land remunerated the craftsmen who worked o
had not found that these craftsmen, or any ot
trolled' by these officials in the service of the
that they were paid by these officials - but not b
And Drenkhahn had found numerous 'indepe
this conclusion was 'inadmissible', and was t
been employed either by an individual or by
She conceded, however, that only rarely could
Drenkhahn drew these conclusions based upon
to have drawn the same conclusion from the d
there was no evidence of titles or of state aff
material lying around to propose that the man

27 Cf. e.g. H. Altenmuller, 'Markt', LA III, 1191-4; H. Alte

(ed.), Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 2001), I
28 A. J. Shortland, Vitreous Materials at Amarna: The Produ
(BAR IS 827; Oxford, 2000), 70.
29 R. Drenkhahn, Die Handwerker und ihre Tdtigkeiten im alt
30 R. Muller-Wollermann, 'Warenaustausch im Agypten des

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 182 DAVID A. WARBURTON JEA 93

Now, it is indisputably clear that there were

these individuals with titles represented the
is not clear that all the people with titles were
any officials were in 'control' of production
ties. Even where there is textual documenta
craftsmen were definitely employed by the
production. In his particular case, Shortland
tation whatsoever to support his argument for
at Amarna.

Nevertheless, Shortland then proceeds to discuss the various known cases of the
'overseers of faience makers', documented for the Thirteenth Dynasty and the New
Kingdom. This allows him to create an organisational flow chart for Amarna, similar
to that known from Deir el-Medineh,31 and thus to posit the issue of state control at
Amarna:

Textual and archaeological information suggests that two methods for the distribu-
tion of faience and glass from the factories were present at Amarna [...] The first is
the central commissioning and control followed by redistribution which is classically
regarded as the dominant force in Egyptian economics and appears significant in the
production of vital commodities, for example bread. The second is production and sale
in the private sector, which from the Deir el-Medina records is perhaps more important
than had first been thought. A study of the typology of the vitreous materials suggests
that a combination of these two methods resulted in the observed wide distribution of
glass and faience [...].32

Thus it is suggested that 'textual information' supports the argument about the
primary state control, but it is allowed that the private sector may have played a role,
but obviously of secondary importance. The first difficulty of this logic is necessarily
the complete absence of any documentation for the 'textual' support for this argu-
ment at Amarna, as there simply are not any textual sources.
This difficulty is itself compounded by Drenkhahn's observation that she was un-
able to establish affiliation, let alone the 'control'. By contrast, Muller-Wollermann
had demonstrated the cash nexus.

The state, officials, and markets

The second difficulty is that the shabti documents discussed at the start of this article
reveal that the state participated in sanctioning the sale of objects, manufactured by
craftsmen associated with the state, to other individuals directly implicated in the
state. In fact, Eyre has specifically placed the manufacture of shabtis 'in ateliers asso-
ciated with the palace, the state (treasury), or a temple'.33 As we have seen, this can be
logically postulated. However, Eyre then suggests also that 'there is no clear evidence

31 Shortland, Vitreous Materials, 174.

32 Ibid., 82.
33 C. J. Eyre, 'Work and the Organisation of Work in the New Kingdom,' in M. A. Powell (ed.), Labor in the
Ancient Near East (AOS 68; New Haven, 1987), 199-200.

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 2007 WORK AND COMPENSATION 183

for completely independent craftsmen trading enti

the end of the New Kingdom'.34
In this case - as Poole has now demonstrated that these shabti texts must be
understood as recording payments in exchange for objects - there is no questi
about the payments between individuals, nor about the state affiliations. Admitt
beside Neskhons, 'daughter of Smendes II, niece and wife of Pinodjem II, high
priest of Theban Amun', who held various high positions in the state hierarchy,35 the
bearer of the title of wr6-priest, pales into insignificance - but this does not alter the
situation. In the Third Intermediate Period, even the highest in the land purchased
their shabtis on the open market from manufacturers with titles linking them to the
institutions of the state.
Thus, in this case at least, we can confirm that in the Third Intermediate Period
that neither 'administrative control' nor 'redistribution' played any role. Although
the documents record the state links, the documents leave us in no doubt about the
fact that the state was not commissioning and redistributing the shabtis, and that the
transactions were basic commercial transactions. Thanks to Poole, this has now been
demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt. Now, it can be affirmed that the Amarna
Period is not the Third Intermediate Period, and that one cannot project aspects
of the one period to another. However, it is effectively impossible for Shortland to
maintain that any of the 'officials' he lists were in fact involved in state 'control' of
the manufacture and distribution of goods in either the Thirteenth Dynasty or in
the New Kingdom, as the available evidence simply does not allow an interpretation
of that kind. In fact, the situation is exactly the opposite of that postulated by Eyre:
there is no documentation for state control in the New Kingdom.
By contrast, the available evidence does indicate that individuals with titles indi-
cating state affiliations were selling and purchasing products on the market in the
Third Intermediate Period. How such products were distributed earlier is not clear.
Significantly, the physical distribution of faience objects at Amarna indicates 'that
the great majority of faience objects were not of high status and were available to, and
used by, all ranks of society'.36 Although Shortland improbably suggests that some of
these cheap materials may have been awarded by the king as part of his royal largesse,
he also allows for private production and sale.
What he does not seem to allow would be that the market was the primary means
of organising the production and distribution of such materials. Nor would he allow
that this market-based production may actually have played a primary role in any
(purely hypothetical) official distribution as well. Significantly, the archaeological
evidence - including the lack of titles and institutional links - should serve as evidence
to demonstrate the lack of any bureaucratic structure. Instead, the archaeological
evidence then serves as the basis for the creation of an imaginary bureaucratic
structure. In fact, there is no documentation of state control of the faience market in
the New Kingdom, nor any indication of state distribution of such articles, and there

34 Eyre, in Powell (ed.), Labor in the Ancient Near East, 200.

35 K. A. Kitchen, 'Neschons', LA IV, 463.
36 Shortland, Vitreous Materials, 82.

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 1 84 DAVID A. WARBURTON JEA 93

is the definite evidence for the market in th

titles prove utterly irrelevant.
Thus, one has the impression that one coul
dence backwards, and argue that these object
market in the New Kingdom as well, and tha
objects. Certainly Shortland's position does n
period which can be projected, either backwa

'Redistribution'

We must now turn to Shortland's claims that the centralised state economy com
sioned and redistributed goods in significant parts of the economy, as there are
several problems with this approach. First of all, 'redistribution' appears as part
the system devised by Polanyi, and, for various methodological reasons, Polany
system cannot usefully be applied to the economy of Ancient Egypt or the rest of t
Near East, by definition.37
One of the principal difficulties with this approach is that, for Polanyi, the absen
of wage labour was one of the crucial criteria which distinguished the anci
economies from market economies.38 The simple facts of the matter are that, in
fashion or another, regardless of whether the craftsmen are viewed as the exclu
recipients of the payment, it was apparently the payment in the shabti transact

37 Based on their familiarity with the sources, some of the greatest authorities have clearly stated their dis
faction with the Polanyi model, e.g., Kemp, Ancient Egypt2, 302-35. Some of my own contributions have
with the theoretical level, e.g. D. A. Warburton 'Economic Thinking in Egyptology', SAK 26 (1998), 143-7
'Before the IMF', JESHO 43 (2000), 65-131; id., Macroeconomics from the Beginning: The General Theory,
cient Markets, and the Rate of Interest (Neuchatel, 2003), 147-86. Significantly, in their otherwise critical re
of Warburton, State and Economy in Ancient Egypt: Fiscal Vocabulary of the New Kingdom (OBO 151; Fri
and Gottingen, 1997), J. Quack (WdO 39 (1998), 174-7) and C. J. Eyre {JESHO 42 (1999), 575~7) have both
said as much.
38 K. Polanyi, The Livelihood of Man (New York, 1977), 10-12. The other was the sale and rent of land,
which has since been adequately documented with the Heqanakht papers, cf. J. P. Allen, The Heqanakht Papyri
(PMMA 27; New York, 2002), 142-89 - quite aside from the transactions of Metjen near the beginning of the
Fourth Dynasty (cf. K. B. Godecken, 'Metjen,' LA IV, 119).
From the standpoint of 'redistribution', it is frequently forgotten that most of the evidence for significant
institutional ownership of land comes from the Late Ramesside Period and the Third Intermediate Period, e.g.
A. H. Gardiner, The Wilbour Papyrus (Oxford, 1 941-8); A. Gasse, Donnees nouvelles administratives et sacerdotales
sur Vorganisation du domaine d'Amon, XXe-XXIe dynasties: A la lumiere des papyrus Prachov, Reinhardt et
Grundbuch (avec edition princeps des papyrus Louvre AF 6345 et 6346-j ) (BdE 104; Cairo, 1988). That this
monumental documentation does not demonstrate that state institutions controlled more than an insignificant
proportion of the land is usually forgotten. This difficulty is neglected by those stressing 'redistribution' when
projecting state land ownership backwards in time (occasionally, despite the transactions of Metjen, it is projected
all the way back to the Second Dynasty, cf. D. Valbelle, Histoire de VEtat pharaonique (Paris, 1998), 32).
In fact, our clearly commercial shabti transactions dating to the Third Intermediate Period should be used
to argue that even for that period when documentation for some institutional control of some land is actually
available, commercial activity among state dependents played an important role. In general, however, the once
generally assumed absence of the documentation of commercial activity in the New Kingdom has usually been
sufficient to permit speculation about state 'control' to continue unabated up to the present. This is then applied
to both the New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period, quite aside from the Middle Kingdom and the Old
Kingdom - without the slightest foundation.
Now, however, the documentation from the letters of Heqanakht leaves no doubt whatsoever about the fact that
a private individual could exploit land-holdings and even rental strategies in a highly commercial fashion already
in the early Twelfth Dynasty. Cf. also C. J. Eyre, 'Peasants and Modern Leasing Strategies in Ancient Egypt',
JESHO 40 (1997), 367-90.

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2oo7 WORK AND COMPENSATION 185

which likewise compelled them to work in the

labour was so prevalent in Ancient Egypt that, v
could also be extended to the Beyond. And thus o
Polanyi system which had to be missing in Ancie
Another of the difficulties with the Polanyi app
is that there is no systematic explanation of th
literature. The article on 'Wirtschaft' in the LA ind
can 'explain' some aspects of the Egyptian econom
known in historical times in Egypt.39 Thus, the
vague to allow the definition of a type of econom
one to exclude the economy of ancient Egypt with
the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt refer to
feature of the Egyptian economy,41 there is no art
absence of an article of 'redistribution' in the Ox
suggests a problem which is then confirmed by the
in the sub-article 'redistribution' in the article on
nothing listed in that article which corresponds to
seems to be dominant in an overwhelming fash
and Bleiberg in that work, nor the observations
existence and character of 'redistribution' rema
appears everywhere as if it 'explains' something.
Furthermore, the only Ancient Egyptian word
'redistribution' (the article on 'Economy' in the O
being the New Kingdom terms related to 'revenues'
appear in the article on New Kingdom 'taxation',
Therefore, the only Ancient Egyptian terminolog
which defines 'taxation'. 'Taxation' is a characteri
'redistribution' to be a different type of econom
of the Polanyi approach), it would have to have

39 M. Gutgesell, 'Wirtschaft', LA VI, 1275. It is significant tha

mined' economy in Ancient Egypt on the lack of movement in pr
Streck (ed.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie, X: Oannes - Priesterve
'remarkably stable' prices in Mesopotamia, but argues that 'a majo
held that prices in cuneiform sources mean, more or less, what pr
Mesopotamia had a market economy. In dialogues with professi
do not consider the evidence of prices as relevant for interpretin
Egypte ancienne,' in G. Bensimon (ed.), Histoire des representation
and their significance do not seem to play the same role in these
money is beyond the scope of the discussion here.
40 For details, cf. e.g. Warburton, Macroeconomics from the Begi
41 E.g. Altenmuller, 'Trade and Markets', in Redford (ed.), Oxfo
Bleiberg, 'Prices and Payment', Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Eg
42 Warburton, Macroeconomics from the Beginning, 155-63.
43 B. Menu, 'Economy', Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt,
pedia of Ancient Egypt, III, 354. Unfortunately, the bibliography
as it omits the discussion of taxes in both M. Romer, Gottes- und P
Reiches: Ein religionsgeschichtliches Phdnomen und seine sozialen
and Warburton, State and Economy. Even so, the vocabulary ident
ied in these two works - and also then used by others as terms fo

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 186 DAVID A. WARBURTON JEA 93

noted, these have not been specified in any c

clearly defined and relevant to Ancient Egyp
Thus, Ancient Egypt can be viewed as a
taxation used to readjust the distribution of
economies of Denmark and the USA today; a
redistribution are great in these two countries
undoubtedly market economies).
Therefore, for the New Kingdom, those e
documented can be understood as 'exactions
contrast to Shortland's suggestion. One of the
Kingdom titles associated with the manufa
is an absence of state affiliation. Therefore,
New Kingdom - even if one accepts Shortla
rewarded some of his underlings with gifts of
been acquired through taxation of indepe
construct a state system of production with
The Gang at Deir el-Medineh received a re
work in the Valley of the Kings - and went
as is well known.44 Thus, in their state affi
el-Medineh were working in return for th
construed as 'redistribution', and their wor
viewed as 'commissioned'.

Titles, administration, and economy

We can now try to wind up this discussion by drawing on the question of the impor
tance of titles. Usually, aside from the arguments about land and grain, argument
about the state control of the economy are ultimately found to rest upon the titles
Shortland established his hypothetical administration of amulet manufacture in
Amarna based upon combining the non-existent titles from Amarna with the know
titles from elsewhere, and assuming that these other titles were state administrativ
titles, and then transposed this hypothetical structure onto the known structure from
Deir el-Medineh. Nor is Shortland the only author responsible for such a methodol
ogy. Hikade recently established 'ein spezielles Planungsbiiro in der Residenz'45 fo
the industrial copper production in Sinai - without one single inscription, or even
title, and in the complete absence of any evidence that the Egyptians were responsi
ble for copper production in the Sinai.
The fundamental assumption upon which such approaches rest is somehow the as
sumption that the state controlled the economy through an administration, and th
there was not much of a state beyond the royal household at the beginning of history,
and that even later there was not much of an economy beyond the administration,
44 Cf. e.g. Janssen, Commodity Prices and D. Valbelle, «Les ouvriers de la tombe»: Deir-el-Medineh a Vepoq
Ramesside (BdE 96; Cairo, 1985); abundant additional references will be found at the Leiden University websit
The Deir el-Medina Database <http://www.leidenuniv.nl/nino/dmd/dmd.html>.
45 T. Hikade, Das Expeditionswesen im Agyptischen Neuen Reich: Ein Beitrag zu Rohstoffversorgung und Aussen
handel (SAGA 21; Heidelberg, 2001), 31.

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2OO7 WORK AND COMPENSATION 187

formulated by Helck.46 In this fashion, the identi

of an administration, and the economy is then
approach to the importance of titles is illustrated

II faut se rappeler cependant que dans PEgypte an

avoir travaille de maniere entierement independan
et des temples. Tout le monde ou presque, paysan
rattache a une institution.47

It will be noted that, in this approach, the con

institutions, and the concept of titles is then i
revenues - suggesting the 'provider state' controll
this which has not been documented.
Before proceeding any further, we repeat that, even in the recent literature, entire
bureaucracies have been created where archaeological evidence demands that some
kind of activity was taking place, but where there is in fact no epigraphic evidence of
titles (such as amulets at Amarna or copper production in the Sinai). To some extent,
this is an extension of the methodology of Helck, who created a bureaucracy on the
basis of every title, working on the assumption that the state was in control of the
economy.48 At the time that Helck was working on the material, this was a reasonable
assumption, and, whatever else one may say, Helck cannot be accused of theoretical
bias. This is not true of either Hikade or Shortland, whose works are both methodo-
logical and theoretical, aside from being good scholarship. Their methodology was,
however, necessarily influenced by their predecessors.
Thus, originally, the procedure had been exactly the opposite: the discovery of
titles led to the creation of an administration which was then assigned the role of
administering the economy. Today, however, there is substantial archaeological evi-
dence of economic activity in Egypt for which there is no corresponding documenta-
tion, and titles and administrations are created to correspond to the evidence, based
upon the earlier hypothetical model that the titles bore a fundamental economic and
administrative importance.
In this sense, Bickel has extrapolated the idea that everyone was in the adminis-
tered economy from the fact that some titles are known and the hypothesis that these
titles all corresponded to titles in an administration. In this fashion, without docu-
mentation, the entire society is bound into the administrative system, i.e. the titles
serve as a springboard to include the whole society in the state system.
In general, however, this logic is used to avoid the issue of commerce and markets,
by suggesting that the state affiliation means administration and control, and thus
justifies (or necessitates) excluding market activities. However, the shabti documents
cannot possibly be read in any other fashion but that craftsmen associated with the
highest state institutions were paid for their work by other individuals, likewise
associated with the highest state institutions. Thus, the use of titles to argue that

46 W. Helck, Zur Verwaltung des Mittleren und Neuen Reichs (PdA 3; Leiden, 1958), 1.
47 S. Bickel, 'Commercants et bateliers au Nouvel Empire: Mode de vie et statut d'un groupe social', in Grimal
and Menu (eds), Le commerce en Egypte ancienne, 164.
48 E.g. Helck, Verwaltung, passim.

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1 88 DAVID A. WARBURTON JEA 93

these linked the economy to some kind of

sense, since the affiliations did not seem to
Had the payments not been crucial, we wou
this demonstrates the importance of the rule
We have no means of knowing what the e
by the faience workers and Neskhons will h
case of Heqanakht. Heqanakht bore the titl
he might have been employed by the Vizier
important, as it implies that even such a
necessarily related to a state office.
This conclusion is, of course, necessarily s
at Asyut, as these appear to be contracts l
private parties to the agreement.50 And, of
to revenues. Thus, the use of a title once again
institutions, but may be a private status defin
In the case of Djefaihapi, it is known that
but not of the official cults at Asyut, but wa
those who benefited from his endowment
his priests were doubtless farmers who had th
there is thus no reason to assume that every
as a 'chief faience maker of the lord of the
maker of the lord of the two lands' was also
in the absence of evidence to the contrary,
exalted title will have had any revenues, as
that the revenues were acquired by market
Even more important, however, in the case
famous for the letters which he had intend
can be no doubt that these letters are exclus
with clearly commercial aims - and that th
his position as a ^-priest.51
Thus, in the case of Heqanakht, we can es
bore was not necessarily a state title (even i
of the highest in the state), and that the m
he was engaged was based on the commercia
function in terms of the state official. As u
believe that the various titles borne by offici
of control of the economy, or even that the
aspect of the economy of Ancient Egypt.
Again, I interpret Bickel's statement as
integrating them into the state economy als
titles, and that these titles were related to th

49 Allen, Heqanakht, 105-7.

50 Cf. e.g. Allen, Heqanakht, 105-6 (with notes); H. Bein
51 Allen, Heqanakht, 142-89.

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 2007 WORK AND COMPENSATION 189

only means of suggesting that the titles take us

would correspond to the situation in our mod
to jobs, employment, and income. However, in
his commercial activities had no relationship t
necessarily a state title.

Income

In order to understand the full significance of the situation, we must tu

people who had state titles. It is a well known fact that some of the most
people at court occasionally had the misfortune to find themselves despa
the deserts on 'expeditions'. That these individuals enjoyed the highest
society cannot be doubted.
Fortunately, one of these high officials left a tally of his expeditionary
associating titles and quantities of loaves. In general, as is the case for t
records of the Thirteenth Dynasty, the quantities cannot be estimated in
litres (as we can do at Deir el-Medineh), because the size and weight of
is unknown, and thus the various types of revenues cannot be assigned a
we can compare to other sources. Furthermore, it is occasionally suggeste
should be understood as 'rations' rather than 'wages'.52 However, the fa
quantities accorded to the leaders are far greater than those awarded to t
members indicates (a) not only at least an hierarchical system by which
revenues are distinguished, and (b) that the various totals cannot be rat
rations would necessarily apply to what was sent out into the desert to n
men) as opposed to wages and salaries. D. Mueller's study of this material
that the quantities be understood as wages, and indeed he argued in
standard wage, based on this material.53
In the case of Wadi Hammamat Goyon 61, Mueller argued that the va
fessions were defined according to wage classes, and thus there would be
between the totals and the number of individuals with titles. Seyfried
noted that of the 17,000 men discussed in the inscription mentioned by
(Hammamat G. 61), only 6400 are identified by title, but Seyfried likewi
that the overall number could be correct.54 In Hammamat G. 61, the pro
from three state institutions: a 'granary', a 'storehouse', and a 'treasury'.5
Significant is also the fact that the leaders were awarded income for these
and in this case the leader received 20 times the income of the unskilled labourers.
These details are extremely important as they establish that, in certain cases at least,
the rewards were calculated by the authorities in terms of real expenses, and also
that outlays were covered by the palace or the state: even those which far exceeded
the daily requirements in the desert (for the leader received 200 loaves/day). Had it

52 E.g. M. Gutgesell, 'Lohne', LA III, 1078.

53 D. Mueller, 'Some Remarks about Wage Rates in the Middle Kingdom', JNES 34 (1975), 249-63.
54 K.-J. Seyfried, Beitrdge zu den Expeditionen des Mittleren Retches in die Ost-Wuste (HAB 15; Hildesheim,
1981), 252.
55 Mueller, JNES 34, 261. Interestingly, it was the treasury which provided the equipment, and the other
institutions which provided the 'financing* for the wages.

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iqo DAVID A. WARBURTON JEA 93

been the official himself who had to cover expe

included himself among the beneficiaries. Ha
have required similar quantities. (This does n
such expedition - and certainly not all the
financed by the state).
There are several different fashions of reading
income: this could have been (a) what they were
they were in the desert or not, (b) a suppleme
or (c) their salary for this particular venture,
specific task, exactly as in the case of the oth
solutions are also possible, but we merely sug
the circumstances, it is also highly probable.
either the officials or the workers had regula
(either as revenues from land assigned to their o
or whether in fact the independently wealthy h
benefited from state largesse when on expedi
have rewarded them amply at his whim, when t
This is, however, not the same thing as a stea
and regular income.
In the case of the workers at Deir el-Medineh,
salary from the state in exchange for their labo
their case remains absolutely exceptional and
lucrative sales of funerary equipment to the elit
system was of little importance to them,58 even
been extremely important to the state.
Our point of departure for this discussion wa
manufactured shabtis, and we may return to th
the discussion, it was resolved that regardless
discussion, I am in full agreement with Poole a
were paid for their products. The documents
rely upon the most important institutions of th
their commercial ventures, and that the most im
resorted to the market to meet their requireme
There is, however, certainly no evidence th

56 At this point, it is probably superfluous to remark that t

paid for their shabtis, and that the materials from Deir el-Me
for their own tomb materials, and that the tomb inscriptions
architecture of the earliest elite (non-royal) tombs at Saqqara
elite. Thus, the independent wealth visible in cases like Metj
That there were officials whose careers (and those of their d
the court or the institutions cannot be doubted. The question
view which does justice to the documentation we have from An
bound up in the unanswerable questions about land-ownershi
factory answer in the near future. However, rather than seeki
despair, one can use those sources which are available to argue
57 The audience scenes at Amarna should suffice at once to il
58 Cf. the treatment in K. Cooney, The Price of Death (EU;

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2oo7 WORK AND COMPENSATION 191

not every merchant who is a purveyor of good

Europe is a state employee (if any of them ar
have been organised in some kind of guild stru
titles and that they had special access to partic
administration or control, and it certainly canno
type activity which we perceive in their activitie
dominated the activities of the Gang at Deir el-
is no reason to believe that the faience workers e
of secure employment with regular wage incom

Conclusions

In general, these remarks are intended to underscore five points: the first co
the lack of evidence of state 'control' of crafts or of the economy; the seco
concerns the absence of evidence of 'redistribution' as a fundamental aspect
the Egyptian economy; the third concerns the increasingly widespread evide
commercial activity; and the fourth stresses that the exaggerated attention t
has paid neither sufficient attention to their absence, nor to the lack of evide
an administrative role of titles when they are documented. Together these
suggest that the Ancient Egyptian economy was a pre-capitalist market econ
which administration played a relatively unimportant role in itself. And, cle
argue that it is reasonable to suggest that the existing evidence play a more impo
role in our interpretations of the economy than mere theoretical speculation
especially theoretical speculation which moves against the evidence.
Therefore, in this particular context, the fifth point is the most important: th
namely the evidence from Ancient Egypt suggesting that labour had a cash
As noted, the most important element was that, even to have shabtis perfor
tasks in the Beyond, a payment was essential. Peculiarly, the payment in silver f
actual objects was probably also viewed as part (or all) of the payment for the
in the Beyond, as Poole points out. Ordinarily, when viewing the value of 'wo
attention of scholars has been drawn to a quite different phenomenon, name
on occasion one can observe that the labour necessarily invested in the manu
of an object does not seem to play a primary role in determining the sales v
an object. This is most obvious when it would appear that metal vessels are as
value by weight, disregarding the labour. When reading documents such as t
of Naunakhte, it is not absolutely certain how the values were arrived at, but Ja
is probably correct that the weight was the basis of the procedure at Deir el-Med
However, the beautiful cups of the treasure of Tod are incontrovertible evide
craftsmanship was annihilated when the cups were carefully 'flattened like la
to save space when left in storage, because of the metal value.59 It would app
such cases that - the work itself having been paid for or rewarded at the time th
tools or vessels were manufactured - the value of the work no longer resided

59 F. Bisson de la Roque, quoted in C. Desroches Noblecourt and J. Vercoutter (eds), Un siecle de

frangaises en Egypte 1880-1980: A Voccasion du centenaire de VEcole du Caire (IFAO) (Paris, 1981), 142

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 192 DAVID A. WARBURTON JEA 93

object itself as an economically recognizable

to the human craftsman or worker and not th
We cannot, of course, judge the degree t
contributed to the price actually paid for the
faience workers managed to get a substant
guarantee that the shabtis would perform thei
the objects themselves had no value, as their
paid for labour and objects was therefore no
When discussing the payment of the wages at
would not appear that deductions were ever
or collectively, because of absences from wo
in assuming that the state was concerned a
not daily progress, concluding that the 'rela
played a role.61 I stress here that before we
appreciate the fact itself, and then distinguish
On the one hand, as I have argued here, the
and had a value: thus the craftsmen were to
royal tomb and other monuments, the fina
bore no relationship to the paltry sums that w
it is evident that particularly skilled individ
elevated status were in fact able to benefit wit
that of 'ordinary workers' - whose work ne
This aspect is reflected in the concept that
paid. It places the stress on the social concep
was a fundamental feature of Egyptian soci
is, of course, exactly what we find in the
where the tomb-owner states that he has rem
And the same is necessarily true of the remun
expeditions.
Quite different and separate from these is the fact that the value of the work
executed by the craftsmen from Deir el-Medineh will have guaranteed them the right
to a substantial mark-up both in their work for the state, and their work in a private
capacity for the Theban elite. They had access to the most secret texts, and although
they never actually betrayed the secrets in their private commissions, this knowledge
contributed to the value of the products they produced. Thus, the higher wages of
the Deir el-Medineh workers can be understood as reflecting several different issues.
Yet, for us here, the crucial feature is the lack of a relationship between performance,
results, and work. The labour and the product were different questions.
Significantly, these two different types of the Value' of labour were thus treated
quite differently. In the one extreme case, the materials were assigned a specific value
and the labour related to the treatment of the materials utterly neglected: there was

60 Eyre, in Powell (ed.), Labor in the Ancient Near East, 178.

61 Ibid.
62 Cf. the excellent list of these transactions in Miiller- Wollermann, JESHO 28, 138-47.

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2oo7 WORK AND COMPENSATION 193

no Value added' through the labour. In the oth

which had to be respected, as in the minimum
the conceptual payment which was the basis of
(regardless of who benefited from the payme
set against the value of the labour (in terms of
climb substantially if the worker in question p
case of the workers at Deir el-Medineh, when
may be assumed that the faience makers profi
due to their special knowledge. The informatio
the salary would also climb significantly if the r
status and the accompanying titles. In these ca
the social position which automatically elevated
labour had a value which had an existence indep
estimate the value of ordinary commodities.63
Kemp has shown that 'efficiency' in terms of em
in production in Ancient Egypt.64 Here we w
tation is the mirror image of the same phenomen
that labour had a cash value which was indepe
is entirely possible that the New Kingdom Sati
least in part, to this simple fact: that labour had
object, and that the elite was far above this.
In the same fashion, 'slavery' should not be un
to production, but rather as a matter of convenie
one interested in exploiting labour to the max
ancient societies, but not via slavery so much as t
those defenceless souls who were neither slaves n
These individuals were necessarily viewed and tre
since they were exposed to both unlimited de

63 At issue is thus a solution entirely different from that p

Product', SAK 20 (1993), 81-94. Theoretically, what Janssen w
a 'labour theory of value' - and yet this is incompatible with m
himself has studied (such as the prices of metal tools and ves
was argued that where bikw appears in those cases interpreted
better understood as being 'payments'.
64 B. J. Kemp, Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization (1s
to have disappeared from the second edition).
65 Cf. e.g. R. K. Englund, 'Hard Work- Where Will it Get Y
est here is an observation by B. Menu concerning a contract dat
distinguishes between the product delivered (thread) and the
which Menu suggests may have been a monthly wage ('cela po
concludes, 'Autrement dit, et c'est tres important sur le pla
savent faire la difference entre la valeur ajoutee au produit (la
'Les echanges portent sur le travail d'autrui', in B. Menu, Egypt
juridique, economique et sociale de Vancienne Egypte (Collecti
and Menu (eds), Le commerce en Egypte ancienne, 196. Unfortun
sible to estimate the significance of the price with the costs of
quality of the product unknown. Thus, one cannot really judge
value of the materials (as is known from e.g. Deir el-Medineh),
Most significantly, although Menu suggests that it might h
27 litres throws this into doubt as it would thus appear peril

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 194 DAVID A. WARBURTON JEA 93

situation of the free labourers was quite diffe

they were richly rewarded, but rather that th
expressed in the form of a price.
One key to understanding the conundrum
terms of production - as opposed to social
of unemployment in Ancient Egypt. Obviou
where labour is scare. However, in Ancient Egy
that most of the population consisted of pe
is (b) gradually becoming apparent that the
labourers would have sufficed to nourish a
fashion it becomes rapidly apparent that Eg
and thus labour will only have had a scarci
badly remunerated - and not because labour
not resolve the issue of the value of labour.
My proposition here is thus that these various sources suggest that in ancient
Egypt the wages to which free labourers were viewed as being entitled were viewed
in social terms and expressed in terms of an economic value or price, rather than
being defined or understood solely in terms of production. This labour value was
thus not related to the product, but rather to the labour. Were one to follow this
logic, we could also argue that the Egyptians had an understanding of value which
was fundamentally different from that of David Ricardo and his 'labour theory of
value', which was one of the building blocks of the Neo-Classical Synthesis. But that
is perhaps best left for another day.

payments known from the textile industry in Mesopotamia. In Mesopotamia, monthly wages for unskilled labour
usually lay at 150-300 litres/month (and thus well below the grain wages at Deir el-Medineh); this minimum was
determined by the labour market and the productivity of the fields, and did not apply to those at the mercy of
the institutions (and particularly in the textile industry), where the subsistence minimum was the limit. These
unfortunate souls could be mercilessly exploited by the authorities (cf. Englund, JNES 50; for additional refer-
ences, cf. D. A. Warburton, 'Working', in D. C. Snell (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient Near East (Oxford, 2005),
169-82).
Thus, although highly interesting (especially in light of the Marxist terminology), Menu's conclusions are
impossible to follow - unless one were to conclude the opposite, that labour had no value (since virtually no one
would have voluntarily agreed to work for 27 litres/month - except perhaps a shabti, but given the documents
discussed above, even this was far from certain).
66 Cf. e.g. T. A. H. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt (London, 2001), 323.
67 Cf. e.g. T. Hikade, 'Expeditions to the Wadi Hammamat during the New Kingdom', JEA 92 (2006), 164;
A. Spalinger, 'Costs and Wages in Egypt with Nuzi Equivalents', Orientalia 75 (2006), 30.
68 It thus follows that Hikade's proposition (JEA 92, 165) - that sending a few tens of thousands of labourers
into the deserts will have had a negative impact on the economy - bears no relation to the economy of Ancient
Egypt as it really was. Since (a) through tax income, the state will have had enough grain to feed the workers,
and (b) their labour was not even of negligible value to the Egyptian agricultural economy, it follows that the
construction of pyramids and temples was not a drain on the economy, as we have argued since D. A. Warburton,
'Keynes'sche Uberlegungen zur altagyptischen Wirtschaft,' ZAS 1 18 (1991), 76-85.

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