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Prices and Payments in Ancient Egypt

These are a key feature of the commercial, market economy. The ancient Egyptian economy,  based on redistribution and reciprocity, set prices in units of value  that  referred  directly  to  commodities,  rather  than  to  the  abstract  concept  of  money.  For  the  purpose  of  exchange  and  trade,  the  Egyptians first calculated the value of goods and services in units  that were directly related to the necessities of life and, later, they  calculated  in  terms  of  the  weights  of  metals.  Yet  the  Egyptians  never fully abstracted the idea of money—goods and services, as  well as metals, were valued concretely for what they were.

Sources  for  the  study  of  prices  and payments do  not  survive  from all periods of Egyptian history. Information about wages and  rations  are  best  known  from  documents  of  the  Old,  Middle,  and  New Kingdoms, while commodity prices are best preserved from  the  Ramessid  period.  Wage  payments  in  the  Old Kingdom  are  known from the Abusir Papyri. For the Middle Kingdom, there are  temple  documents,  biographies,  and  archaeological  data.  New Kingdom  wages  are  known  from Deir el-Medina and  from  documents pertaining to shipping. All the sources indicate that  wage  payments  were  made  in  rations  of  breadbeer,  grain,  meat, and cloth, which were the daily necessities of life.


Rations  were  expressed  most  frequently  in  units  of  bread  and  beer, the two staples of an Egyptian diet. Most likely, the lowest  salaries, which were close to subsistence level, were actually paid  in bread and beer. Just as modern coins are guaranteed to contain  standard  amounts  of  metal,  each  loaf  of  bread  was  baked  from  a  standard recipe, using equal amounts of ingredients, and had a standard  nutritional  value.  Uniformity  was  assured  through  a  system  called pfs, translated as "baking value." pfs could also be used by  the employer to ensure that a predictable number of loaves would  be  baked  from  a  known  amount  of  grain.  The  baking  value  was  based  on  the  number  of  loaves  or  beer  jars  produced  from  a  set  measure of grain;  the higher the value, the smaller would be the loaves, the weaker  the  beer,  or  the  smaller  the  jars.  Most  wage  lists  assumed  that  a  standard pfs was used in baking and brewing.

Uniformity was also assured through the use of tokens or tallies.  During the Middle Kingdom at Uronarti, ceramic tallies have been  discovered in the shape of a standard loaf of bread. Presumably that  tally  could  be  used  to  check  whether  a  worker's  wages  in  bread  loaves  were  all  the  same  size.  Beer  jars  were  also  of  a  roughly  standard size. The standard basic wage was ten loaves of bread and  one-third to two full jugs of beer per day (Egyptian beer was much  less  alcoholic  than  modem  brews  and  higher  in  calorie  content).  That was the ration of the lowest paid staff members. Others were  paid in multiples of the standard wage, varying from twice to fifty  times the standard wage for highly paid people. Various methods  could be used for apportioning wages. For example, documentation  exists  for  a  particular  ship's  crew  in  which  the  captain  and  other  officials received twice the ration of the ordinary sailors. In another  case, the highest paid official received thirty-eight one-third loaves  while the lowest paid worker received one and one-third loaves.

In an example from the Middle Kingdom the staff of a temple  received  a  commission  on  all  the  goods  that  came  to  the  temple.  One  inscription  describes  the  way  the  staff  was  paid  in  "temple  days":

As for a temple day, it is 1/360 part of a year. Now, you shall  divide  everything  which  enters  this  temple—bread,  beer,  and  meat—by way of the daily rate. That is, it is going to be 1/360 of  the bread, the beer, and of everything which enters this temple  for [any] one of these temple days which I have given you.

In that temple, the regular staff received 2/360 of the total revenue  of the temple, while the chief priest received 4/360.

In another case from the Middle Kingdom, an expedition leader  received five hundred loaves a day as his "ration." Large sums like  that were probably not paid out in actual loaves of bread or jars of  beer.  It  is  unlikely  that  an  expedition  leader  could  take  his  ever- increasing number of loaves of bread—fifteen thousand loaves after  a month—with him on an extended trip into the desert or that he  could  eat  that  much,  even  with  a  large  family  and  servants  to  support. Thus it seems possible that five hundred loaves of bread  was actually a unit for measuring out commodities, approximating  the  modem  idea  of  a  unit  of  money,  a  practice  that  allowed  the  ancient  Egyptians  to  save  and  also  to  draw  against  an  account  of  bread and beer.

Because  the  standard  measures  for  bread  loaves  and  beer  jars  vary from place to place and time to time, it is difficult to calculate  how  much  people  had  to  eat  and  to  determine  how  well  people  lived. The caloric value of the soldiers ration at Uronarti was about  one-third kilo (0.5 pound) of barley per day. Baked into bread, this  is  the  equivalent  of  1,458  calories  from  bread  each  day.  If  these  soldiers did any physical work, they must have received at least an  additional fifteen hundred calories from beer and/or vegetables just  to maintain their weight.  The New Kingdom craftsmen at Deir el-Medina received all the  necessities of life from their employer: their houses were owned by  the state, food and clothing rations were given to them, as well as  most of the other necessities, including water, fuel for their ovens,  and  the  tools  they  needed  to  perform  their  duties.  Yet  the  robust  trade  that  they  conducted  among  themselves  indicates  that  those  workers required additional goods and services that the state had not  provided.

Information about the prices of commodities was derived from  Deir  el-Medina.  Prices  were  recorded  on  a  few  papyri  and  on  numerous  ostraca  that  date  to  a  150-year  period  during  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  dynasties.  Many  problems  with  the  interpretation  of  those  texts  must  be  overcome,  however,  before  commodity  prices  can  be  determined.  The  ostraca  were  written  in  the  cursive  Hieratic  script  by  nonprofessional  scribes  who  did  not  write as legibly as did professional scribes. The ostraca were often  broken in antiquity and ink has faded during storage in museums.  Moreover, the texts were never intended for others to read, but were  persona] notes, so that many details that would have been known to  the original reader were not recorded. Among the details that were  often excluded was the date of when it was written. Such omission  often  makes  it  difficult  to  compare  prices,  although  scholars  have  determined which ostraca are roughly contemporary by comparing  the  people  named  in  them.  This  process  has  its  own  difficulties,  because the small number of families living in the village drew on a limited stock, of personal names, making it difficult, for example, to  pinpoint  the  generation  of  a  particular  Pen-taweret.  Another  difficulty in determining prices was the lack of description of the  goods that were priced. Clearly, some variation in the price of two  chairs was based on the quality of the workmanship, although the  variation  is  almost  never  described  in  the  ostraca.  Finally,  the  precise  meanings  of  words  used  to  describe  the  commodities  is  often not understood. Sometimes, only the general category of the  good  can  be  determined  from  the  writing.  In  spite  of  these  difficulties, scholars have isolated four units of value that were used  to price commodities: the deben (dbn), the senyu (snjw, originally  called s'tj [shaty]), the hin (hnw), and the khar (hyr).

The  deben  is  a  measure  of  weight  used  for  gold,  silver,  and,  most  commonly,  copper.  One  deben  of  copper  weighs  ninety-one  grams. It was divided into ten kite. Copper weights seem never to  be lower than five kite or one-half deben, while the more precious  metals are found with weights of less than five kite. It is sometimes  difficult  to  determine  whether  the  actual  weight  of  the  metal  is  being  described  or  its  value  in  deben—or,  indeed,  whether  the  Egyptians  made  such  a  distinction.  In  the  Cairo  Ostracon  25242  verso,  for  example,  twenty  deben  of  copper  was  added  to  four  deben as the vahie of a basket, demonstrating that the actual weight  was difficult to separate from the idea of its value. Deben of copper  and  bronze  were  not  distinguished  by  the  Egyptians.  Both  were  valued as one kite of silver. Silver deben were rarely mentioned in  the ostraca, but are more common in the papyri. Papyrus, of course,  was  used  to  record  official and  thus  more  expensive  transactions,  while  the  ostraca  were  used  by  the  villagers  to  record  private,  smaller transactions. This practice ensures that gold deben are never  mentioned  in  the  ostraca  but appear  occasionally  in  the  papyri;  it  must  be  assumed  that  when  the  word  deben  is  used  alone  on  ostraca, copper deben should be understood.

The  senyu  ("piece"?)  is  the  second  unit  of  value  used  by  the  Egyptians. It is a weight in silver equal to 1/12 deben or 7.6 grams.  Its value is calculated as five deben, but that calculation does not  always  hold  true  (see  below).  The  senyu  is  found  as  a  weight  or  value only in the nineteenth dynasty and early twentieth dynasty up  to the first half of the reign of Ramesses III. The senyu could be  used to express a value in the same column of figures with deben.  The Berlin Ostracon 1268 states the value of objects in senyu but  the total of the column in deben of copper. The Varille Ostracon 25  -totals a razor valued at one deben, with a donkey valued at seven  senyu.

The hin, a third unit of value, is a measure of volume equal to  0.48 liters (about one-half quart). Its value is 1/6 senyu, but other  calculations show that it was also equal to one copper deben. The  value of the hin is probably based on the value of one hin of sesame oil, said to be equal to one  copper  deben.  Mrht-oil  and  'd-fat  were  also  measured  in  hin, but  their values seem to vary in relation to deben, both more and less  than one deben. Thus the value of one hin equal to one deben is  based on sesame oil.

The khar is a measure of the volume of grain, either emmer or  barley, equal to 76.88 liters (about 80 quarts), which is divided into  four oipe. The khar is translated as "sack" and was valued at two  deben. Deben, senyu, and khar are all found together in documents  ranging  from  the  time  of  Ramesses  II  (Hieratic  Ostraca  65)  through Ramesses V (Hieratic Ostraca 28). The khar is most com- monly  found  as  a  unit  of  value  for  baskets,  both  because  the  volume of a basket was equal to its value and because baskets are  relatively inexpensive. The same principle is at work in the Cairo  Osti-acon 25242, in which a bed is valued in deben while its legs  are valued in oipe. Ostracon Deir el-Medina 21 also differentiates  between expensive items in deben and cheaper items in oipe.

The  rough  equivalent  values  among  deben,  senyu,  hin,  and  khar,  as  given  above,  reveal  the  difficulty  of  calculating  precise  values  for  commodities,  as  well  as  fixed  ratios  among  the  four  different  units  of  value.  One  document  values  a  basket  at  one- quarter  senyu  for  a  volume  of  one-half  khar.  Since  one  khar  is  equal in value to two deben, the logical conclusion would be that  one senyu equals four copper deben in value. Yet another example  shows that one senyu of wss-garments is equal to five copper de- ben. Finally, another document values one hin of oil at 1/6 senyu.  Since one hin is equal to one deben, the logical conclusion is that  one senyu is equal to six deben. Clearly modern ideas about money  and prices were not at work in ancient Egypt. Modern conceptions  of  money  would  not  allow  one  senyu  to  be  equal  to  either  four,  five, or six deben, yet this was the actual state of affairs in Deir el- Medina.

Perhaps the real difficulty in interpreting prices and payments is  that  modem  scholars  are  attempting  to  systematize  a  procedure  which was actually determined on a case by case basis. All of the  prices  discussed  above  were  derived  from  specific  barter  agreements.  Barter  prices  were  much  more  fluid  than  the  fixed  prices in present-day western markets. Barter prices were set by the  strength  of  each  individual's  desire  to  conclude  an  exchange  and  each  individuals  skill  at  arriving  at  a  good  price,  in  addition  to  some abstract idea of value based on weight or volume. Use value  was  probably  more  important  than  abstract  value  and  all  the  commodities exchanged at Deir el-Medina were valued according  to  actual  use:  grain  was  for  eating;  silver  was  a  raw  material  for  making an object. The value of a good grew according to the need  for it.

Because  the  prices  were  set  by  barter,  prices  tended  to  cluster  in  amounts that are multiples of five, especially for amounts over ten deben. Numbers, then, were usually rounded  to the nearest five. J. J. Janssen (1988) illustrated that principle by  the  following  example.  The  Ostracon  Deir  el-Medina  72  verso  described the purchase of a coffin in the following way:

Given  to  him  in  exchange  for  the  coffin:  eight  and  one-half  deben of copper; again five deben of copper; one pig made five  deben;  one  goat  made  two  deben;  two  logs  of  sycamore  wood  made two deben. Total: twenty-five and one-half deben.

There, the value of the coffin was first agreed to be approximately  twenty-five deben. Then values were established for the individual  items brought to the exchange. The coffinmaker would decide how  much use he could make of the two lots of copper, the animals, and  the wood before determining the value he would assign to them. It  is  unlikely  that  those  goods  were  accepted  for  resale  at  a  profit,  since  that  concept  seems  to  be  unknown  to  the  Egyptians.  The  actual  desire  to  own  these  items  becomes  much  more  important  than the abstract value assigned to them in deben.

The  best  source  for  our  knowledge  of  loans  is  also  Deir  el- Medina. There are two kinds of loans attested from the village: one  type is made with a fixed date for repayment and a penalty if that  date is missed; a second type appears not to have a repayment date  and is more likely to reflect an obligation for reciprocity between  the  lender  and  debtor.  There  is  limited  evidence  that  loans  with  fixed  repayment  dates  were  made  from  people  of  higher  social  status to those of lower social status, while reciprocal loans were  made between people of more equal status.  In sum, the Egyptians were able to conduct business in a way  that met their needs without ever fully abstracting the concept of- money  from  their  units  of  exchange  value.  An  often  robust  economy ran smoothly, using various means of valuing labor and  commodities without either money or true markets.

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