Ancient Egypt is located 1000 miles west of Mesopotamia. Egyptians had a much more secure life than the people of Mesopotamia because the country was located in the valley of the Nile and was shut off from invaders by the desert and the sea. (In 2000 years, only one great invasion was suffered.)
Egyptian civilization developed around the Nile River. The Nile was a slow, dependable river that rejuvenated the surrounding plain every year. Egyptians used it as a smooth highway and built their villages and cities close to it. Climate, landscape and situation created a set of beliefs and customs marked by security and serenity.
5000B.C- 3000B.C- Egypt was divided into 2 kingdoms:
-The Delta Region in the North
-The Narrow Valley in the South
The South conquered the North between 3000B.C and 2850B.C and unified the Kingdom of Egypt under the dynasties of the Pharaohs, which means “Great House/ Royal Palace”. Written records of the Pharaohs began in this period, and because of the dry climate, these records are preserved to this day.
The Egyptian Population:
The Egyptian population was made up of Hamitic and Semitic speaking people. The Hamitic speaking people were from the Southern Egypt and the Semitic-speaking people came from the Middle Eastern area. These two languages were eventually fused to be the Egyptian language. Egyptian writing was a picture language, like the language of the Babylonians and the Sumerians.
Society:
The society was made up of five classes; the Pharaoh, the noble class, the scribes, the peasants, and the sailors/ boatmen.
- At the top were the Pharaoh and the Queen, who were worshipped as divine beings. The royal family did a lot of intermarriage among themselves.
- At the next level was the noble class, who was the extended family of the Pharaoh and the queen.
- The scribes were at the next level. They served the nobles. They were also the educated men who helped attend to the business of the Pharaoh and the nobles.
- Near the bottom of society was the great mass of peasants, who were technically free but lived like serfs. (Serfs were peasants traditionally bound to the land, and they were part of the purchase to any buyer of that land.) These peasants were not slaves because they could not be sold, but they worked the Pharaoh’s lands, temples, or nobles’ lands. They were bound to the land and worked harshly. They produced a surplus that supported the priests, nobles and officials. The peasants were excused from the military service because they were needed on the land. They were drafted between labor seasons to build the massive pyramids, which housed the Pharaohs’ tombs. The greatest of these tombs was The Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops), who was the second pharaoh of the Fourth dynasty. The Great Pyramid was made up of 2.3 million stone blocks, each weighing 2 ½ tons each. Fifth century Greek historian Herodotus said that it took 100,000 workers 20 years to build the pyramid. In addition to the pyramids, these peasants were used to work in the mines in the desert, strengthened the dikes, build the temples, and to clear and deepen the canals. The pharaoh allowed some farmers to own small pieces of land, but almost all peasants were bound to the upper class land by poverty or royal demand.
- The bottom class in Egyptian society was the boatmen and the sailors. They worked for the merchants and ship owners (scribe class). These people were the hardest, most continuously worked class in society, and one can basically call them slaves. They were usually taken as spoils of war or captured foreigners.
Egyptian Economy:
The keystone to the economy was the pharaoh. He was seen as a “god” and he owned everything in Egypt. Anything the other classes had was given to them by the pharaoh, with the option to take them back at any time. The peasants that worked on the land generated the wealth that supported everyone. Since all the wealth produced, (whether it be the precious metals dug out of the mines or wealth gained from trade, or all the food grown from the lands), was owned by pharaoh, there was very little room for merchants or artisans to set up their own shops and generate personal wealth.
There was one group of people who were outside the class status of Egyptian society, the slaves. They were prisoners of war and foreigners. Their number never grew very large because they were not needed. The “free” Egyptian peasant did most of the work in return for a living standard just a notch above utter poverty. Peasants with skilled trades were in the hands of free, independent craftsmen, and most of the time their sons followed their father’s footsteps in taking over the trade. Private citizens seemed to have owned very few slaves. The Egyptian army was made up of foreign mercenaries and war captives thought fit for soldiering (Sudanese, Libyans, and Syrians especially). Only when wars garnered more prisoners than the army could use was when slaves were assigned to other tasks.
The unusual situation of Egypt did not favor the growth of slavery. There was ample native population to do the hard farm labor at low cost and to supply the skilled workers to handle the trades. When a special labor force was needed for his grand public works projects, the all-powerful pharaoh could summon from the enormous peasant class without disrupting agriculture. In contrast to the Mid Eastern countries whose societies developed on a foundation of slavery, Egyptian civilization flourished without reliance on a slave system.
Outline Source: SLAVERY: A World History, by Milton Meltzer; Da Capo Press 1993
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