The Low Price of Land in Ancient Egypt (Pp. 25-45)

The Low Price Of Land In Ancient EgyptAuthor(s): Klaus BaerSource: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 1 (1962), pp. 25-45Published by: American Research Center in EgyptStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40000856 .Accessed: 01/02/2011 17:33

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The Low Price Of Land In Ancient Egypt Klaus Baer

It is well known that private individuals could own farm land at all periods of ancient Egyptian history. Documents attesting the conveyance of land are quite common. In most cases they record a donation of some sort, either to a temple or towards the endowment of a mortuary cult, but the acquisition of fields for private purposes is also mentioned from the earliest periods, though not so frequently. The autobiography of Mtn from the early Fourth Dynasty is both the oldest connected text to survive from ancient Egypt and our first record of such a transaction.1 On the other hand, documents which actually quote a price for a field are

extremely rare. In the oldest one known to me, three arouras (about two acres) are sold for a cow.2 The stated value, 6 sHy or about 45.5 grams of silver, seemed exceedingly low, and Gardiner conjectured that this "does not suggest any great degree of fertility in the soil!"3

I hope to indicate in this paper that the price actually was normal, insofar as the limited evidence permits us to judge, and that it was a rational one within the general framework of the Egyptian economy. One should rather conclude from this and similar cases that cattle were extremely expensive in ancient Egypt in comparison with other items; the land probably was of ordinary quality. This seems reasonable in view of what is generally known about agricultural conditions in Pharaonic Egypt, but it would lead us too far to discuss the economics of cattle raising here.4 The prices quoted by Cerny5 indicate that cattle cost up to 130 dbn of copper; the latter sum, dated to the reign of Ramesses V, would correspond to 65 sacks of grain6 or almost exactly the yearly income of a craftsman at Deir el-Medina (a top wage of 66 sacks a year).

I know of the following documents that give the price of farm land in Pharaonic times: (price quoted per aroura in silver)

1 Urk. /, 2, 4-5. The following abbreviations are used in the footnotes: AFT Erichsen, Auswahl fruhdemotischer Texte AHDO Archives (Thistoire du droit oriental Choix Malinine, Choix de textes juridiques en hieratique "anormal" et en demotique GTR Peet, The Great Tomb Robberies of the Twentieth Egyptian Dynasty JWH Journal of World History LEM Late-Egyptian Miscellanies MDAIK Mitteilungen des deutschen archdologischen Instituts, Abt. Kairo RAD Gardiner, Ramesside Administrative Documents Rylands Griffith, Catalogue of the Demotic Papyri of the Rylands Library SDLL Hughes, Saite Demotic Land Leases (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, no. 28) Unters. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskunde Agyptens Wilbour Gardiner, The Wilbour Papyrus

2 P. Berlin 9784. Gardiner, AZ 43 (1906) 28-35. 3 Ibid. 45. 4 Cf. Kees, Ancient Egypt; A Cultural Topography 86 ff. for a brief discussion of animal husbandry in ancient Egypt and

references; note the very low figures for cattle holdings. The totals quoted from P. Harris include not only cattle but also smaller animals, which undoubtedly were in the majority.

5 Gerny, JWH 1 (1954) 908, 919-20. 6 For the prices of grain during the Ramesside Period see below and notes 30, 3 1 .

25

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P. Berlin 9784 (Amenhotep IV, yr. o)1 0.17 dbn Stela College St. Joseph (Siamon, yr. 16)8 0.5

0.6 Stela of Sheshonk (late Dynasty XXI)9 0.12

0.08 Stela of Ewerot (late Dynasty XXIII)10 0.04-0.05 (nmhw n< fields)

0.017-0.02 (stt tny fields) P. Turin 246 (Psammetich I, yr. 30) IX 0.0312 P. Turin 247 (Psammetich I, yr. 45) I3 0.512

In addition, there are several documents dealing with the sale of land from which no price can be ascertained; it is unnecessary to list them here.

Even excluding those cases (the sti tny lands in the Stela of Ewerot and P. Turin 246) which cannot be considered to be normal prices for ordinary land, the figures given fluctuate widely. It will be necessary to compare them with the prices for other commodities of reasonably uniform value that can be followed from the New Kingdom through the Saite Period: cattle, slaves and grain seem to be the most suitable. In the lists given below, prices are always in silver unless the contrary is specifically stated. Only those sales that can be relatively closely dated are included; in a period of rapid price changes as we find, for instance, during Dynasty XX,14 undated figures are virtually useless.

For cattle we find the following prices: P. Berlin 9784 (Amenhotep IV, yr. 2) cow: 0.5 dbn P. Gurob II 1 (Amenhotep III, yr. 33) bull: 0.67 P. Berlin 9785 (Amenhotep IV, yr. 4)IS cow: 0.67

calf: 0.5 Stela of Sheshonk (late Dynasty XXI)16 ox: 0.2 P. Rylands 8 (Amasis, yr. 8)17 cow: 1.08

7 Gardiner, AZ 43 09°6) 28-35. 8 Munier, Recueil Champollion 361-66. 9 Blackman, JEA 27 (1 941) 83-95. There were 50 arouras at each price. The average is 0.1 dbn. 10 The "stele de l'apanage." Legrain, AZ 35 (1897) 13-16; Erman, AZ 35 (1897) 19-24. It records the price paid

for property given to an endowment. Since the text was on public display, the prices are likely to have been considered fair, despite their apparent low level. Nmhw nf means literally "free and clear," st/ tny "difficult and tired." For the translation of nmhw as "free," rather than the common rendering "tenanted" (e.g.: Wilbour II, 29, n. 1), cf. Gardiner, JEA 21 (1933) 21; Thompson, JEA 26 (194 1) 74-75; Gardiner, Rev. d' Eg. 6 (1951) 117, 119 note n. From the evidence quoted, the translation of nmhw-n^ as "privately owned" follows. The second category, to judge from its price, seems to have been land either oflow quality or encumbered in some way; the comparison with the category of land known as tny in P. Wilbour would be evident except for the fact that in the latter document {Wilbour II, 180) tny is one of the categories of land assessed at a higher rate than normal. Gardiner assumes that in the case of tny land only the assess- ment, not the quality, was higher; but since, as we hope to show below (pp. 39 ff.), P. Wilbour was a register of rents, this should still increase the value of the land to the purchaser. However this may be, it appears that the nmhw n< fields are more likely to represent ordinary land at normal prices.

11 phoix I, 56-71. The transaction is not a regular sale. The fields were mortgaged at an earlier date for an undisclosed sum. The figure quoted here is only the amount necessary to complete the transfer of title and not a normal price.

12 The figure includes a 10 percent sales tax. 13 Choix I, 72-84. 14 Gf. the grain prices in Table I. 15 These three documents form one group. Gardiner, AZ 43 (1906) 27-47. 16 See note 9. 17 Malinine, AHDO 5 (1 950-1 951) 56. If any legal difficulties about title should develop, the seller promises either to

replace the cow or to pay the sum mentioned. To judge from the tenor of the contract, this is more likely to represent the actual value of the cow than a substantial penalty.

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To this can be added, in addition to various prices quoted by Cerny18 that occur in sources which are not dated precisely within the Ramesside Period, the price of 1 30 dbn of copper for a bull already referred to above. During the reign of Ramesses V, this price would correspond to 2.16 dbn of silver.19

Slaves:

P. Cairo 65739 (Ramesses II)20 girl: 4.1 dbn P. Mayer A, 8, 12-13 ("Renaissance," yr. i)21 female: 4 P. BM 10052, 10, 19 (same year)22 male: 2 Stela of Sheshonk (late Dynasty XXI)2* male: 0.67

(hwty: 1.43 Stela of Ewerot (late Dynasty XXIII) 24 both sexes: 0.47 P. Louvre E 3228 e (Shabaka, yr. 10) 2S male: 2.25 P. Louvre E 3228 d (Taharka, yr. 3)26 male: 2.4 P. Louvre E 3228 c (Taharka, yr. 6)27 <hwty: 6

P. Vatican 10574 (Dynasty XXV ?)28 male: 1

Substantial evidence exists for the price of grain during the New Kingdom, particularly the Ramesside Period. The list below gives the price of 10 for (sacks) of emmer and barley as given by Cerny in copper.29 This is converted to silver at the rate of 100:1 up to the time of Ramesses III and 60:1 thereafter, applying Cerny5 s conclusions about the rate of exchange of silver and copper; the exact date at which the change took

place cannot be determined, but this will at least allow approximate comparisons with the other prices.30

18 Cerny, JWH 1 (1954)908,912. 19 The price occurs in P. Chester Beatty I, vo. D 4. The text is dated to the reign of Ramesses V (Gardiner, Late Egyptian

Stories x). 20 Gardiner, JEA 21 (1935) 140-46. 21

Peet, The Mayer Papyri A and B pl. 8. 22 GTR pl. xxxi. 23 See note 9. 24 See note 10. 25 Choix I 35-42. 26 Ibid. 43-49. 27 Malinine, Rev. a" Eg. 6 (1951) 157-78. The slave is mortgaged for 4 dbn, transferred for 2 more. 28 Malinine, Rev. d'Eg. 5 (1 946) 1 1 9-3 1 . The price had been read as 7 dbn previously (e.g. : Rylands III, 58-59, but Malinine

states that 1 is certainly the correct figure, even though it does seem extremely low for the period. Prof. Parker has pointed out to me that there is some uncertainty about the date of P. Vatican 10574. The reading of

the king's name as Psmtk does not seem entirely convincing on the facsimile published by Griffith, PSBA 32 (1910) pl. I. The witnesses are introduced by the preposition m-bjh; however, this latter is not an absolute criterion for dating. While in general it seems to have gone out of use with the end of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, it still occurs, for instance, before the names of some of the witnesses of P. Turin 246 (Choix I, 64, lines 67, 69) from the 30th year of Psammetich I. If the name in the dating of P. Vatican 10574 is not read as Psammetich, the identification becomes a serious problem. The only other likely candidate would be Piankhy, and this name fits the written characters almost as badly as does Psammetich. The problem is further complicated by some uncertainty in the reading of the number of the year. Malinine reads it as "year 32;" other readings (21 and 22) have been proposed (cf. Rev. a" Eg. 5 [1946] 124, n. 2, where references are given) which would fit the highest date certainly known for Piankhy (year 21) much better than 32.

29 Cerny, Archiv Orientdlni 6 (1 933) 1 73-78. In Cerny' s article, prices are quoted for 1 for, but the figure for 1 o for is more convenient for our comparisons.

30 Cerny, JWH 1, (1954) 905-06, 913. The earliest documented date for the lower rate of exchange is the reign of Ram- esses IX, but Cerny gives reasons for thinking that the change actually took place somewhat earlier.

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Table I

Date Emmer Barley

copper silver copper silver

Dynasty XIX-Ramesses III 10 dbn o.i dbn Ramesses III-V 13.3 0.22 Ramesses V-VII 20 0.33 24 dbn 0.431 dbn Ramesses VII-VIII 40 0.67 80 1.33 Ramesses IX-X 40 0.67 35 0.58 Ramesses XI 20 0.33 20 0.33

Except during the period of extreme inflation under Ramesses VII, the price of the two kinds of grain appears to have been approximately the same. The prices given are the normal ones; seasonal fluctuations could raise prices to about three times those given here. In addition, there are a few cases where prices of

grain are quoted directly in silver. These are, again adjusted to 10 for:

P. Boulaq 12, vo., 4 (Cairo 58071) (Tuthmosis III)32 emmer: 0.17 dbn P. Mayer A, 9, 16-17 ("Renaissance," yr. i)33 barley : 0.67

Both of these prices are higher than we would expect from Cerny' s listing of prices in copper. But Table I not only disregards seasonal variations but also omits some prices listed by Cerny because they could not be dated sufficiently accurately. With our limited evidence, the overall picture of a strong rise in prices followed

by a drop to about twice the original stable price is bound to be an oversimplification. There will certainly have been minor fluctuations. The relatively high price in the reign of Tuthmosis III could, for instance, be the result of the influx of metals as booty or tribute at this time.

Putting all the data together, we obtain Table II.

31 This figure incorporates a correction by Cerny, JWH 1 (1954) 915, n. 46. 32 Mariette, Les papyrus egyptiens du Musee de Boulaq, II, pl. 5b; Spiegelberg, Rec. trav. 15 (1893) 144; Gerny, JWH 1 (1954)

911 n. 29, 913. The figures given by Spiegelberg and Gerny disagree. According to Cerny, the price was V3 °f" a §Uy per for; Spiegelberg in his transcription of the text gives 7^ for (in the translation; the hieroglyphic text reads 6%) for 1 3^, which results in a price of Vs &ty Per h*r> The 7^ is clear in Mariette's facsimile.

33 Peet, The Mayer Papyri A and B pl. 9. See also note 79 for this passage.

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Table II

Date Land Grain Slaves Cattle (aroura) (10 h/r)

Dynasty XVIII (Tuthmosis III) .17 (Amenhotep IV) .17 cow: .5~.67

bull: .67 calf: .5

Dynasty XIX .1 girl: 4.1 Dynasty XX

(Ramesses III) .1 (Ramesses III-»V) .22 (Ramesses V-VII) -33--4 bull: 2.16 (Ramesses VII-VIII) .67-1 .33 (Ramesses IX-X) .58-67 (Ramesses XI) -33~-67 male: 2

female: 4 Dynasty XXI

(Siamon) -5~-6 (end) .08-. 1 2 male: .67 ox: 0.2

<hwty: 1.43 Dynasty XIII (end) .017-.02 sU tny average: .47

.04-.05 nmhw n< Dynasty XXV male: (1?) 2.25-2.4

<hwty. 6

Dynasty XXVI (Psammetich I) .5 (Amasis) cow: 1.08

With all the uncertainties inherent in inadequate documentation and variations in quality and de- mand, the table does show certain regularities. The price-level of the Eighteenth through the early Twen- tieth Dynasties begins to rise rapidly to a peak around the reign of Ramesses VII and then settles back to rather more than the original level at the end of the dynasty, about three times higher in the case ot grain, while slaves return to about the original price. The price of cattle appears to have risen along with that of grain, but I have no evidence for its level at the end of the dynasty. The new price level appears to maintain itself into the Twenty-first Dynasty (note the price of land - about three times that in the late Eighteenth Dynasty). The political disintegration at the end of the Twenty-first Dynasty is marked by a drastic collapse in prices, land dropping to about a fifth, chattel to a third. The fall of prices continues with increasing polit- ical instability into the Twenty-third Dynasty, land again losing value at a somewhat greater rate than movable property. In Ethiopian and Saite times prices recover noticeably, the recovery being correspond- ingly stronger in the price of land than in that of slaves and cattle (land increases about 1 o times over the price of the late Twenty-third Dynasty, while slaves increase perhaps 5 times, apart from the unusually cheap slave of P. Vatican 10574). Note that the price of cattle is about twice that of an aroura of land both in the late Twenty-first and in the Twenty-sixth Dynasties.

3°

This table suggests that the prices of land fluctuate, in general, in the same way as those of the other commodities listed, and therefore that they are normal. It would be extremely unlikely if all the surviving documents dealt with poor land, particularly since several of them record donations by persons of high rank who are not likely to have advertised the poor quality and unusually low price of the land they have given. With all due hesitation imposed by a generalization from so few examples, we can at least be reasonably confident that these examples deal with land of ordinary quality. Ten for of grain can be taken as a rough estimate of an average crop of grain on basin land,34 and comparing prices at the beginning and end of the

cycle of inflation in the Twentieth Dynasty, we see that land was in both cases worth approximately between one and one and % times the value of one crop. This seems very low by modern standards, but it remains to be seen whether it was low in terms of the economy of ancient Egypt.

The owner of the land would not receive the entire crop. To begin with, a certain proportion had to be put aside for seed. According to Hughes,35 seed in the Greek papyri is usually figured at one artaba to the aroura. Now the artaba of 40 hin, the largest used, 36 would correspond, assuming that no major changes in the size of the hin had taken place over the centuries, to the oipe of the New Kingdom. P. Valengay I37 indicates that 1 o for = 40 oipe = 1 60 hekat was an ordinary yield for an aroura of land under grain, a figure that is supported by modern statistics for basin land, which indicate, in terms of the ancient units, a yield ranging from 22 to 58 oipe per aroura and averaging around 36. 38 In 1910 basin lands required the following amounts of seed:39

barley: 7-9 kela/feddan = appr. 16-20 hekat /aroura wheat 7-8 kela/feddan - appr. 16-18 hekat /aroura*0

The figures recorded by the Napoleonic expedition are roughly similar, ranging from 6 to 12 kela/feddan, usually within the range given by the Almanac for 1910; rather better than tenfold yields seem to be normal, though both poorer and better ones are far from uncommon.41 In any case, nothing approximating the yield of 40 to 1 implied by the Greek papyri has been documented for the traditional methods of agriculture in

Egypt. There is some evidence to indicate that in ancient times the proportion of seed was comparable to that in modern farming.

P. Louvre 31 71 42 gives an account of the harvest 43 of the cultivator Amenmose. Of a total of 1421

34 See notes 37, 38. 35 SDLL 102, no. 62. 36 Wilbour II, 65. 37 Gardiner, Rev. d'Eg. 6 (1951) 117. 38 Wilbour II, 71-72. 39 Egypt, Almanac for 1910 126-27. 40 The following equivalents are used: kela = 16.5I; feddan = 4.200 in.2 \ hekat = 1-30 cubit3 = 4.78I = }/± oipe; aroura =

2735 m2. 41 Description de FEgypte (2nd edition) XVII, 49, 51, 53, 70-72. 42 Gardiner, JEA 27 (1941) 57-58. 43 Smw. Gardiner's own discussion in JEA 27 ( 1 94 1 ) 20 and Wilbour II, 24 indicates that "harvest- tax" is an excessively

precise translation of a word that originally, as presumably in the passage cited, meant "harvest" and eventually came to signify all kinds of deliveries from a harvest, both rent and taxes. Cf. SDLL 56, 74-75 for a discussion of the use of smw in the Saite Period and later; the meanings "harvest," "harvest-tax (to the temple on whose domain the privately owned land was situated in the Saite leases)" and "lessor's rent" can all be documented in the contracts published by Hughes. The examples quoted by Gardiner in JEA 27 (1941) 20, n. 5 clearly show that the meaning of smw in the New Kingdom included rents paid to temples as landlords, but none of the passages cited by Gardiner in either of his discussions requires the interpretations of smw as a tax to the state. The reference in JEA 27 (1941) 20 n. 5 all deal with the smw of temples to be collected by the agents of the temple. In the Annals of Tuthmosis III {Urk. IV, 696, 7°3> 7*9) the smw of Lower Nubia or Phoenicia occurs at the end of the listings of taxes (b/kw) in the following form:

in addition to ships loaded with every good thing of this land and the smw of Wawat. or:

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for of grain 821% were collected and 600 left behind, either for future collection or as the cultivator's share. Out of the amount collected, 80 for, or about 1/10, were given to the cultivator for seed for the next year. Rather indirect evidence pointing in the same direction can be obtained from the Saite land leases P. Louvre E 7833 a and 7837, 44 two contracts between Udjahor and Pedemont. In one, Pedemont promises to pay 3^ of the crop for the land and 1/9 for the use of 1 ox; in the other, }/& for the land and Y2 for 2 oxen and seed. According to Hughes, Pedemont would be repaying 5/18 of the crop for seed (assuming that the rent per ox was the same in each case); according to Malinine, about 34> since the oxen may not have been strictly comparable in value, so that some uncertainty remains. A more serious difficulty lies in attempting to esti- mate the proportion of interest included in the repayment for the seed. This is not, however, likely to have exceeded 100 percent for one year at this period,45 in which case the amount loaned for seed would have been roughly J/g of the crop, a figure which agrees with modern observations for basin lands. It seems reasonable to subtract about }/$ or 1 / 1 o from the crop for seed for the next year.

The factor of taxes is difficult to assess with any degree of assurance. According to the Saite leases, the landlord usually paid the taxes, but there were a few exceptions.46 For earlier periods, the inscription of Mes indicates that the owner of land ordinarily paid taxes on it.47 The size of the taxes is not stated. Among the tax receipts that have survived from the Saite Period, the amount paid is stated in P. Louvre E 7834, 7835 and 7838 in quantities of grain, but the area of the field is unknown. Only P. Turin 244 gives a series of receipts for the payment of taxes on a field whose area is known from other contracts to have been 1 1 arouras. This document has been discussed by Revillout, but his translations and facsimile are almost useless.48 Prof. Hughes has been kind enough to write me that a photograph of the document shows that the taxes were not 1 kite of silver as stated by Revillout but rather a quantity of grain as in the later Saite receipts; however, he was unable to read the figure.49 The assessments in P. Wilbour will be discussed below together with the evidence for the rate of rents on farm-land, since I believe that the available evidence indicates that it was compiled as a record of the income accruing to temples and other public institutions from their lands (see pp. 39 ff. below).

Certain of the documents published by Gardiner in Ramesside Administrative Documents deal with assess-

harbors provided with . . . and likewise the bjkw of the Lebanon and the smw of Djahy consisting of grain . . . In both cases we have general statements providing a rhetorical closing to a specific listing of tribute, and "harvest" would fit both of these imprecise contexts. In the Bilgai Stela, lines 16-17 (Gardiner, AZ 50 (191 2) 49-57), smw is contrasted to iyj//-taxes, and since the context concerns deliveries to the temples, of the size of which the author of the stela boasts, this example, while far from clear, would again to my mind rather support the interpretation of smw as "rent." Thus in P. Louvre 31 71, smw seems to refer more probably to the crop or rent of a cultivator on a state domain. That he was obligated in this case to deliver all or most of what he raised to the landowner is suggested by the unusual feature of giving him seed out of the crop, which, as we shall see below, would be provided normally by the tenant when land was leased. Here then Amenmose is more likely to have been an employee of the landowning domain; and smw was used in the sense of "harvest."

44 SDLL 51-70; Malinine, Rev. d'Eg. 8 (1951) 142-50; Choix I, 89-94. See especially SDLL 59. 45 Seidl, Ag. For. XX, 57; Choix I, 21, 27, 33 = P. Louvre E 9293, P. Loeb 48, P. Berlin 31 10, respectively. 46 Owner pays taxes in the following cases: P. Louvre E 7833 a (SDLL 51-67)

7837 (ibid. 68-70) 7845 a (ibid. 28-44)

Taxes shared: P. Louvre E 7836 (ibid. 45-50) Tenant pays taxes: P. Louvre E 7839 (ibid. 71-73), which is an unusual case since the tenant keeps none of the crop. Among the receipts for taxes, P. Louvre E 7834 (AFT I, 24) is issued in the name of both the owner and the tenants (cf. the contract P. Louvre E 7836 entered into by the same persons). P. Louvre E. 7835 (AFT I, 24), E 7838 (ibid. 23) and E 7854 (Rylands III, 23) are all receipts for land-taxes issued to Yeturodj, who is known to be a landowner, and P. Turin 244 (Rylands III, 18) is a series of receipts for land-tax again issued to a person known from other documents to have been the owner of the land in question.

47 Gardiner, Unters. IV, 8-9, 27. 48 Revillout, Quelques textes demotiques archaiques 1 1-12. 49 Letter of September 15, 1961.

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ments on grain crops that might be taxes. We will consider here only those which mention or permit con- clusions concerning the rates of assessment; the great majority of the texts, usually accounts of grain collec- tion, do not mention the areas of the farms producing the grain and need not be dealt with here. Gurob

Frag. L5° gives some figures on a sheet so damaged that it seems impossible to deduce what kind of an opera- tion was being recorded. The Louvre Frags.51 present a long list of assessments of small plots of land ranging in size from % to 3 aromas at a rate of 1 2/4 for. This recalls the similar rate used to assess apportioning domain in P. Wilbour. If that document is, as I believe, a register of rents due to various institutions for land to which they held complete or partial ownership rights, the assessments in the Louvre Leather Frags, would in all probability reflect a similar situation: apportionment of rents between private landholders and the Domain of Amon sharing title to the fields. Gardiner, in discussing the section headings in these frag- ments,52 finally concludes that they may deal with rent assessments, basing his decision on the word jn ("acquired") that occurs in such formulas as: "Acquired: 10 arouras at 2 Ayr." Unfortunately the fragmentary state of even the headings makes it impossible to divine what the fiscal operation was; I am unable to recon- cile the rates, areas and total mentioned with any plausible interpretation of the individual assessments which follow.

The Griffith Frags.53 are a little clearer. Here fields in the Tenth Nome of Upper Egypt belonging to various temples are assessed. Below a heading indicating the landowning institution there follows a list of localities in which land was owned together with a statement of the total area. The figures are sometimes

quite large, and no attempt is made to break them down by cultivator as is the case, for instance, in P. Wilbour. At the end of each section is a statement of the amount of grain involved. From the one preserved in col. iii it follows that nhb-\a.nd was assessed at 2 for per aroura and ordinary hyt (basin-land) at 1, a fifth of the rate in P. Wilbour. In the summation in col. i, the amounts of grain are introduced by the word st, which Gardiner translates as the "tax-payers."54 But did the feminine word st mean "tax-payers" in contrast to the masculine homonym, meaning "assessment"?55 The masculine st is determined in a clear context56 by a sitting man, so that the use of this determinative in writing the feminine word in two cases cannot be used as an argument. The feminine st occurs in two passages besides the one under discussion: in P. Anast. V, 27, 6 (= LEM 72) the translation "assessment" would fit as well as the one proposed by Gardiner ("It is I whom you alone have found to penalize in the entire assessment"); in P. Chester Beatty V, vii, 12 - viii, 1, "You shall proceed southwards to the assessment . . . and shall proceed to collect the taxes," gives, at least in the writer's opinion, a smoother translation than "proceeding to the taxpayers."

As far as I know, no other examples of the st supposedly meaning "taxpayers" exists; and Gardiner based his conclusions on no others. In our example then, a translation "Tax assessments of Tjebu" rather than "Tax-payers of Tjebu" as a heading for the quantities of grain would at least seem worth considering for the following reasons:

(1) The uncertainty of the existence of a fern, word st meaning "tax-payers." (2) The determinative in the Griffith Frags, does not include the seated man, though evidently this

argument is of little weight. (3) Nowhere in the Griffith Frags, is there any indication that the assessments were made on any

basis other than that of institutional property taken as a whole; and it is clear from the size of the lots that neither the entire body of taxpayers of Tjebu or even a sizeable percentage of them was dealt with. On the other hand the "assessments of Tjebu," insofar as institutional domain was concerned, would be a correct description. 50 RAD 30-32. 51 Ibid. 60-63. 52 Wilbour II, 208-09. 53 RAD 68-71; Gardiner, JEA 27 (1941) 64-70. Prof. Parker tells me that the Louvre owns further fragments of the

same document; the assessments appear to be of the same type as those in the published parts. 54 Cf. the discussion of this term Gardiner, JEA 27 (1941) 67; Wilbour II, 57. 55 As in Caminos, LEM 275, 288. 56 Anastasi VI, 26 = Gardiner, LEM 74.

33

(4) A word "assessments" might be more likely to introduce quantities of grain than "taxpayers." None of these arguments is very strong in itself, but there is a slight preponderance of evidence in

favor of reading the heading as "tax assessments." In any case, whichever way we interpret the word, it seems at least possible that the Griffith Frags, actually do record tax assessments, since the rates are much smaller than those of P. Wilbour and the Louvre Frags., and since we have here not a record by cultivator but rather an assessment on a temple's domains as a whole. There is no need to stress the uncertainty of this interpretation as a tax-assessment on a landholder's property as distinguished from assessments of rents owed by the cultivator to a public or semi-public landowning institution, but if correct, the Griffith Frags, would indicate a tax rate of 1 hn out of about 10 on ordinary land. Could this be compared with the tax of 10 per- cent familiar from Saite sales of land, even though at that period the sales tax goes to the temple upon whose domain the privately owned land is?57

In interpreting the Griffith Frags, in this manner, we take for granted that temples did pay taxes to the state. Gardiner summarizes the evidence for this from the Turin Taxation Papyrus and the Amiens Papyrus, though I cannot follow his argument in all points.58 Thus the Turin Taxation Papyrus, iii, 9-16 records the collection of 402 for of grain belonging to the Temple of Khnum and Nebu at Esna.59 This is eventually delivered to Thebes and "[placed to the credit] of Pharaoh." Part of this grain comes from the smw (see above, n. 43) of one of the cultivators on the domain of this temple, but the text does not permit us to decide whether this refers to taxes which he might eventually owe the state (though I would prefer not to interpret smw in this manner) or the rent he owed to the temple, a source of income which the temple could, of course, transmit directly to Thebes in payment of any taxes incumbent upon it. But this is a minor point. From an earlier period, P. Boulaq 1 8 gives a clear example of revenues derived by the court from the Temple of Amun at Thebes.60.

So far we have discussed two quantities that had to be deducted from the crop; a tax, perhaps of the order of 1/10 of the crop and usually paid by the owner of the land and a similar amount for seed. Such Saite contracts as P. Louvre E 7833 a and 784461 indicate that seed was normally provided by the tenant, and the statement found in other leases that the landlord would be responsible for taxes might be taken to imply that the tenant would be liable for the other expenses of cultivation. For earlier periods we have the evidence of Hekanakht, who apparently also provided his own seed.62

The deductions discussed so far lead to the major factor in considering the value of land to the pur- chaser: the size of the rent to be collected by the landlord. Most of the surviving contracts of sale concern fields which the purchaser clearly had no intention of cultivating himself, and I think we are safe in assuming that the bulk of the land in ancient as in more modern Egypt was not owned by the actual cultivators, who in most cases will hardly have had the means to purchase land, even if they were not serfs bound to the soil to a greater or lesser degree.63 Under these conditions, the rent remaining after taxes would be the actual income upon which the price of the land would be based. We must next examine the available evidence for agricultural rents.

57 The 10 percent sales tax occurs, aside from P. Turin 246 and 247 already mentioned, in two documents from the reign of Amasis mentioned by Revillout, Rev. Eg. 12 (1907) 136, 137, P. BM 10117 (Malinine, Rev. (TEg. 7 (1950) 114; AHDO 5 (1950-51) 25; Reich, Papyri juristischen Inhalts 13-25) also from the time of Amasis, P. Louvre E 7128 (Choix I, 85-88; AFT I, 65-67) from the reign of Darius, and later examples.

58 Wilbour II, 207. Some other sources, ibid. 203. 59 RAD 39. 60 Scharff, A£ 57 (1922) 51-68 and plates. The delivery occurs several times, for instance col. XXI 2, line 4. 61 SDLL 51-67; 18-27. 62 James, The Hekanakhte Papers 13 (Document I, 2). Dr. James was kind enough to let me quote from the proofs of his

publication. Note also references to repayable loans of seed in the First Intermediate Period, Kees, Kulturgeschichte 41. 63 The whole problem of serfdom (as contrasted with out-and-out chattel slavery) in ancient Egypt requires an intensive

study and may be insoluble with the data available at present. Cf. Seidl, Ag. For. X, 42; Bakir, Slavery in Pharaonic Egypt (Cahiers ASAE 18) 6-8; and a series of Russian articles referred to in Janssen, Annual Egyptological Bibliography, under the nos. 1925, 2056, 2595, 3400, 4096.

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Among the Saite leases published by Hughes, we find the following rates for grain land: P. Louvre E 7833 a 3^ °f the crop

7836 y% of the crop and Y2 of the tax 7837 ( = 7833 b) Yz of the crop 7839 entire crop (repayment of a debt?) 7844 }^ of the crop 786064 y% of the crop

To this can be added from the reign of Darius: P. Loeb 45 6s y2 of the crop

The usual range seems to have been between }/% and J^ of the crop. For earlier periods our evidence is much poorer.

In the letter already referred to above (note 62), Hekanakht discusses the rental of fields at some length. Since our interpretation of the figures and some of the technical terms differs from that proposed by James in his edition,66 I give a full translation of the passage, leaving the words or numbers whose meaning is disputed untranslated for the time being. The translation is somewhat freer than that of James; differences of wording or alternative translations discussed by James in his commentary are not commented on here:

(3) Send Heti's son Nakht and Sinebnut down to Per-haa (4) to cultivate [for us] J of rented land. They shall take its rent from the mrc-cloth woven here. But if they have (5) sold the emmer which is in Per-haa, they shall use that for it (the rent) also, and you will not concern yourself further with the (6) mrc-cloth about which I had said, "Weave it! And when they have sold it in Nebesit, they shall rent fields for its price." But if (7) you want to cultivate P of land there, cultivate it. You should find land - *J" of land for emmer and ^T of land for northern barley - in the [good] (8) fields of Khepeshit. Don't take the land of just anybody, but ask Hau the Younger. If you find (9) that he has none, then go to Heru-nefer and he will put you on well-watered land of Khepeshit. Now when I came (10) southwards to here, you reckoned for me the rent of */+ of land in northern barley alone. Watch out. Be careful (11) not to misappropriate even one sack of northern barley out of it as though you were someone who is dealing with his own northern barley, since you have made the renting of it difficult for me by using northern barley and its seed (12) alone [barley was worth 50 percent more than emmer]. Now, as for one who uses northern barley - as for jfw for of northern barley for + of land amounting to '$ for for 1 aroura, now (13) that is not a bad uft. Now ^ of land corresponds to (?) 100 for of northern barley."

In his translation, James gives the following equivalents for the units and words left untranslated:

^ 5 arouras (2+) 5 5 (?) arouras

*jr 2}/2 arouras */+ 7H arouras (3+) ym 69 (?) f. 7% arouras (3+) ? 9 ^ 10 arouras (4^") ((ft "yield".

64 SDLL 37-38. Note that in the 2 leases dealing with flax-land (P. BM 10432, ibid. 9-17; P. Louvre E 7845A; ibid. 28-44) the rent was j^t of the crop.

65 Spiegelberg, Die demotischen Papyrus Loeb 76-78. 66 James, The Hekanakhte Papers 13-14, 18-23.

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The units used in the Hekanakht Papers are discussed at length by James;67 the results are not en- tirely satisfactory. Units of area otherwise undocumented and not an integral multiple of smaller units, while not impossible, inspire some hesitation, which is reinforced by the fact that the calculations do not come out even. Let us reexamine the evidence collected by James.

Conclusions must largely be based on the passage already quoted. The additional evidence cited by James does no more than suggest that the area indicated by + was larger than the 7 aromas by which it is once followed. If it were a unit of 2 }^ arouras one would not expect it to be followed by the figure of 7 arouras - why did the text not give 3 of the larger unit and 2 arouras? But this is far from proof.

As James has already seen, lines 10 and 12-13 deal with the same fields, even though the area is written in a slightly different manner in the two cases. Rent (kdb) is clearly referred to in the first passage and the discussion in the intervening line also deals with the rent of these fields and the difficulty occasioned by executing the contract in the higher priced barley alone. A priori one would expect that the figures in the next sentence, dealing with the same area, would still refer to the rent, particularly since the beginning of the quoted passage indicates that Hekanakht paid his rent in advance. This is confirmed by the passage in Letter II, vo. 1-3, 68 and agrees with the fact that the letters are written during the inundation at the beginning of the agricultural season, at a time when it is much too early to talk about specific figures for the yields. The word «ft used to describe the rate per aroura is almost certainly derived from the verb «/, "to squeeze (juice) out of something,"69 and to the writer this seems a more appropriate epithet for rent "squeezed" out of a farmer than for the yield from a field. A further consideration is simply a matter of size. Even reading the «ft as 9 sacks per aroura (the largest possibility, see below), we obtain a figure far below the usual yield for basin lands. In the Hekanakht Papers, the for, written with stroke numerals is equal to 10 of a smaller unit written with dot numerals, and the latter in all probability is the ordinary hekat.10 The <<ft would then be 90 hekat/ aroura. Now in the New Kingdom and later, the ordinary yield of a field of basin lands was 160 hekat (see above, p. 30), so that a yield of 9 sacks in Hekanakht's time could hardly be qualified by "not bad"; and under James5 interpretation the ordinary rate stated in line 13 would work out to 100 hekat/ aroura, or only slightly better.

All this suggests that the Kft and the figures describing it refer to the same rent as was discussed in the sentence immediately preceding. We next have to examine the figures themselves. James has seen that despite the writing, the SJ of jfuJ must be a 60. The unit is much less certain than James supposes. He reads it as 9 without question. Now in the Hekanakht Papers there is, as far as I know, only one occurrence of a certain stroke-9 (assured by the addition). It looks like: ̂ .7I This form of the 9 resembles that given by Moller

67 Ibid. 1 15-16. 68 Ibid. 33. 69 See now v. Deines and Westendorff, Worterbuch der medizinischen Texte (Grundriss der Medizin der alten Agypter,

VII) 135. 70 James, The Ifekanakhte Papers 116-17, discusses the nature of the for in these documents. James' hesitant assumption

that the volume indicated by dot-numerals was in fact the single hekat can be strengthened by the following argument: In Document II (ibid. 32-33) we find a list of rations for Hekanakht's household during a famine. Among them, Heti's son Nakht and his family are to receive 8 of the presumed hekat. Comparing this with the statement in Document I 1 5-1 7 (ibid. 14), where the allowance for Heti and his family is stated to be 1 .5 for per month normally, but that this is to be cut to .8 hn, it follows that the figures in the ration-list are on a monthly basis. Taking the caloric value of approximately 10,000 calories/ hekat of barley (cf. pp. 42-43 of this article), the ration of 8 hekat /month for two adults (e.g. Ipi and her servant) comes out at about 1 300 calories/ day from grain. One expects that the bulk of the Egyptians' normal caloric intake came from grain products, so that the total daily diet provided for by the ration is not likely to have been much larger. The figure is about half of what one would expect for normal needs, which agrees with the reduction of Heti's allowance from 1 .5 to 0.8 for. It seems reasonable to put the family on half-rations during a famine. If we assume that the dot-numerals indicate a double hekat, the rations would add up to a completely normal and adequate diet for adults, and there would seem to be little need to talk of a famine. Interpretation of the figures as single hekat fits the requirements of the situation.

71 Document VI, line 5. Ibid. pl. 12, pp. 63, 65 n. 7.

36

for the late Sixth Dynasty %, when the number 5 was written *^,72 similar to the figure under discussion. Now the Hekanakht Papers are dated almost exactly midway between the end of the Old Kingdom and the late Middle Kingdom from which the Middle Kingdom forms recorded by Moller come; it is not aston- ishing, particularly in view of the paleographic variability shown by the Hekanakht Papers, to find relatively archaic forms beside the later form of the number 5. The reading of the doubtful numbers in the passage under discussion as 65 and 5, respectively, is supported by calculation.

The number of arouras that + equals is obtained by dividing the two volumes of grain in line 1 2 . If we read the figures as James does, then 69/9 = 7^3; and if + is 3 times +, the interpretation of the *jr as 2 Y2 arouras (more exactly 2 5/9) follows. On the other hand, with the more probable figures of 65 and 5, the division results in an even 13. If we interpret ;£ as being equal to 3 *jr, we obtain a value of 4^ for the ^, a result open to the same objections as James5, though the fraction is a bit more manageable. But there is an alternative possibility: to interpret + as & plus 3 arouras; -J- would then simply be the hieratic writing for the familiar unit of 10 arouras called the ht-tt. This interpretation avoids both difficulties; we need neither new units, nor do we have to assume units that are not integral multiples of smaller ones. In addition, the calculation comes out even, and involves only simple ratios. I would interpret the jt as being 2 hi-U or 20 arouras^ which would maintain the same rate of 5 for / 'aroma. No calculation supports our interpretation here;73 in any case, it has no bearing on the point at issue in this article. We conclude from the preceding discussion that Hekanakht apparently considered 5 for of 10 hekat each to be a favorable rent. Now in the New Kingdom, as we have already seen, 10 for of 16 hekat were a normal yield. The rent mentioned by Hekanakht would then be about }/% of an ordinary crop, if reckoned in barley, which might correspond to Yz of the crop reckoned in emmer.

Further evidence can be found in P. Berlin 3047. 74 The document is in rather poor condition, and the old photograph published by Erman is not as clear as one might wish, but the general outline of the text seems to be certain, at least as far as it concerns our problem. In the 46th year of Ramesses II, Nefer^abu sued Niay before a court including the prophet Wenennefer of the Temple of Mut. Nefer^abu was entitled to a share of a number of arouras of field, presumably from an inheritance, and Niay had refused to give it to him. The prophet Wenennefer interested himself in the case. Nefer^abu presented his documents to the court, and Niay recognized their validity. The court then decided that Nefer^abu should receive the share to which he was entitled and should rent it to Wenennefer, representing the Temple of Mut, perhaps in fulfillment of an earlier understanding between the two. Wenennefer agreed to accept them. After an inventory of the estate, Nefer^abu stated the terms of the lease: y% of the crop. To this Wenennefer agreed.

My interpretation of this document differs considerably from that proposed by Helck. This is not the place for a complete translation and commentary on the papyrus, for which a better photograph and much more space would be needed than can be warranted in the framework of this article. I will, however, trans-

72 Moller, Hieratische Paldographie I, 59, nos. 618, 622. 73 Some further speculation: The area to be rented in Document I, 6-7 apparently is 2 fo-tt, which suggests an inter-

pretation for the final statement that 2 hi-ti corresponds to 1 00 for, which would be superfluous if merely intended to support the earlier one that the rate of 5 for/aroura is not a bad rent. Possibly Hekanakht is adding here, after dis- cussing an appropriate rate of rent for the 13 arouras mentioned in lines 10-12, the rent of the 20 arouras mentioned earlier, so that Merisu has before him the total rent that his father would approve of: 165 for for a total of 33 arouras. One might raise here the objection that interpreting the figures in line 13 as I have done requires one to assume that the scribe used three different ways to write 2 fo-U (J, J, p) . But it seems far from certain that one must necessarily equate the ̂ of line 4 with the p of line 7. The wording of the passage rather suggests that in lines 7-9 Hekanakht is talking about possibly renting more land than the J mentioned at first, in which case the three different writings could refer to different areas. But further evidence is needed.

74 Erman, AZ 17 O879) 71-76 and pl. I; Helck, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz (Geistes-und Sozialwiss. Klasse) 1 960, no. 1 1 , 263-64, 271-73 gives a translation without commentary of this document which he calls unpublished.

37

late here the passages on which my interpretation depends. Note that Seidl appears to interpret the text much as I do.75

After the date and record of the composition of the court the document continues:

(7) The scribe of the royal offering table Nefer<abu sued the chief of the storehouse Niay (8) of the Temple of Amon as representative76 of his brothers. What the scribe of the royal offering table Neferfabu said:

"[• • *]77 (9) aromas of field together with my brothers.78 The chief of the storehouse Niay took them for himself79 together with h[is? . . .]8° (10) years until now without giving (me) my share. Now look [. . .]81 (11) the prophet Wenennefer of the Temple of Mut to cause him to make for me a

75 Seidl, Ag. For. X, 57 and n. 291. 76 On this passage cf. Gardiner, Unters. IV, 14, n. 18. It is not clear whether Nefer^abu or Niay is here referred to as the

rwdw (representative), though I would incline to the latter possibility. 77 Helck translates: "[Njijj besitzt x] Arouren Feld zusammen mit seinen Brudern." But the context requires a passage

stating Nfr-tbw's original claim to the land (see also notes 78 and 79). Something like, "[I inherited x] arouras," is wanted, but too much is missing to attempt an exact restoration.

78 Ni snwjnk. For the construction cf. for instance P. Anast. VI, 44-45 ( = Gardiner, LEM 75-76). 79 Helck continues (cf. note 77): "Ich aber ubernahm sie von ihm. Njijj und [seine Briider ernten von ihnen alle] Jahre

usw." This translation requires tjvo n to have the meaning "to take from" rather than "to take to," a rather widespread translation which appears to be influenced by the German "jemandem etwas nehmen," but which is probably wrong here. To give the requirements of the context first: By dividing and translating as I have (taking jnk with the preceding sentence), the text states Nefer^abu's rights followed directly by his complaint. According to Helck's interpretation, the fields would actually have been Niay's and Nefer^abu would at best be claiming (in an extremely vague and un- clear manner) that he had leased the lands but that Niay had then refused to let him cultivate them, unless Uw n is to be given the undocumented meaning "to buy from someone." But the entire tenor of the text requires Nefer<abu to be suing for ownership of the land (which he then leases to a third party) rather than for non-fulfillment of a lease.

The translation of t/w n can be illustrated with other examples. P. Mayer A, 9, 16-17 (see note 33) reads: "I gave some barley, 3 sacks, to the craftsman Sanefer. He gave me 2 kite of silver, jwj.j&w.w n.f, saying, 'No,' but I didn't find him." Cerny translates the passage left in Egyptian : "but I took them (i.e. 3 khar of barley) back from him." (JWH 1 [1954] 913 n. 35). Here the context surely requires the speaker to attempt to "take back to him" the 2 kite (incidentally also the obvious noun for the suffix in jUw.w to refer to). Since he was unable to find Sanefer, he could hardly have taken the grain back.

Wb. Belegst. V, 65 [offset section] under 346, 23 quotes an unpublished letter from Turin: "I was not neglectful about taking water to him (tiy n.f mw)" The context hardly allows "from."

P. Strassburg 26, 6-7 (Spiegelberg, AZ 53 [191 7] I0): "Give them to ... his servant that he may take them (r djt UJ st n.f) to him in the south." Manifestly, the context makes it impossible to translate: "take from."

Caminos, The Chronicle of Prince Osorkon (Analecta Orientalia, XXXVII) 66, translating line 48 of the text, reads: "a] decree to establish at their proper posts 70 ... people who are (to be) taken away from the domain of Amun's estate ..." The words in question are nty & n. Caminos suggests either the "n of disadvantage" or a late writing of the preposition m before a noun, the latter being usual in that sense. Since the prepositions n and m were certainly con- fused in texts of the period, the passage is in itself of no great importance to the argument. However, the quotation is from one of a series of decrees establishing offerings and endowments for the estate of Amon, and one wonders whether the context would not rather require the 70 persons to be taken from somewhere else to the domain of Amon's estate.

The "w of disadvantage" is discussed by Caminos, loc. cit. 26, referring to Gunn, JEA 41 (1955) 90, n. 4 for further examples, and again in LEM 10, 394; but in none of these passages is there an example of the verb U "to take." In view of this and of the examples already quoted, I wonder whether the "n of disadvantage" can be documented at all with U in Late Egyptian. It is not my purpose here to give a complete treatment of the usage of tiw with w, but the evidence should be adequate to justify my translation of P. Berlin 3047, 9.

80 The reading my.f seems certain on the photograph. For the lacuna I would suggest something like "together with h[is . . . , and they have farmed it for x] years etc."

81 Towards the end of the line there is a fragment on the photograph that from its position might have belonged as well to line 1 o as line 1 1 . 1 am unable to make much out of the signs visible on it, and since it appears to have slipped out of position, I have no suggestions.

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[. . .]82 and to make for me a bunch of vegetables for my supper. For (?)83 [. . . The regis](i3)ter of

my documents is in my possession. Let [them] be inspected." [What] the chief of the storehouse Niay [of the Temple of Amon said:] (14) "Yes, what the scribe of the royal offering table NefeKabu said is right." [. . .] emnekhu84

fields [. . .]8s (15) fields, and he shall turn them over to the Temple of Mut and [. . ,]86 (16) and he does not profit.

What the council of judges said: "Let [. . .]87 (17) Now that which will accrue to the scribe of the royal offering table [Neferfabu

. . .]88 (18) the Temple of Mut." What the prophet Wenennefer of the Temple of Mut said: "As for the fields [which will accrue to]89 the share of [the scribe of the royal (19) offering

table] Nefer<abu, I will take them and cultivate [that which]90 will accrue to the scribe of the royal

82 Helck translates: "Jedoch hatte . . . Wnn-nfr [festgesetzt], dass er mir 6inen [Teil der Ernte] geben sollte." But jrj hardly means "give" and the traces at the beginning of the lacuna do not seem to fit psst. They rather resemble the ^k in line 19, where Wenennefer agrees to "receive" or "take" the fields of Nefer^abu. I have no suggestion.

83 Helck: "Das ist das, was [festgesetzt ist. Hier] sind meine Urkunden." I would rather take pi-wn as the conjunction but have no suggestions for the lacuna. Helck's restoration would be much too short. The signs at the beginning of line 13 are ̂ , so one expects some word such as "registers" of Nefer^abu's title-deeds at the end of the lacuna, perhaps the dnjwt or w<rwt of Mes (Gardiner, Unters. IV, 15 n. 22, 17 n. 32) in a similar dispute over land.

84 The plate clearly shows the end of a personal name ending in -m-nhw, but I have no suggestion for the damaged signs at the beginning of the fragment.

85 Helck: "[Mein Vater erwarb?] die Acker und iiberwies sie dem Muttempel." This fits neither the space nor the leg- ible portions at the end of the line, assuming that the fragment shown in the plate at the end of line 14 is correctly placed. The sense of the passage would be easier to guess if there were some indication elsewhere in the document concerning the relationship of ... -emnekhu to the other figures in the case, but he would appear to be the person (father?) from whom NefeKabu's title derives. Neither of the two lacunae in this line is very long, and while the traces in the plate are not clear enough to attempt a restoration, I would suggest the following as an approximation to the sense: "[ . . . ]-emnekhu [left him] fields. [He shall take] the fields etc."

Helck's interpretation of the passage would require the fields already to be in the possession of the temple of Mut at the time that the trial took place. This is, of course, not entirely excluded by the translation proposed here; how- ever, one expects rather to find details of Niay's assent to NefeKabu's claims and approval of the future disposal of the fields. In line 9 it is stated that it was Niay himself who kept the fields from Nefer^abu, so that . . . -emnekhu is more likely to have been a figure on Nefer^abu's side of the case rather than an individual who assigned the fields to the temple of Mut at the time when Niay had illegal possession of them. The damaged passage in lines 1 1-12 sug- gests that Nefer<abu managed to interest the temple of Mut as represented by its prophet Wenennefer in his case, and one may guess that in return for this support he promised to lease the fields to the temple. In any case, the pres- ence of Wenennefer on the court appears to have guaranteed that the trial would come to a foregone conclusion. Niay gives up without contending the case. The passage in lines 18-20 suggests that Wenennefer (representing the temple of Mut) was not in possession of the fields at the time of the trial but had acquired an interest in them from Nefer<abu at the time that Niay was holding them.

86 Helck: "und lebte lange Zeit von ihnen," without indication of a lacuna. Of all this there is actually only a small blob that does not much resemble the top of an f nh. About half of line 1 5 is missing in the lacuna, so that it is quite pos- sible that there was a change of subject before the statement at the beginning of line 16. One would hardly expect that the owner of the fields should not profit (lit.: "eat") from them at all, or that Niay would agree to their transfer to the legal owner only on condition that he not profit therefrom.

87 Helck: "[Wir] wollen [teilen; x Teile] gehen zum usw." This fits neither the space nor the words ptrj pi ntyjw.f r hiy visible at the beginning of line 17.

88 The traces preserved at the end of the line do not fit the words hm-ntr Wnn-nfr n, which I was first inclined to suggest. I have no specific suggestions, but would suppose something of the order of: "he shall turn it over to the Temple of Mut."

89 iht [nty r hiy r] psst fits the available space. 90 Mtw.j ski [pi nty] r hiy etc. fits the traces and space.

39

[offering table (?) (20) . . .]91 in vegetables."92 Inventory of the fields which the scribe of the royal offering table Neferfabu [. . .]"

There follows a detailed listing of fields owned and cultivated by various persons, presumably Nefer^abu's coheirs and/or opponents at law. Among them (line 30) are 23}^ arouras ascribed to Niay. After the inventory, whether of the total property or only of the fields for which Neferf abu is suing, the text con- tinues:

(31) What the council [of judges] said [to the prophet Wenennefer of] (32) the Temple of Mut: "As for the years which the chief of the storehouse Niay spent profiting [. . . ] (3 3) The scribe

of the royal offering table Nefer^abu shall cultivate them and cultivate [. . .].93 What the scribe of the royal offering table (34) NefeKabu said to the prophet Wenennefer of

the Temple of Mut: "Now as for my field [. . ,]94 (35) shall give me half of its harvest95 in grain and vegetables." What [the prophet Wenennefer of the Temple of Mut] said:

"(36) I will do it. Behold, I will do it." "To be copied."

To summarize briefly: Nefer^abu rents the fields to Wenennefer, I would suppose acting for the temple, for 3^ the crop.

We next must consider briefly the nature of P. Wilbour. The many problems raised by this long docu- ment preclude complete treatment here, and we will restrict ourselves to the non-apportioning paragraphs of Text A and to those portions of the apportioning paragraphs where the grain is apportioned from another

temple or institution. In those cases where the grain is apportioned between an institution and what in all

probability is a private landowner96 the calculations involve too many variable factors for us to analyze. For the same reason we will not discuss Text B here; the basis upon which the quantity of grain stated at the head of the paragraphs is derived, if at all, from the various areas of khato-lands escapes me.

As is well known, P. Wilbour A is the record of a survey made of lands belonging to temples and various other public institutions (private lands being included only if they were upon the apportioning do- main of such an institution) in a stretch of the Nile Valley from the vicinity of Minya to the Fayum. The

survey was made in the 4th year of Ramesses V, began before the 1 5th of the Second Month of Inundation and continued until the 1st of the Third Month. This corresponds approximately to July 23-August 8 in the

Julian calendar, or 9 days earlier in the Gregorian, a season when, evidently, no assessment of crops in the

91 The signs jfjlj^ of the beginning of the title are clear in the plate and cannot be read pr as Helck's translation would require.

92 Helck renders Wenennefer's statement: "Was die Felder [angeht, so sind sie bereits] geteilt. "[Was Tischschreiber] JVfr-^bt [sagte:] Ich werde sie entgegennehmen und sie bearbeiten [und x Teile der Ernte]

sollen in mein Haus kommen [sowie x Bund] Gemuse vom Frischgemuse." There is no space for ddt.n in addition to Nefer^abu's title in the lacuna at the end of line 1 8 and the beginning of

line 19. For Helck's reading pr cf. note 91. The section contains a promise of payment according to Helck, and one would expect it to come from the person making the payment. Any promises made by NefeKabu after taking over the fields and cultivating them would normally guarantee payment of a share (or rent as Helck understands it) to some- one else. But in the conclusion it is clearly Wenennefer who promises to pay.

93 As a pure guess I would suggest that the court here grants NefeKabu not only his original share but also additional fields to reimburse him for his losses.

94 Some signs are preserved at the end of the lacuna; I cannot make them out. Some text such as "take it and cultivate it and you shall give etc." seems to be required.

95 Smw

96 Wilbour II, 75 ff.

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fields could be made97 unless, as suggested by Fairman, we assume that summer crops were being assessed.98 Be this as it may, the non-apportioning paragraphs assess fields at three rates: 5 for for the great bulk

of ordinary land called kiyt, 7 2/4 for for "tired" land (tny; only 25 examples), and 10 for for "fresh" land (nhb; only 16 examples).99 In certain of the non-apportioning assessments, 3/40 of the amount is stated to have been apportioned for another institution; under the apportioning domain of the second institution a

97 Ibid. 10. 98 Fairman, JEA 39 (1953) 119. His first two references to summer crops are probably wrong. In his first letter (James,

The Ifekanakhte Papers 13; Doc. I, 1), Hekanakht is simply warning his son that he is responsible for the flooding of the fields and to be careful with the seed; this sounds like the ordinary crop. There is nothing to indicate that the word jwh here refers to premature flooding. Cf. James, loc. cit. 15 and particularly 18 n. 2 where, in contrast to James' supposition, it is clear that what little evidence we have, namely the regular usage of jwh, points to the normal flooding of the fields. In the Instructions for the Vizier (Urk. IV, 1 1 13,^5) we read that he sends out mayors and village head- men to cultivate and harvest (smw, cf. note 43 and also Kees, Agypten 34). But I do not doubt the existence of summer cultivation in Egypt, as the passage from P. Sallier IV, vs. 1 o shows. Fairman's statistics are, as he himself admits, extremely uncertain; there is no question that the area surveyed in P. Wilbour is very much smaller than the prob- able area of the fields of the nomes concerned. But this could simply be the result of the fact that only institutionally owned lands are entered. The addition of privately owned land, which certainly existed (cf. P. Valengay I, vo., 2-3; Gardiner, Rev. a" Eg. 6 ( 1 95 1 ) 117, 121) would substantially increase the amount of land under cultivation at the time that P. Wilbour was assessed and raise the proportion substantially over that listed by Fairman as normal for summer cultivation.

The survey took place before the inundation became noticeable and some days before the date for the opening of the basin canals as recorded by Willcocks, Egyptian Irrigation, 3rd ed., I, 335, Table 162: never earlier than August 10 in Minya and Beni Suef Provinces. Certain of the fields are not assessed because they were "dry" or "waterless?" {Wilbour II, 94-95) . This, of course, cannot be taken as evidence that the survey took place after the beginning of the inundation, in which case the notes would refer to field not reached by the flood. The evidence of the dates is quite unequivocal. Perhaps the terms (whose reading is quite uncertain) refer to difficulties of some kind in summer irrigation.

The land assessed here was almost entirely kiyt, ordinary arable land (Wilbour II, 178-81). There can be little question to my mind that the word refers to ordinary basin lands, rather than the "high lying" land suggested by the etymology of the word. This is indicated both by the Coptic koie descended from it and by the inordinate frequency of the word in documents dealing with land. All the contracts dealing with land in Choix seem to describe the land as lying in a kiyt and one that usually is named, as are basins nowadays. Malinine assumes that the word refers to high- lying land and translates it (Choix I, 68, n. 6) as sardqi-land in accordance with the common impression that the Arabic word refers to land (high-lying or other) suited for summer and/or garden cultivation; hnty-s is a word fre- quently translated as sardqi. However, in the Description de VEgypte XVII, 127 we read: "L'herbe appelee half eh, dont sont couverts ordinairement les terrains qui n'ont point ete cultives faute d'eau, et qu'on designe sous le nom de charaqy." I.e. land not likely to be leased or farmed by a special class of farmers. Cf. also Wehr, Arabisches Wdrter- buch fur die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart 426, who states that current usage is the same as that of Napoleon's time; Will- cocks, Egyptian Irrigation, 3rd ed., 311, where sardqi is translated "drought." Gardiner (Wilbour II, 28 and 179 n. 1) expresses serious doubts that kyyt should be restricted to high-lying lands, and gives substantial evidence for the fre- quency and generality of the use of the term; but he also subscribes to the usual Egyptological usage of the word sardqi. From the evidence cited it seems clear to me that kiyt was situated in the basins.

Note here Niemeyer, Agypten zur £eit der Mamluken, Table I, which summarizes agricultural practices before the introduction of modern farming methods. Grain and flax (the staples in almost all the documents that we have from ancient Egypt) were cultivated once a year, and almost exclusively on the lower or higher portions of the basins and the berms (especially for barley in the south) . The kiyt on which they were grown in ancient times is almost certain due to its general frequency to have been the basin lands, or at least to have included a substantial proportion of them.

But identification of kiyt with ordinary basin lands does not solve all the questions raised by the use of the term in P. Wilbour. Are these basin lands cultivated from wells during the summer? Or could the term have been extended to refer to all land of ordinary quality, whether suited for summer or ordinary flood irrigation?

It is in any case contrasted with low lying "island" land. Cf. the 20 hi-ti of ihwt hrw (low-lying fields) and 120 fyi-ti which are on the kiyt (notice the use of kiyt here as a term used to localize fields, as so often) which were given to Sebeknakht (Tylor, The Tomb of Sebeknekht pl. 7). Here again, the fields on the kiyt are by far the most extensive. The ihwt fyrw (cf. Baer, JNES 15 [1956] 116 n. 10 for the masculine adjective) occur again in the stela of A^mose (latest edition Harari, ASAE 56 [1959] 139-201), line 11, and are briefly discussed ibid. 142 n. 1.

99 Wilbour II, 62-64. I am fully convinced that Gardiner has proved that the ordinary numerals here refer only to for and all dot numerals to oipe.

4*

corresponding entry records the same field in a different form (the area is divided by four and the resulting figure is assessed at the rate of i 2/4 h/r).100 In addition the apportioning paragraphs list many fields shared with a private individual, which are assessed on a different and quite variable basis, and one that will be difficult to determine since the double entries that help to elucidate the operation where two institutions are involved are here missing.

Little more than this is certainly known about the financial operations involved in these assessments: The rates are fixed and determined solely by the category of land. Exceptions are only made for land that is not being cultivated at all (see n. 98). The rate is approximately 3^2 of the usual crop. In certain cases 3/40 of the assessment is subtracted in favor of another institution and reappears under the apportioning domain of the second in an entry of a different type. This operation suggests rather strongly that P. Wilbour is not a record of tax assessments (i.e. : from the point of view of a governmental land-owning institution, portions of its income that must be delivered to some agency of the central government and over the disposal of which the institution has no further control) but rather of income accruing to the landowning institution from their lands. If the assessments were all to be delivered to the central government there would seem to be little need for the careful double entries; if, on the other hand, P. Wilbour was a record of rents to be delivered to the different temples and other institutions, the careful apportioning of income would, of course, be essential.

Under this interpretation of P. Wilbour, it would be necessary to assume that some central agency registered the rents due to the various temples from their domains scattered throughout Egypt. That this is not entirely improbable can be seen from the Amiens Papyrus.101 The text on the recto deals with an expedi- tion of twenty-one barges to collect grain belonging to different temple domains. Most of them were at Thebes, and probably at Karnak, but Gardiner has shown that at least one is not likely to have been part of the Karnak complex.102 All these temples were, however, connected with the cult of Amon, so that joint administration of their revenues is a possibility. In the Griffith Frags, grain deliveries of the Temple of Khons, which, as we have already mentioned, may well be taxes (pp. 33L above) are brought to the granary of Amon.103 Apparently the Temple of Amon did function here as a kind of central financial agency for several temples. The evidence is far from clear, however, and that of the Turin Taxation Papyrus does not help much.104 While this text clearly records the collection by one group of agents of grain from a great variety of individuals and institutions, this could be the collection of taxes as indicated by the fact that most of the grain is delivered to the mayor of the West of Thebes, and the whole operation is carried out under the authority of the Viceroy of Nubia. This train of argument leaves us with little more than a hint that central registers of the revenues of temples and other state agencies may well have been kept; hardly a very strong argument.

The assessments of the apportioning paragraphs are frequently labelled "apportioned smw."105 We have already discussed the term above (n. 43), and while I feel that smw is unlikely to have meant "taxes," the general uncertainty about the meaning of this word makes it impossible to use the heading as an argument for the nature of P. Wilbour.

The assessments in P. Wilbour are fixed sums independent of the actual size of the crop. While this is not the practice for land leases in Saite times, the Hekanakht letters do give us one other example of a lease for a fixed sum in Pharaonic times.

100 There are some difficulties in the few cases where the original rate of assessment is not 5 hn {Wilbour II, 101-04). In the non-apportioning paragraphs the usual rate of 3/40 is indicated, but the corresponding figures in the appor- tioning paragraphs do not give the same result unless some correction factor not stated is included. The calculations are further complicated by an undue proportion of errors. Fairman's explanation {JEA 39 [1953] 121-22) eliminates many of the difficulties.

101 Gardiner, JEA 27 (1941) 37-56; RAD 1-13. "*JEA 27 (194O46. 103 Col. i, 9-16; RAD 69. 104 Gardiner, JEA 27 (1941) 22-37; RAD 35-44. ios Wilbour II, 24.

42

The last three paragraphs have not advanced our argument noticeably; we can, however, bolster our interpretation of the papyrus as a whole and the transaction involved in the apportionment by calculation. As already stated, average basin lands would yield around 9 or 10 for per aroura. Of this about 1 for had to be put aside for seed. If the 5 for assessment of P. Wilbour were taxes, the landlord and the tenant would have to share the remaining 3 to 4 h/r, and if the landlord took anything like the 3^ of the crop that we find in Saite times, the amount remaining to the cultivator would be of the order of 1 for per aroura. Is this a reasonable figure? For that matter, could the tenant survive on much less than 3 to 4 for per aroura?

The figures in P. Harris permit an approach to this question. According to Schaedel,106 Ramesses III gave the temples of Egypt 107,615 dependents (the word is tpw, "heads") and (according to my addition of the figures in Erichsen, Papyrus Harris I) 1,070,419 arouras or approximately 10 arouras per "head." The area is approximately 1 /g of the arable area of modern Egypt, probably a very much larger proportion of that of ancient Egypt, and we are surely safe in assuming that the ratio of "heads" to arouras is close to that for ancient Egypt as a whole with so large a sample at our disposal. Schaedel argues that the "heads" list only men, and estimates that a total of some 500,000 individuals were actually involved in the donations by the time wives and children are added. In this case, each individual on the temple domains would be living on 2 arouras on the average, an entirely reasonable figure, as we shall see - if we assume that the assessments in P. Wilbour are rents rather than taxes so that, with the exception of seed, the remainder of the crops would be available to the tenant.

Under this assumption, the entire 3 to 4 hn given above would be at the tenant's disposal; from 2 arouras he would have double the amount or 96 to 124 hekat. Now the hekat is 4.78 litres or 0.135 bushels (U.S.).107 A bushel of emmer weighs roughly 40 pounds, one of barley about 48. Io8 The caloric value of the digestible components of a pound of either type of grain is approximately 1,500 calories.109 Using these fig- ures we obtain about 9720 calories /hekat of barley and 8100 for emmer; 9000 calories/ 'hekat would be a convenient average for purposes of making estimates where the kind of grain is not known. From 124 hekat we obtain about 1,1 16,000 calories per year or 3300 per day; from 96 hekat we obtain a daily diet of not quite 2500 calories. These figures rest, of course, on the assumption that all of the 2 arouras available to the average person were used to raise grain, which would be the most efficient source of calories. In practice this certainly was not so; some land would be needed to grow flax and other non-edible products; some would be used for vegetables and other low-calorie foods. This would, however, probably be balanced by summer cultivation. We assume that cattle would largely be fed on pasturage, and that if grain were used to feed either cattle or their herdsmen it would come from the rents collected by the institution owning the herds. In practice, if any tenant also had to feed cattle, or if a large proportion of the lands given to the temples consisted of pastures with a correspondingly low density of human occupation, the burden on the grain-lands would only be increased to an even greater figure than the one we assumed at the beginning of this section, resulting in

106 Schaedel, Die Listen des grossen Papyrus Harris 52-56.

107 The hekat is 1/30 of a cubic cubit. Cf. the example from P. Rhind in Sethe, Lesestiicke 60-61, where 640 cubic cubits equal 4800 quadruple hekat.

108 H. K. Wilson, Grain Crops 201, 235. 109 This figure has been obtained from four sources:

K. D. Doyle, Agriculture and Irrigation in Continental and Tropical Climates 258-59. J. C. B. Ellis, The Feeding of Farm Livestock 23. Maynard and Loessli, Animal Nutrition 288. Henry and Morrison, Feeds and Feeding 403, 413.

Doyle, Ellis and Maynard give the caloric values of protein, carbohydrates and fat; Doyle, Ellis and Henry give the percentage of each component in the digestible nutrients in the grain. Using their figures one obtains:

barley emmer Doyle 1466 .... Ellis 1408 1499 Henry (components from Maynard) 1558 1505 These figures show the usual discrepancies in calorimetry familiar to anyone who has ever compared two diet

manuals, but 1500 calories per pound seems a reasonable average for both types of grain.

43

a corresponding reduction in the amount of grain available for feeding the farming population to a figure below the 2500-3300 calories per day that we arrived at above. Now this figure is quite adequate, but evi- dently it cannot stand any very substantial reduction such as would result from burdening the land not only with the growing of non-grain crops and pasturage, which will reduce the actually available number of calories somewhat in any case, but also with a heavy burden of additional rent or taxes over and above the

5 hn of P. Wilbour. This argument for our interpretation of P. Wilbour rests, of course, on Schaedel's interpretation of

the population figures in P. Harris. Assuming that these figures are to be taken quite literally and that the "heads" include women and children, so that there would be an average of 10 arouras available for each, our argument would lose its force since then 1 hn per aroura would be quite adequate; but this would have some rather unusual consequences for the composition of the population of Egypt. The present farm lands of Egypt would correspond to about 9,000,000 arouras, a figure which is certainly much too high for ancient times. There is not enough evidence available at present to give a reliable estimate of the arable area of Ramesside Egypt, and the figure of 6,000,000 used in the following paragraphs is little more than a guess based on some recently published field work; but the argument is based on proportions rather than absolute num- bers, so that the conclusions are independent of the actual area of arable land available.110 However, since this line of reasoning is one which may eventually help to estimate the population of ancient Egypt, I have decided to state what follows in terms of an unreliably estimated area.

Proceeding from an assumed 6,000,000 arouras of farm land in Ramesside times, the agricultural popu- lation of Egypt would be about 3,000,000 under Schaedel's assumption; under the other about 600,000. The latter figure seems unreasonably small in any case, but choice between the two is not entirely a matter of taste. If the cultivator on temple lands (and we must remember that they must have comprised a very size- able proportion of the area of Egypt to judge from the donations of Ramesses III) received only 1 hn out of 10, and another hn was needed for seed, there still remain 8 collected by landlord and state. These would also eventually be consumed, and probably not by the farmer, since his purchasing power would be very low indeed if he had only 1 hn income per aroura. Aside from the official bureaucracy, this grain would be even-

tually paid out in the form of wages to servants, craftsmen, non-agricultural employees of various types, cultivators of non-food crops and herdsmen. Some would be used to feed cattle. Some would be available for

storage as surpluses for export and other purposes.111 Quite a bit would undoubtedly be wasted. But even so, the greater part of the grain collected from the farmers would eventually go to feed the non-farming popula- tion; and if the farmer received 1 hn for every 8 available for the others, the only possible conclusion would be that the non-farming population outnumbered the farming population by a factor of several hundred percent, a situation characteristic of modern industrial societies but not very likely for ancient Egypt.

The situation is not changed much if we assume that the rural population of Egypt was only 1 person for every 10 arouras but that our interpretation of P. Wilbour is correct, and that the cultivator kept 3-4 hn out of every aroura he cultivated. In this case the farmer would have been one of the more prosperous members of soceity; and he as well as the landlord would have at his disposal a grain surplus sufficient to feed a non-farming industrial population larger than that of farmers and their dependents. But both the proportions of the population resulting from this assumption and the resulting prosperity of the cultivators on temple lands seem unlikely in the extreme.

The only alternative remaining then is to assume that both our interpretation of the assessments in

110 Cf. Kaiser, MDATK 17 ( 1 96 1 ) 48 ff. for a recent discussion of the evidence for the arable area of ancient times; but at present little more can be said than that it was substantially smaller than now. Kaiser gives a reduction of at least 34 for certain areas in Middle Egypt (p. 50). An area % that of modern Egypt seems a conservative guess.

44

P. Wilbour112 and Schaedel's interpretation of the figures in P. Harris are correct. In that case, the land would support a rural population of about 3,000,000, while the remaining grain, being probably used much less economically would support a much smaller non-agricultural population. With perhaps 4 for out of 10 going to the farmers and 5 to all other sources for the consumption of grain, we can perhaps hazard a guess that the total population of Egypt in Ramesside times was of the order of 4,500,000 with a very sizeable margin of error each way.113

Returning now to the question of rents: The preceding argument permits us to include the assessment rates in P. Wilbour among the evidence for rents of the order of J^ of a crop; in this case, however, a fixed sum rather than a share. The landlord's share of the crop in ancient Egypt was then in all probability likely to have been between \^ and 3^2 °f a crop, and perhaps we should add here that under the traditional methods of irrigation, one crop a year was the norm for the great majority of Egyptian farm lands.114 From this our

111 Wainwright, JEA 46 (i960) 24-28 discusses Merneptah's aid to the Hittites.

112 The information contained in P. Reinhardt will have an important bearing on the whole question of rents and taxation in ancient Egypt, but consideration will have to await the publication of this difficult text. The preliminary report, Malinine and Parker, Akten des 24. Internationalen Orientalisten-Kongresses 78-80 shows that the computations in the papyrus were extremely involved. The assessment of 15 for per aroura seems very high unless the figures ex- pressed the total yield of one of the categories of land assessed at the higher rates in P. Wilbour. This is not unlikely, since the plots are all located on a "new island."

113 For the population figures compare W. Niemeyer, Agypten zur £eit der Mameluken 163-65. Estimating the population of Egypt in the Mamluk Period is also a very difficult matter and the quoted figures vary within wide limits; Nie- meyer considers 4,500,000 to be a conservative estimate for the Arab Period. At the end of the Eighteenth Century evidence improves. A population of 2,500,000 is usually estimated, of which about 2,000,000 were rural.

An attempt to estimate the population density of ancient Egypt on an entirely different basis can be found in Hans Jenny, "Model of a Rising Nitrogen Profile in Nile Valley Alluvium," which will appear in 1962 in the Proceedings of the Soil Society of America. Prof. Jenny was kind enough to let me examine and quote from his manuscript. He concludes on the basis of preliminary studies that on an overall, average basis the soil of Egypt could provide about 13.5 lbs. of nitrogen/acre/year without the addition of nitrogen fertilizer. This would yield 8 bu. of wheat and 800 lbs. of straw; with the use of manure and the cultivation of legumes the yield would be substantially increased. As we have seen, the average yields of grain were both in ancient and recent times much greater than 8 bu. How- ever, this can apparently be explained when we consider that the nitrogen yield/acre/year is an average one for the country as a whole and smoothed out over the years. Thus the years when land was fallow or under legumes would be included in the average, which thus does not directly establish the expected yield of a field when specifically planted with grain. Jenny concludes that on the average an acre would provide enough protein for 1.75 persons from which animals have to be subtracted, or let us say about 1.5 persons/acre which corresponds to 1 person/ aroura. This agrees rather well on an overall basis with our conclusion that in the New Kingdom the density of the rural population, which subsisted on about J^ °f the crop, was approximately 0.5 person/ aroura.

114 Most of our detailed information comes from the Middle Ages and early Modern Periods, at a time when the variety of plants cultivated had changed substantially from those raised in ancient Egypt, and many plants requiring cultiva- tion at other times than the ordinary winter crop had been introduced. The terms as given in the Description de PEgypteXVlI, 16-17 are: winter crops (the main harvest, planted after the inundation) :

bayddi for actually inundated lands sitawi for crops planted at the same time on land not reached by the inundation and artificially irrigated,

summer crops (planted after the harvest of winter crops) : kaizi or saifi

flood crops (growing during the inundation in areas not flooded or protected from flooding) : damiri for crops on low lands nabdri for crops on high lands requiring artificial watering. The discussion in Niemeyer, Agypten zur £eit der Mamluken 54-62 and Table I shows the distribution of the various

kinds of crops among these periods. The staples (wheat, barley and flax) of ancient times are all cultivated in the winter. Description XVII, 135-36 gives the distribution of lands unpler these types of cultivation in various areas of Egypt. At Edfu there were in all 10,000 feddan, of which 80-100 were kaizi, 600 nabdri and the rest under winter crops. At Thebes (p. 137) 2300 feddan were under winter crops, 1000 kaizi and 700 nabdri. The nabdri lands were cultivated only once a year. In Qena again the area under winter crops was about 10 times that cultivated in the

45

uncertain figure of i/io of the crop has to be subtracted for the tax to be paid by the landlord (cf. p. 31 above), a figure that seems reasonable, though perhaps one's judgment is distorted by modern taxation. The landlord could then expect annually about 0.23-0.4 of the crop as net income, compared with a price of about 1 -1. 7 times the value of a crop. The purchaser actually expected an annual return on his investment between 25 and 33 percent - and this is a modest figure by Egyptian standards.

From the Twentieth Dynasty onwards, and presumably also earlier, the normal annual rate of interest on loans in ancient Egypt was 100 percent compounded.115 In Saite and Persian times the situation seems to have been similar, though frequently the total interest was not allowed to exceed the original loan.116 The risks involved in making loans were undoubtedly high, particularly if made to the perennially impoverished Egyptian peasant, but one can understand why a relatively prosperous and tight-fisted man such as Hekanakht appears to have preferred to rent land rather than to buy it, and to invest his grain in loans.117

Land then does not appear to have been unreasonably cheap in ancient Egypt. The prevailing rates of interest indicate a general shortage of funds among the bulk of the population, who hardly were able to enter into the kind of competition for limited arable lands that would drive the price to disproportionate heights. If one considers the numbers that Egypt is supporting now (the rural density would correspond to

2-2.5 persons per aroura), 2 aromas per person does not seem to indicate any great shortage of farm land, though of course competition between wealthy landowners and landowning institutions to expand their estates could produce the same effect on the price of land. This, however, did not happen. Whether this was due to self-restraint or lack of funds, we cannot tell. State regulation is always a possibility, though evidence for it is negligible beyond the requirement of registering anjmjt-pr at the vizier's office and obtaining official approval for the transaction."8 In the later New Kindgom such conveyances would be recorded before the local court, but there is really no reason to think that this would exercise the kind of control necessary to keep land prices from rising. But in the absence of any evidence, it is unwise to speculate further.

University of California, Berkeley

other two seasons (p. 139). In the Fayum, lands were with small exceptions (for durra) cropped only once a year (p. 143). One can safely assume that the situation was similar in ancient times. Cf. also Hurst, The Nile p. 45; Will- cocks, Egyptian Irrigation, 3rd ed., 781, Table 263 (for dates of cultivation of various crops after perennial irrigation had been widely introduced; note that the old staples are still almost exclusively cultivated in winter); The Encyclo- paedia of Islam II, 16.

115 Seidl, Ag. For. X, 54; Moller, Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie (1921) 15 ff. (P. Berlin 3048 vo. 10-1 1, Dynasty XXII); Peet, Griffith Studies 125-26 (P. Turin, Pleyte-Rossi, pl. ix-x, Ramesside).

116 Seidl, Ag. For. XX, 57-58. 117 Cf. James, The Hekanakhte Papers 8 for references to the numerous passages in the letter (Document III) and the

accounts (Documents V and VI) listing persons owing grain. Hekanakht may have owned land, though there are no clear references to this in the letters {ibid. 7-8). On the other hand, both Documents I and II devote a considerable amount of space to the rental of land, possibly 33 arouras or more (see note 73 above).

118 Lacau, Cahiers ASAE XIII, 45-46; Urk. IV, 1021, 1070, 1 1 1 1 ; the property involved in these cases is not land, but the possibility of official regulation is there.