Slavery in Ancient Egypt

The relations of slaves and masters in Egypt were patriarchal. Slaves were considered and called people, stood under the auspices of the laws, had their own legal family and property. Temple and state slaves were distinguished by a scorched stigma with the seal of the official place, which they were subject to maintenance. They were organized on a military footing, were considered part of the army, marched under the command of their officers and under their own banner ^[1] .

In Russian Egyptology, there are two opposing views on the problem of slavery in ancient Egypt . The slave-owning concept of the ancient East by V.V. Struve is widely known, the most decisive opponent of which was N. M. Nikolsky ^[2] , pointing to the small number of slaves mentioned in Egyptian and Assyrian-Babylonian documents, and the fact that they did not play an important role in production ^{[2] [3] [4] [5]} . However, after the slave formation was recorded in the Short Course of the History of the CPSU (b) in 1938, alternative opinions in Soviet historiography began to gradually disappear. After the XX Congress of the CPSU, the discussion in scientific circles resumes ^[2] .

One of the sources of slavery was war . During wars between tribes, the victors captured captives. Initially, there was no point in forcing them to work: all that a prisoner could get with his labor would be spent on his own food. Therefore, prisoners in Egypt were killed and called "killed." When the labor of people became more productive, the captives began to be left alive. Usually they, like other military booty, were taken to themselves by the leader of the tribe and other noble Egyptians. The captives began to be called "living dead."

The early kingdom waged wars and suppressed uprisings within the country. The subject of bound captives is often found in the visual arts of that time ^[6] . But Egyptian sources do not give a direct answer to the question about the use of prisoners ^[6] . Pharaoh Narmer boasted of prey from “400,000 bulls, 1,442,000 small livestock, 120,000 captives.” The conversion of so many people into slaves at the very dawn of the pharaonic kingdom is unlikely. Even with the overestimation of numbers, most likely referring to relocation ^[6] .

VV Struve believed that the main construction work and the maintenance of irrigation systems in the Ancient Kingdom were carried out by slaves ^[7] . However, he proposes to distinguish ancient Eastern slaves from antique, since a large territorial community owned slaves collectively ^[8] . According to the doctor of historical sciences I. M. Dyakonov , there is not a single reliable case of the use of slave labor outside the household during the period of the Ancient Kingdom . The leading sector in the Egyptian economy of that period was the “noble economy”. The direct producers of material wealth, who worked for the nobleman, as Dyakonov notes, for the most part, were not slaves. The indigenous people of the country worked for the nobleman, and they treated these people not like slaves. However, the nobility economy had much in common with slave-owning production, since the direct producers worked forcibly and with the help of household equipment ^[6] .

In the era of the Middle Kingdom, in addition to slaves as such (“baku”), who played a secondary role in production ^[3] , in the state there were “royal khemuu” ^[9] (usually translated as “slaves”, “servants” ^[10] ), workers ^[3] but they were not slaves in the traditional sense. Imperial Hemuu cover almost all of the exploited indigenous population of Egypt and are opposed to workers imported into the country from outside ^[9] . They constituted the bulk of the working population ^{[3] [9]} and were “slaves” or “servants” not of their immediate lord, but of the king ^[9] . Upon reaching a certain age, Hemu were distributed by profession, became farmers, artisans, warriors. Hemuu worked in tsarist and temple households, but private households of the nobility also recruited workers from among them ^[3] .

During the New Kingdom, due to the presence of a strong army, the number of slaves in Egypt increased ^{[5] [6]} . Slaveholding relations penetrated almost all sectors of Egyptian society. Slaves could even be owned by people of modest social status: shepherds, artisans, merchants ^[6] . Undoubtedly, the small slave owners used their slaves not only for personal services, but also as direct producers ^[6] . Sometimes the attitude towards slaves was much more humane than in economically more developed ancient societies, which is explained by the preservation of patriarchal slavery, which provided for the integration of the slave into the community ^[6] .

Less information on the use of foreign slaves in state and tsarist farms. The time image of Thutmose III shows how prisoners make bricks and lay walls under the supervision of overseers armed with sticks. The material evidence of the brutal treatment of forced labor can be the heavy whip found near the memorial temple of the pharaoh-woman Hatshepsut ^[6] . At the same time, the ordinary Egyptian farmer from the slave planted on the ground was distinguished only by relative freedom, the fact that he was not the “thing” of the owner ^[6] .

For Egypt, the Hellenistic era , as well as for other Hellenistic states, was characterized by the preservation along with developed slavery of ancient forms of slavery: self-sale of free people, debt slavery, etc.

The number of slaves and their role in production increased, slave labor was used in estates that arose on the royal lands and lands of the Klerukhs , and in craft workshops. A. B. Ranovich and V. V. Struve believe that in Hellenistic Egypt slavery was the predominant element of the productive forces. According to K. K. Zelin , there are no sufficient grounds for such conclusions, and ancient forms of slavery developed mainly in policies and large land holdings, he points out that "slave labor in agriculture was used primarily in Egypt by large landowners" ^[11] .

Special decrees of the Ptolemies on the registration of slaves, prohibition of their export from Egypt, on the search for runaway slaves, punishment of slaves, etc. are preserved. In wills and marriage contracts, slaves are referred to as a type of property. However, researcher A.I. Pavlovskaya claims that papyruses give a very contradictory picture of the socio-economic situation in Hellenistic Egypt: among the legal documents of this era, the legislation on slaves occupies a prominent place, but at the same time, papyruses related to slavery make up a small part of business documents , which indicates the low importance of slavery for the economy. According to Pavlovskaya, one of the reasons for the limited use of slave labor was high prices for slaves. K.K. Zelin writes that the period of the influx of slaves into Hellenistic Egypt and their special interest in operations with them did not last long, and in the 2nd-1st centuries BC. e. there are practically no indications of the use of slave labor in agriculture ^[11] .

Hellenistic Egypt is also characterized by the existence of various dependent categories of the population, located between slaves and legally free people: hyeroodules - temple workers; laborers who worked forcibly and did not have the right to leave their place of work earlier than a certain period; desmotov - convicted of crimes, prisoners of war ^[11] .

A. B. Ranovich believes that in the Roman period slavery was most widespread in Alexandria of Egypt , which was a large center typical of slave-owning society. Slavery occupied no less place here than at Ephesus and Rome . But Ranovich notes that it is difficult to make any generalizations or try to establish the percentage of slaves in relation to the entire population ^[12] .

The Bible clearly depicts the plight of slave farmers and builders ^[1] :

I. M. Dyakonov in his book “History of the Ancient East” (1988) notes that archaeological finds confirming the slavery of Israelis in Egypt and their departure from there have not yet been discovered ^[6] .

• Justice in Ancient Egypt
• Nine bows
• Slavery in Ancient Rome

• Vasilievsky M.G. , Lipovsky A.L. , Turaev B.A. Slavery // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• History of the Ancient East. Part 2. Front Asia. Egypt / B. B. Piotrovsky . - M .: The main edition of the eastern literature of the publishing house " Science ", 1988.