The last of these may be taken for granted, but is just as essential in life
as a social variable. A child born as son of the king or high official would
have had radically different expectations for life to those of the daughter
of a farmer, or the son of a barber. Throughout history Egyptian society is
a stratified society, with a ruling elite of uncertain size at the top, and
the agricultural labourers at the bottom. The social differences between the
different groups are expressed in various ways but are always very clearly
visible, and important for the social identification of the individual. Most
written and pictorial sources give the point of view of the wealthier classes,
while we depend largely on archaeology for supplementing this for the lower
classes.
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Compare the volume and the size of some tombs of the first
and Fourth Dynasty. The time people spent on building a monument is one
clear indicator of social status. |
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the king
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The king had a special status, which is expressed by his
monuments. The tomb of a high official and of a poor farmer might have
been different in size, but in theory they could display the same features.
A royal tomb was always different. In the Old and New Kingdom pyramids
were built, while officials were buried in mastabas. In the New Kingdom
king tombs were decorated with special texts (Amduat), only rarely known
from contemporary private tombs. |
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The special status of the king was also expressed in other
ways: the king wore a crown, the king had a special titulary. However,
is this a reflection of social class, or is kingship entirely within the
field of ideology (see kingship)? |
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The women nearest to the king also had a special status.
The name of the wife of the king was, from the Second Intermediate Period,
written in a cartouche, and several Old and Middle Kingdom wives of kings
were buried in a pyramid. Again, is this class or an expression of kingship
ideology (see women near the king)?
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the ruling class
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It is not known to what extent the royal family and the
high court officials were connected by family ties. There is clear evidence
that the officials of the Old Kingdom were often sons of, or at least
related to, the king. For example, the vizier Nefermaat was highly likely
a son of king Seneferu (Old
Kingdom fourth Dynasty). In the Middle and New Kingdom the highest officials
were often members of the same families, whose members held important
positions at court and across the country. |
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Social status is expressed very directly in art. The main
person in a relief or painting is always shown as the biggest figure.
Servants are shown as much smaller. |
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Craftsmen
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The miserable lives of a whole range of craftsmen are described
in the 'Satire of Trades'
- a perfect example of how ancient Egyptian writings present physical
work as secondary, while the profession of accountant/writer ('scribe')
was seen as the most important. The best documented group of Egyptian
craftsmen are the people living at Deir el-Medina. However, they worked
on the decoration of the tomb of the reigning king, and therefore they
enjoyed a special, quite atypical status. |
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Farmers
|
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Most part of the Egyptian population must have been farmers
or working in food production. There is little written evidence about
these people, and almost no rural settlement archaeology; fortunately,
funerary archaeology (their tombs) can reveal to us a little more about
these people. |
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Marginalised groups
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| Most societies co-exist with a number of people, not living
in organised structures. From both archaeology and written sources there
is very little known about such people. They are hard to identify in the
archaeological record, and do not appear often in writings, other than
in literary settings. The Tale
of Khuninpu relates the injustice that such a marginalised group might
suffer: its hero lives in the marginal territory of the Wadi Natrun, west
of the western Delta, and is robbed of his last belongings on his way
to market. Such individuals, collecting goods at the desert edge and living
from small-scale trading, are almost invisible outside such exceptional
self-critical compositions. |
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Slaves
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| Different societies and authors use different definitions
of slavery, and there is little agreement on the existence or prominence
of slavery in ancient Egypt. The Egyptian term Hm is often translated
into English as slave, but also 'serf' and 'servant'. In the Old and Middle
Kingdom people on great estates are sometimes designated by the Egyptian
word mryt; if somebody bought a certain estate, than it seems that he
also bought the meryt people working on it. There are also legal documents
in the Middle Kingdom recording the 'sale' of individuals: similar transactions
are well attested for the New Kingdom (Allam
2001). However, even in such cases, are the 'sales' really the transfer
of ownership of individuals, or do they refer to transfers of rights to
labour? |