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| Jobs in Ancient Egypt |
Jobs in ancient Egypt is question that many search for an answer about the form of various jobs in ancient Egypt, which varied between state employees, doctors, priests, and commanders in the army, as the Egyptian army is considered the first arm to organize in ancient civilizations, so we will talk in detail about jobs in ancient Egypt to answer this the question.
Scribes & Physicians
Scribes were valued highly in ancient
Egypt as they were considered specially chosen by the god Thoth,
who inspired and presided over their craft. Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson notes
how "the power of the written word to render permanent a desired state of
affairs lay at the heart of Egyptian belief and practice" (204). It was
the scribes' responsibility to record events so they would become permanent.
The words of the scribes etched daily events in the record of eternity since it
was thought that Thoth and his consort Seshat kept the
scribes' words in the eternal libraries of the gods.
A scribe's work made him or her immortal
not only because later generations would read what they wrote but because the
gods themselves were aware of it. Seshat, patron goddess of libraries and
librarians, carefully placed one's work on her shelves, just as librarians in
her service did on earth. Most scribes were male, but there were female scribes
who lived just as comfortably as their male counterparts. A popular piece
of literature from the Old Kingdom, known as Duauf's
Instructions, advocates love for books and encourages young people to
pursue higher learning and become scribes in order to live the best life
possible.
All
priests were scribes, but not all scribes became priests. The priests needed to
be able to read and write to perform their duties, especially concerning
mortuary rituals. As doctors needed to be literate to read medical texts, they
began their training as scribes. Most diseases were thought to be inflicted by
the gods as punishment for sin or to teach a lesson, and so doctors needed to
be aware of which god (or evil spirit, or ghost, or other
supernatural agent) might be responsible.
In order
to perform their duties, they had to be able to read the religious literature
of the time, which includes works on dentistry, surgery, the setting of broken
bones, and the treatment of various illnesses. As there was no separation
between one's religion and daily life, doctors were usually priests until
later in Egypt's history when there is a secularization of the profession.
All of the
priests of the goddess Serket were doctors and this practice
continued even after the emergence of more secular physicians. As in the case
of scribes, women could practice medicine, and female doctors
were numerous. In the 4th century BCE, the Agnodice of Athens famously
traveled to Egypt to study medicine since women were held in higher regard and
had more opportunities there than in Greece.
Military
The military prior to the Middle
Kingdom was made up of regional militias conscripted by nomarchs for a
certain purpose, usually defense, and then sent to the king. At the beginning
of the 12th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom, Amenemhat I (c. 1991-c.1962 BCE)
reformed the military to create the first standing army, thus decreasing the
power and prestige of the nomarchs and putting the army directly under his
control.
After this, the military was made up of
upper-class leaders and lower-class rank-and-file members. There was the
possibility of advancement in the military, which was not affected by one's
social class. Prior to the New Kingdom, the Egyptian military was primarily
concerned with defense, but pharaohs like Tuthmose III (1458-1425 BCE)
and Ramesses II (1279-1213 BCE) led campaigns beyond Egypt's
borders in expanding the empire. Egyptians generally avoided travel
to other lands because they feared that, if they died there, they would
have greater difficulty reaching the afterlife. This belief was a definite
concern of soldiers on foreign campaigns and provisions were made to return the
bodies of the dead to Egypt for burial.
There is no evidence that women served in the military or, according to some accounts, would have wanted to. The Papyrus Lansing, to give only one example, describes life in the Egyptian army as unending misery leading to early death. It should be noted, however, that scribes (especially the author of the Papyrus Lansing) consistently depicted their job as the best and most important, and it was the scribes who left behind most of the reports on military life.
Farmers & Laborers
The lowest social class was made up of
peasant farmers who did not own the land they worked or the homes they lived
in. The land was owned by the king, members of the court, nomarchs, or priests.
A common phrase of the peasants to start the day was "Let
us work for the noble!" The peasants were almost all farmers, no matter
what other trade they cultivated (ferryman, for example). They
planted and harvested their crops, gave most of it to the landowner, and kept
some for themselves. Most had private gardens, which women tended while the men
went out to the fields.
Up until the time of the Persian invasion
of 525 BCE, the Egyptian economy operated on the barter system
and was based on agriculture. The monetary unit of ancient Egypt
was the deben, which according to historian James C. Thompson,
"functioned much as the dollar does in North America today to let
customers know the price of things, except that there was no deben coin"
(Egyptian Economy, 1). A deben was "approximately 90
grams of copper; very expensive items could also be priced in debens of silver or gold with
proportionate changes in value" (ibid). Thompson continues:
The lowest class of society produced the
goods used in trade and therefore provided the means for the entire culture to
thrive. These peasants also made up the labor force that built the pyramids
and other monuments of Egypt. When the Nile River flooded
its banks, farming became impossible and the men and women would go to work on
the king's projects. This work was always compensated, and the claim that any
of the great structures of Egypt were built by slave labor - especially the
claim of the biblical Book of Exodus that these were Hebrew slaves oppressed by
Egyptian tyrants - is not supported by any literary or physical evidence at any
time in Egypt's history. The claim by certain authors such as Egyptologist
David Rohl that one misses the evidence of a mass enslavement of Hebrews by
looking at the wrong time period is untenable since no such evidence exists no
matter what period of Egyptian history one examines.
Work on monuments like the pyramids and
their mortuary complexes, temples, and obelisks provided the only opportunity
for upward mobility of the peasantry. Especially skilled artists and engravers
were in high demand in Egypt and were better paid than unskilled laborers who
simply moved the stones for the buildings from one place to another. Peasant
farmers could also improve their status by practicing a craft to provide the
vases, bowls, plates, and other ceramics people needed. Skilled carpenters
could make a good living by creating tables, desks, chairs, beds, and storage chests,
and painters were required for the decoration of upper-class homes, palaces, tombs,
and monuments.
Brewers were also highly respected, and
breweries were sometimes run by women. In early Egyptian history, in fact, they
seem to have been entirely operated by females. Beer was the
most popular drink in ancient Egypt and was frequently used as compensation
(wine was never that popular except among royalty). Workers at the Giza plateau
were given a beer ration three times a day. The beverage was thought to have
been given to the people by the god Osiris, and breweries were presided over by
the goddess Tenenet. Beer was taken very seriously by the Egyptians as the
Greek pharaoh Cleopatra VII (69-30 BCE) learned when she
imposed a beer tax; her popularity plummeted more for this one tax than for her
wars with Rome.
The lower class could also find
opportunities through work in metals, gems, and sculpting. The exquisite jewelry
of ancient Egypt, gems mounted delicately in ornate settings, was created by
members of the peasantry. These people, the majority of the Egyptian
population, also filled the ranks of the army, and in rare cases, could become
scribes. One's job and position in society, however, were usually handed down to
one's son.
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