From Nile Harvests to Tomb Builders

Timeline: Grain and Work in Ancient Egypt

By about 5000 BCE: Farming villages spread along the Nile. Farmers plant wheat and barley in the wet mud left behind when the yearly flood goes down.

About 3200 BCE: The earliest Egyptian hieroglyphs appear, on labels and records found in royal tombs.

About 3100 BCE: Upper and Lower Egypt are united under one king.

About 2580–2560 BCE: The Great Pyramid is built at Giza for the pharaoh Khufu. Nearby, archaeologists have found a workers' town with large bakeries and breweries that fed thousands of laborers.

About 2000 BCE: A scribe writes the text now called the Satire of the Trades (see the source below).

About 1500–1070 BCE: Craft workers living in the village of Deir el-Medina cut and paint royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. They are paid in grain from royal storehouses.

About 1470 BCE: Hatshepsut, a woman who ruled as pharaoh, sends a trading expedition by ship to the land of Punt. It returns with incense, ebony and gold.

About 1157 BCE: When their grain payments are weeks late, the Deir el-Medina workers stop work and protest, one of the earliest recorded strikes. A scribe records it on papyrus.

The Gift of the Flood

1Almost no rain falls on most of Egypt. Yet for thousands of years, Egypt was one of the richest farming lands in the ancient world. Each summer, heavy rains far to the south made the Nile rise and spread over its banks. When the water went down, it left a layer of dark, rich mud. Egyptians called their land Kemet, "the black land," after this soil.

2In good years, farm families harvested more wheat and barley than they could eat. The government collected part of every harvest as a tax. Scribes measured each field and recorded how much grain each farmer owed. The grain was stored in large royal granaries and handed out as payment to people who worked for the pharaoh.

3Thousands of Egyptians did not farm at all. Bakers, brewers, stonecutters, potters, metalworkers, weavers of linen and painters worked for the pharaoh, the temples or nobles, and many were paid in bread, beer and grain. Few Egyptians could read or write. Scribes trained for years at special schools, and officials relied on them to keep records of harvests, taxes and workers.

4Historians often picture Egyptian society as a pyramid. At the top was the pharaoh. Below were nobles, priests and high officials, who controlled much of the land and the temples. Next came scribes, then skilled craft workers and merchants. Farmers, the largest group, were near the bottom, and enslaved people, often prisoners of war, were at the bottom. Most people stayed in the class they were born into, though a few rose by becoming scribes.

5Extra grain, linen and papyrus also gave Egypt goods to trade. Egypt had few tall trees, so traders sailed to the port of Byblos, on the coast of present-day Lebanon, to get cedar wood for ships and buildings. Gold came from Nubia, to the south.

Adapted from a translation of the Satire of the Trades

I have seen the metalworker at work at the mouth of his furnace. His fingers are like the skin of a crocodile, and he smells worse than fish eggs.

The potter is covered with clay. He digs in the mud more than a pig does, to bake his pots.

The field worker's labor never ends. He is worn out, and his clothes are always dirty.

Put writing in your heart, so that you may protect yourself from hard labor of every kind. Look, there is no job without a boss except the scribe's: he is the boss.