THE WEALTH OF THE NILE -- THE CULTURE AND ECONOMY OF ANCIENT EGYPT

Ancient Egypt had what we today call a 'command economy'.

The economy was managed by a specialized bureaucracy which first appeared in the Early Dynastic Period. This administrative structure lasted well into Roman times - over 3,500 years. Using the Nile's waterways for transport, hieroglyphics for record-keeping, and the authority of the pharaoh for enforcement, these administrators controlled and monitored much if not most of the economic activity in the Nile Valley.

Most likely these bureaucrats did not tell the farmers exactly what to grow.

But every year, after the Nile flood, they remeasured, surveyed and reassigned the land based on past assignments. They assessed the expected crops, collected part of the produce as taxes, and stored and redistributed it.

Storage and redistribution were handled on a local basis. Regional storehouses provided produce in cases of local food shortage.

Bureaucrats also managed Egypt's mighty public works programs. Mostly religious in character, they often involved tens of thousands of workers, craftsmen and managers and all the necessary logistical support.

For most of Egyptian history, the bureaucracy was commanded by the vizier, or chief minister (tjaty in Egyptian). This powerful position, administratively just under the pharaoh himself.

Egypt was a patchwork of mostly autarkic households and domains. After the taxes were paid, domain administrators and successful householders stored surpluses for future use or exchanged them on the market. The percentage of produce and even manufactured goods which reached markets was probably small. It was of marginal importance to the survival of the individual producer, but provided part of the economic base for the developing Egyptian high culture.

Much of the trade beyond local exchanges appears to have been in the hands of wholesale merchants acting for the crown or the great temple estates. Market forces seem to have played a role above all during the periods when the administration broke down.

Major changes to the early barter system began to occur only with the influx of foreigners and the introduction of coined money in the Late Period.

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The administration was involved in everything the farmer did, from the assignment of the land to the collecting of the taxes:

Before the harvest began, surveyors, scribes, supervisors and inspectors came to measured the size of the fields and estimated the quantity of grain

These officials fixed the tax the peasant had to give up to the royal treasury or the representative of one of the gods, among whom Amen had the vastest and best properties.

Scribes trying to impress their pupils with the harshness of a peasant's daily struggle for survival, may have slightly exaggerated the methods used by tax-collectors, but Egyptian officials were not noted for the sparing use of the rod (nor have peasants ever shown an alacrity to part with the fruit of their labour)

Corn that was not destined for immediate consumption was stored in communal granaries, which served as a kind of bank.

The boundaries of the fields were marked with boundary stones. These had to be replaced frequently after the inundation, based on cadastral records. An oath of the kind "I swear by the great god that is in heaven that the right boundary stone has been set up" was sworn at their erection.

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