Slavery and Servitude in Late Period Egypt (c. 900–330 BC) New

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Summary	This historical study sets out to define the nature and extent of slavery in Late Period Egypt, i.e. from the end of the Third Intermediate Period (664 BC) to the beginning of the Ptolemaic Period (330 BC). To that end, the work revolves around four broad aims: (1) delineating the scope of usage of terminology used in Egyptian and Aramaic documentation to refer to enslaved persons; (2) contextualizing enslavement within Late Period labour and sale practices; (3) exploring the lived experience of enslaved persons, including the social alienation of enslavement; and (4) discussing the connections between enslavement and other social systems of patronage and protection in Late Period Egypt, including familial relationships. Achieving the first goal is a matter of examining the Egyptian and Aramaic terms which appear with reference to enslavement and servitude within the context of the documents in which they appear, and the implications of that context. This focus on the semantics of subordinate labour also leads to a discussion on whether the English term ‘slave’ or ‘enslaved person’ is taxonomically appropriate for the subordinate labour relationships of Late Period Egypt, which necessarily requires an examination of secondary literature regarding the definition of slavery. Contextualizing enslavement within Late Period labour and sale practices requires an understanding of pricing of both commodities and labour, to provide a basis for determining comparative pricing of labour. Lastly, this monograph discusses the connections between enslavement and other social systems of patronage and protection in Late Period Egypt through an analysis of the obligations a subordinate had to his superior, as well as the reverse, that is, the obligations a superior had to his subordinate, whether or not the superior actually performed these obligations. The latter is investigated specifically with regard to protection: from debt, starvation, or abuse. – The chief takeaways from this study are split into four: first, that a practice which can be described as slavery in modern legal taxonomy took place in Late Period Egypt; second, that this practice took the form of small-scale, personal transactions which often overlapped with familial obligations and other systems of patronage and protection; third, that the value of enslaved persons lay in their dual purpose as labourers and economic tools; and finally, that the majority of enslaved persons in Egypt originated from Egypt, in contrast with earlier and later periods.
Table of Contents	Abbreviations and List of Tables 1. Introduction: Approaching Late Period Enslavement 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Objectives of the work 1.3 Historical overview (800–330 BC) 1.4 The open corpus of textual sources 1.4.1 References to textual sources 1.5. Methods: philology, economy, and sociology 1.6 Outline 2. Languages and Terminology 2.1 Introduction: the languages of Late Period Egypt 2.2 Demotic Egyptian 2.2.1 bꜣk 2.2.2 nmḥ 2.2.3 ỉr bꜣk and ỉr nmḥ 2.2.4 ẖl 2.3 Hieroglyphs 2.3.1 Ḥm 2.4 Abnormal Hieratic 2.4.1 ḳḏwḏ n mḥ and rmṯ n mḥ 2.5 Aramaic 2.5.1 ʿbd 2.5.2 ʾmh 2.5.3 ʿlym 2.5.4 grd 2.5.5 Undefined terms 2.6 Terminology: summary 3. Sale , Leasing, and Ownership 3.1 Introduction: buying, owning, and selling property in Late Period Egypt 3.1.1 Sale, property, ownership, and slavery studies 3.2 Sale in the Egyptian textual tradition 3.2.1 Abnormal Hieratic sale formulae 3.2.2 Demotic sale formulae 3.2.3 Demotic and Abnormal Hieratic sales 3.2.4 Buying and selling people in the Egyptian textual record 3.2.5 Documents styled as sales 3.3 Sale in the Aramaic textual record 3.3.1 Aramaic sales 3.3.2 Buying and selling people in the Aramaic textual record 3.4 Leases 3.4.1 Late Period leases 3.4.2 Leasing of persons 3.4.3 ‘Forever’ 3.5 Ownership and possession 3.5.1 Defining possession and ownership in Late Period Egypt 3.5.2 ‘… And obligations’ 3.6 Conclusions 4. Pricing, Labour, and the Price of Labour 4.1 Introduction: prices, wages, and the commodification of labour 4.2 Labour as a commodity 4.2.1 Skilled labour, labour supply, and labour availability 4.3 Prices, systems of exchange, and markets 4.3.1 Egyptian 4.3.2 Aramaic 4.4 Markets, silver, and redistribution 4.5 Late Period commodity prices 4.5.1 Land and cattle 4.5.2 The cost of marriage and dowry lists 4.5.3 Other commodities 4.5.4 Penalties 4.5.5 Commodity prices: a summary 4.6 The price of labour 4.6.1 Wages 4.6.2 Imported labour 4.6.3 The cost of leased labour 4.7 The price of enslaved persons 4.7.1 Supply of slave labour in the Late period 4.7.2 Prices before, during, and after the Late Period 4.7.3 Comparative prices of enslaved persons in the eastern Mediterranean 4.7.4 The price of supporting enslaved persons 4.8 Conclusions: the price and cost of enslaved persons as commodities 5. Identity, Personhood, and Social Death 5.1 Introduction: onomastics, defining enslavement, and characterising forced labour 5.2 Onomastics and epithets 5.2.1 Renaming of enslaved persons 5.2.2 Linguistic origins of names 5.2.3 Filiation, the absence of filiation, and onomastic markers of enslavement 5.3 Assessing ‘social death’ in the Late Period 5.3.1 Renaming and absence of filiation 5.3.2 Branding as social alienation 5.4 Entry, exit, and extraction: characterising enslavement in Late Period Egypt 5.4.1 Entry into enslaved status 5.4.2 Exit from enslaved status 5.4.3 Labour extraction 5.5 Conclusions: between social death and personhood 6. Conclusions: Enslaved Persons and Enslavement in Late Period Egypt 6.1 Slaves, labourers, economic tools, and the role of protection 6.2 Summary of findings 6.2.1 ‘Slavery’ in modern legal taxonomy 6.2.2 Personal transactions, patronage, and protection 6.2.3 Enslaved persons as economic tools and stores of wealth 6.2.4 Geographic and social origins 6.3 Implications and future directions Appendix 1: Textual Sources Appendix 2: Names of Enslaved Persons Names in Egyptian sources Names in Aramaic sources Appendix 3: Texts in the Corpus Concordance A note on translation AH1. Sale of a ‘man of the north’ AH2. Sale of a ‘man of the north’ AH3. Quitclaim involving a ‘man of the north’ AH4. Sale or lease of a ‘man of the north’ AH5. Sale of a ‘Gazan of the north’ D1. Self-sale as slave D2. Self-sale or acknowledgement as slave D3. Transfer of ownership D4. Acknowledgement of ownership D5. Self-sale as a slave D6. Negotiation of food provisions between an enslaved man and owner D7. Self-sale as son D8. Sale of a slave D9. Re-sale of slave D10. Sale and cession of two slaves A1. Transfer of slaves A2. Fragmentary note of marked slaves A3. Escaped slaves A4. Request for release of slaves A5. Acquisition and marking of enslaved persons A6. Inheritance division A7. Marriage contract of an enslaved woman to an unenslaved man A8. Manumission of an enslaved woman and her daughter A9. Adoption of an ʿlym A10. Fragmentary conveyance of multiple slaves A11. Possible distraint of slave A12. Court record involving slaves A13. Complaint regarding three slaves A14. Complaint regarding illegal enslavement A15. Court record regarding ʿbdn and valuables A16. Dispute over ʿbdn A17. Witness list with ‘sons of the house’ A18. Letter regarding a leased? female slave H1. Abydos Stela of Sheshonq H2. Apanage Stela of Iuwelot Bibliography Index

Summary

This historical study sets out to define the nature and extent of slavery in Late Period Egypt, i.e. from the end of the Third Intermediate Period (664 BC) to the beginning of the Ptolemaic Period (330 BC). To that end, the work revolves around four broad aims: (1) delineating the scope of usage of terminology used in Egyptian and Aramaic documentation to refer to enslaved persons; (2) contextualizing enslavement within Late Period labour and sale practices; (3) exploring the lived experience of enslaved persons, including the social alienation of enslavement; and (4) discussing the connections between enslavement and other social systems of patronage and protection in Late Period Egypt, including familial relationships. Achieving the first goal is a matter of examining the Egyptian and Aramaic terms which appear with reference to enslavement and servitude within the context of the documents in which they appear, and the implications of that context. This focus on the semantics of subordinate labour also leads to a discussion on whether the English term ‘slave’ or ‘enslaved person’ is taxonomically appropriate for the subordinate labour relationships of Late Period Egypt, which necessarily requires an examination of secondary literature regarding the definition of slavery. Contextualizing enslavement within Late Period labour and sale practices requires an understanding of pricing of both commodities and labour, to provide a basis for determining comparative pricing of labour. Lastly, this monograph discusses the connections between enslavement and other social systems of patronage and protection in Late Period Egypt through an analysis of the obligations a subordinate had to his superior, as well as the reverse, that is, the obligations a superior had to his subordinate, whether or not the superior actually performed these obligations. The latter is investigated specifically with regard to protection: from debt, starvation, or abuse. – The chief takeaways from this study are split into four: first, that a practice which can be described as slavery in modern legal taxonomy took place in Late Period Egypt; second, that this practice took the form of small-scale, personal transactions which often overlapped with familial obligations and other systems of patronage and protection; third, that the value of enslaved persons lay in their dual purpose as labourers and economic tools; and finally, that the majority of enslaved persons in Egypt originated from Egypt, in contrast with earlier and later periods.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations and List of Tables

1. Introduction: Approaching Late Period Enslavement

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Objectives of the work

1.3 Historical overview (800–330 BC)

1.4 The open corpus of textual sources

1.4.1 References to textual sources

1.5. Methods: philology, economy, and sociology

1.6 Outline

2. Languages and Terminology

2.1 Introduction: the languages of Late Period Egypt

2.2 Demotic Egyptian

2.2.1 bꜣk

2.2.2 nmḥ

2.2.3 ỉr bꜣk and ỉr nmḥ

2.2.4 ẖl

2.3 Hieroglyphs

2.3.1 Ḥm

2.4 Abnormal Hieratic

2.4.1 ḳḏwḏ n mḥ and rmṯ n mḥ

2.5 Aramaic

2.5.1 ʿbd

2.5.2 ʾmh

2.5.3 ʿlym

2.5.4 grd

2.5.5 Undefined terms

2.6 Terminology: summary

3. Sale , Leasing, and Ownership

3.1 Introduction: buying, owning, and selling property in Late Period Egypt

3.1.1 Sale, property, ownership, and slavery studies

3.2 Sale in the Egyptian textual tradition

3.2.1 Abnormal Hieratic sale formulae

3.2.2 Demotic sale formulae

3.2.3 Demotic and Abnormal Hieratic sales

3.2.4 Buying and selling people in the Egyptian textual record

3.2.5 Documents styled as sales

3.3 Sale in the Aramaic textual record

3.3.1 Aramaic sales

3.3.2 Buying and selling people in the Aramaic textual record

3.4 Leases

3.4.1 Late Period leases

3.4.2 Leasing of persons

3.4.3 ‘Forever’

3.5 Ownership and possession

3.5.1 Defining possession and ownership in Late Period Egypt

3.5.2 ‘… And obligations’

3.6 Conclusions

4. Pricing, Labour, and the Price of Labour

4.1 Introduction: prices, wages, and the commodification of labour

4.2 Labour as a commodity

4.2.1 Skilled labour, labour supply, and labour availability

4.3 Prices, systems of exchange, and markets

4.3.1 Egyptian

4.3.2 Aramaic

4.4 Markets, silver, and redistribution

4.5 Late Period commodity prices

4.5.1 Land and cattle

4.5.2 The cost of marriage and dowry lists

4.5.3 Other commodities

4.5.4 Penalties

4.5.5 Commodity prices: a summary

4.6 The price of labour

4.6.1 Wages

4.6.2 Imported labour

4.6.3 The cost of leased labour

4.7 The price of enslaved persons

4.7.1 Supply of slave labour in the Late period

4.7.2 Prices before, during, and after the Late Period

4.7.3 Comparative prices of enslaved persons in the eastern Mediterranean

4.7.4 The price of supporting enslaved persons

4.8 Conclusions: the price and cost of enslaved persons as commodities

5. Identity, Personhood, and Social Death

5.1 Introduction: onomastics, defining enslavement, and characterising forced labour

5.2 Onomastics and epithets

5.2.1 Renaming of enslaved persons

5.2.2 Linguistic origins of names

5.2.3 Filiation, the absence of filiation, and onomastic markers of enslavement

5.3 Assessing ‘social death’ in the Late Period

5.3.1 Renaming and absence of filiation

5.3.2 Branding as social alienation

5.4 Entry, exit, and extraction: characterising enslavement in Late Period Egypt

5.4.1 Entry into enslaved status

5.4.2 Exit from enslaved status

5.4.3 Labour extraction

5.5 Conclusions: between social death and personhood

6. Conclusions: Enslaved Persons and Enslavement in Late Period Egypt

6.1 Slaves, labourers, economic tools, and the role of protection

6.2 Summary of findings

6.2.1 ‘Slavery’ in modern legal taxonomy

6.2.2 Personal transactions, patronage, and protection

6.2.3 Enslaved persons as economic tools and stores of wealth

6.2.4 Geographic and social origins

6.3 Implications and future directions

Appendix 1: Textual Sources

Appendix 2: Names of Enslaved Persons

Names in Egyptian sources

Names in Aramaic sources

Appendix 3: Texts in the Corpus

Concordance

A note on translation

AH1. Sale of a ‘man of the north’

AH2. Sale of a ‘man of the north’

AH3. Quitclaim involving a ‘man of the north’

AH4. Sale or lease of a ‘man of the north’

AH5. Sale of a ‘Gazan of the north’

D1. Self-sale as slave

D2. Self-sale or acknowledgement as slave

D3. Transfer of ownership

D4. Acknowledgement of ownership

D5. Self-sale as a slave

D6. Negotiation of food provisions between an enslaved man and owner

D7. Self-sale as son

D8. Sale of a slave

D9. Re-sale of slave

D10. Sale and cession of two slaves

A1. Transfer of slaves

A2. Fragmentary note of marked slaves

A3. Escaped slaves

A4. Request for release of slaves

A5. Acquisition and marking of enslaved persons

A6. Inheritance division

A7. Marriage contract of an enslaved woman to an unenslaved man

A8. Manumission of an enslaved woman and her daughter

A9. Adoption of an ʿlym

A10. Fragmentary conveyance of multiple slaves

A11. Possible distraint of slave

A12. Court record involving slaves

A13. Complaint regarding three slaves

A14. Complaint regarding illegal enslavement

A15. Court record regarding ʿbdn and valuables

A16. Dispute over ʿbdn

A17. Witness list with ‘sons of the house’

A18. Letter regarding a leased? female slave

H1. Abydos Stela of Sheshonq

H2. Apanage Stela of Iuwelot

Bibliography

Index

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