Foreign lands were also obliged to contribute to the an-
nual levy if they were regarded as proper Egyptian cities aft er
their conquest or surrender to the Egyptian authorities. Th ey
paid their taxes through gift s or tributes to the pharaoh and
the state, which might consist of precious metals (gold, silver,
lapis lazuli), chariots, horses, cattle, and people to labor as
servants or serfs.
RECIPROCITY AND FOREIGN TRIBUTES
One characteristic aspect of the trade economy in ancient
Egypt was the gift exchange. It existed in two forms: as gift s
between the king and his populace and as diplomatic trib-
utes from allies and foreign parties to the pharaoh and the
Egyptian state, especially during the Middle Kingdom (ca.
2040–1640 b.c.e.) and New Kingdom (ca. 1550–1070 b.c.e.).
Donations from the Egyptian populace to the pharaoh
were conceived as tributes to both the divine and political
status of the king. Th e Egyptians off ered precious objects and
commodities to receive internal peace and stability from the
king. Th is practice can be traced as far back as the Old King-
dom. For example, in the step pyramid of the king Djoser
(ca. 2630–ca. 2611 b.c.e.) at Saqqara—the fi rst monumental
structure constructed exclusively from stone—several in-
scribed jars were found that attested to the continued prac-
tice of giving gift s to the king. Gift giving has been recorded
in account papyri from the mortuary temple of the pharaoh
Sesostris II (ca. 1897–ca. 1878 b.c.e.) at el-Lahun, as well as
from the papyrus Abusir and historical texts from the New
Kingdom.
Th e gift exchange was reciprocal. Th e king honored the
off erings and repaid the donors with equally valuable gift s. For
example, one Egyptian source refers to the king’s gift s to his
liegemen and locates the ritual at which they were distributed
at the forecourt of the palace. Diplomatic gift s were off ered
to the pharaoh from foreign rulers as evidence of existing or
prospective allies. A diplomatic gift tended to convey social
connotations rather than economic value. It was received with
special care by the Egyptian authorities on a specifi c day of
the year, and the whole process was ritualized and closely con-
nected with the celebration of the New Year’s festival. Th e fi rst
evidence of such foreign “tribute scenes” is recorded on the
walls of the funerary complex of Khnumhotep, a monarch in
the region of Beni Hasan (Lower Egypt) at the beginning of
the second millennium b.c.e. A caravan of Levantine men and
women are shown off ering to the pharaoh a special lead ore
that was used by the Egyptians as eye paint.
Th e custom of the diplomatic gift reached its peak dur-
ing the New Kingdom, when the foreign expeditions of the
pharaohs led to increasing contacts with foreign lands, from
Libya in the west to Nubia in the south and territories in the
Near East. Th is aspect of economic practice is best docu-
mented in the royal correspondence between the Egyptian
king and the rulers of the Near East, the so-called Amarna
Letters. Th ese are clay tablets that were found in the city of
Tel el-Amarna (Upper Egypt), the ancient site of the palace
of King Amenhotep IV (better known as Akhenaten). Th e
collection consists of about 350 letters from the mid-14th
century b.c.e. between the Egyptian state of the Eighteenth
Dynasty and the rulers of the ancient territories in the Near
East. Th e clay letters were inscribed in cuneiform script—the
writing system used throughout western Asia at the time—
and mostly in the language of Akkadian (Babylonian), the
common language of international relations. Th e correspon-
dence dealt with a variety of issues: alliance, strategic cases,
trade, dynastic marriage, foreign gift s and tributes, quarrels
between vassals, and legal and diplomatic issues.
Foreign tributes could include precious items or com-
modities that could not be found in the Egyptian territory.
Th ey were not just economic transactions but had diplomatic
connotations, where the pharaoh was acclaimed as the major
delineator of the action on behalf of the Egyptian society and
in a superior position to the foreign representatives. In many
cases these foreign tributes were combined with diplomatic
marriages between members of the foreign and Egyptian
courts. Th us, in Amarna Letter 22, the king of the Near East-
ern kingdom of Mittani, Tushratta, gave his daughter to the
king of Egypt to be his wife, together with precious gift s and
various commodities.THE MIDDLE EAST
BY JAMES A. CORRICK
Th ere was no one single economy in the ancient Near East.
Still, there were several factors that were commonplace. For
the most part Near Eastern societies were agricultural in na-
ture, and thus the growing of crops and the raising of animals
were important economic activities. Equally common were
other economic elements such as taxation, trade, and tribute
from war. Prior to the fourth millennium b.c.e., however,
except for agriculture, other economic pursuits were of little
importance, as small farming communities were fairly self-
suffi cient, with their residents providing most of what they
needed themselves. With the appearance of the fi rst cities,
more complex economies emerged.SUMER
Around 3500 b.c.e. southern Mesopotamia came under the
control of the Sumerians and became the site of several in-
dependent city-states, the largest being Uruk. Each of these
Sumerian states had a distributive economy, one in which
a central authority collected food and other goods, stored
these collections, and then redistributed them according to
the people’s social positions or needs. Th e collection of food
and goods was a form of taxation. In each Sumerian city ad-
ministrators—priests and bureaucrats—required that each
household pay t his ta x. Accordingly, par t of what a household
(which could be either a nuclear or extended family) grew,
raised, or made was turned over to the city’s temple and its
palace, the headquarters of the secular authorities. Sume-
rians paid taxes on their crops and livestock, on boats they350 economy: The Middle East