plentiful during the New Kingdom. Such evidence includes
off ering and trading scenes among individuals or between
the state authorities and the populace as well as transactions
and gift exchanges between the state and foreign traders, dip-
lomats, and rulers.
Th e second group of sources includes administrative
documents and fi nancial records from temples, tombs, or pri-
vate individuals that attest to actual economic transactions.
Th ey are preserved mostly on papyrus rolls in a quite frag-
mentary nature, are written in hieratic handwriting (refer-
ring to an informal expression of Egyptian hieroglyphs), and
include complicated technical terms. Th e best examples are
the papyrus Abusir, which describes daily economic activi-
ties from t he mor tuar y temple of Neferirkare, a Fift h Dynasty
ruler (ca. 2446–2426 b.c.e.) at the region of Abusir (Lower
Egypt), and papyrus Boulaq 18, which records 23 days of eco-
nomic transactions at the Th eban residence of the Th irteenth
Dynasty ruler Sobekhotep II (ca. 1745 b.c.e.).
Individual economic transactions were recorded on ce-
ramic or stone ostraca (fragments of pottery with inscriptions),
such as those from workmen’s village at Deir el-Medina, dat-
ing to the later New Kingdom. Th e ostraca include informa-
tion about the prices of certain commodities. Because of the
scanty and personal character of the material, though, impor-
tant details, such as the date and time of the transactions or
description of the traded goods, were oft en omitted.
In spite of these omissions, useful information concern-
ing the basic principles and values of the ancient Egyptian
economic system can be deduced. In many respects, the
Egyptian economy showed several diff erences from our mod-
ern perspective, and it was centered on the following three
principles: the principle of barter and market exchange, that
of redistribution, and that of reciprocity and tributes. Tying
these factors together were the centralized state authority
(the pharaoh) and the religious institutions.PRICE UNITS
One major diff erence from our modern economic system
was the lack of coinage and true money to store and trans-
port wealth throughout the Pharaonic Period (ca. 3050–712
b.c.e.). Th e import and use of money were inaugurated to-
ward the fi rst millennium b.c.e. by foreign mercenaries in
the armies of the pharaoh. At fi rst the native Egyptians did
not recognize the value of coined money, regarding the coins
merely as artistic objects in gold or silver, appreciated mainly
by the metalworkers.Th e Great Harris Papyrus, from Th ebes, probably Deir el-Medina, Egypt, during the reign of Ramses IV, around 1200 b.c.e.; the scene is of the
king making a donation of goods (including 309,950 sacks of grain and a quantity of metals and semiprecious stone). (© Th e Trustees of the British
Museum)
economy: Egypt 347