Serge Lancel, Carthage: A History, trans. Antonia Nevill (Oxford,
U.K.: Blackwell, 1995).
Bill Manley, Th e Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Egypt (New
York: Penguin, 1996).
Colin McEvedy, Th e New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, 2nd ed.
(New York: Penguin Books, 2002).
Chris Scarre, Th e Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome (New
York: Penguin Books, 1995).
Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller, Th e Blood of Kings: Dynasty and
Ritual in Maya Art (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1986).
▶ employment and labor
introduction
Among the most ancient civilizations “employment” or “la-
bor” as an institution would have been an entirely foreign
concept. Th e daily goal of early peoples was to ensure survival
by having enough to eat. Accordingly, most labor involved
the search for or production of food. Other chores were prob-
ably done communally, such as the building of huts for shelter
or the construction of a boat or raft. In agricultural societies
it would have been impossible for one person or one family to
carry out the labor-intensive tasks necessary for agricultural
production. Th us, ancient societies learned to pool their ef-
forts in such public works projects as terracing agricultural
land, building canals and dikes, irrigating fi elds, and drain-
ing swamps. As civilizations advanced and as farmers were
able to produce surplus food, systems of employment and
labor became more organized and advanced. In time special-
izations developed, including architects, stonemasons, plas-
terers, and sculptors. Meanwhile, a peasant class continued
to produce food.
“Labor” was not something that was particularly valued
in the ancient world. Laborers frequently occupied nearly the
lowest rung of the social order, and because they oft en lacked
skills, they were not held in high esteem. In some societies,
such as ancient Greece and Rome, slaves and prisoners of war
provided most of the physical labor. In ancient Egypt slave
labor may have been used to construct such monuments as
the pyramids. Additionally, large numbers of workers would
have been involved in the quarrying, cutting, and transporta-
tion of the stones used to build the pyramids and other stone
monuments throughout the world.
As urban societies became more complex and sophisti-
cated, additional job categories began to emerge: mechanics,
carpenters, artists, weavers, bakers, butchers, fi shmongers,
pottery makers, clothes washers, barbers, physicians, and
even candy makers. Women might have found employment
as seamstresses, and in places like ancient Rome they also
found work as prostitutes.
In most cultures educated workers who could read and
write were employed as civil servants, tax collectors, accoun-
tants, scribes (writers of documents, such as legal documents),
directors of public works, and the like. Th ose involved in
trade and commerce had to be able to keep accounts, so they
needed a background in mathematics, and workers had to be
organized for the storage and transportation of goods. Others
became artists, astronomers, or priests. Much like today, edu-
cation was a way for people to acquire the skills they needed
to avoid backbreaking manual labor.
Th e earliest workers were not paid for their work. Rather,
they were entitled to their share of food and other commodi-
ties. Over time systems of barter were developed to compen-
sate people for labor. In ancient Egypt, for example, copper
was used as a unit of measurement for valuing goods, and
such commodities as grain, oil, and fi sh were “priced” relative
to copper. In turn, workers were compensated with commod-
ities according to their value measured by copper. Later still,
systems of currency, including coins but also paper money
and even money made with leather, were used to compen-
sate workers. In ancient Rome salt was highly valued because
it was used in food preservation. Th e Roman Empire mined
a considerable amount of salt, and salt was oft en used as a
form of payment. Th e modern word salary is derived from
the word salt.AFRICA
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
Th e earliest peoples of Africa were hunter-gatherers, and most
of what is known about them comes from paintings on rocks
in southern Africa and the Sahara. Th e purpose of many
southern rock paintings may have been to illustrate adult be-
havior for youngsters during their initiations into adulthood
and, therefore, may be depictions of everyday behaviors. For
instance, paintings show people in small boats fi shing with
spears, and others depict humans hunting animals with bows
and arrows as well as spears, labor that grown-ups would
have been expected to do.
In general, in a hunter-gatherer society everybody has to
be able to do all tasks, because an individual person’s sur-
vival may depend on his or her being able to identify food
plants, hunt animals, make tools and pots, weave baskets, and
so on. Anthropologists by and large believe that specializa-
tion in particular tasks occurred only when people developed
agriculture and began making enough surplus food to allow
some people to forgo producing food so that they could focus
on a specifi c job. In this case, many African societies did not
allow for distinct jobs because the San (or “Bushmen”) and
the small-statured groups that have been termed Pygmies
who occupied most of central and southern Africa until aft er
the 200s c.e. were hunter-gatherers until the 20th century.
Each individual was responsible for the well-being of ev-
eryone else in their nomadic group. Although disabled people
and the elderly were cared for, everyone else was expected to
contribute to the work of staying alive. Th ere was a division
of labor between men and women, with men hunting ani-
mals, which oft en took them far from home, and the women
and children searching for plants to eat. Th e manufacturingemployment and labor: Africa 425