Egypt retained a ruling monarch, in practice these nobles
ruled Egypt, oft en causing suff ering among their people.
Much of this instability came about because of a long period
of dryness. Th e people were starving, and in response many
became violent. Peasants revolted and seized property from
landowners, turning them into servants. Order was restored
to the country beginning in about 1900 b.c.e., when Amen-
emhet I took power and began a new dynasty. It is likely that
much of this instability would not have occurred had it not
been for the famine caused by low fl ooding of the Nile.
Amenemhet and his followers believed that Egypt had
suff ered famine and instability because it had been aban-
doned by the gods. Th is abandonment was the result of the
injustice and cruelty of previous dynasties. Amenemhet re-
solved to rule more justly. In particular, he acknowledged
that common people and not just nobles could enjoy an aft er-
life and meet the god Osiris aft er they died.
OSIRIS
Th e ancient Egyptians did not see agriculture as merely a
physical process. For them, agriculture was an expression of
the will of the gods in their daily lives. One of these gods was
Osiris, who represented a number of elements of Egyptian
life, including the Underworld. Beyond that, Osiris was the
god of vegetation and the earth. Th e year’s dry period rep-
resented the death of Osiris, who was reborn when the Nile
fl ooded and crops grew.
According to legend, Osiris was the son of Nut and Geb,
Egypt’s original king, and he took the throne when Geb gave
it up. His brother was Seth, and his sister was Isis, to whom
he was married. At the time he took the throne, Osiris saw
that the land of Egypt was backward and primitive, inhabit-
ed by barbarous cannibals. In an eff ort to bring civilization
to the Egyptians, he traveled among them, teaching them
about agriculture.
A major myth surrounds Osiris. According to ancient
texts, Osiris traveled to other lands to bring them the benefi ts
of civilization. While he was gone, his brother Seth plotted to
take over the throne. He and a band of conspirators later mur-
dered Osiris, placed his body in a coffi n, and cast the coffi n
into the Nile. Aft er much searching, Isis found the body, but
Seth then tore the body into pieces. He scattered the pieces
throughout Egypt, but Isis found them. Aft er she reassembled
them, Osiris was magically reborn and lived long enough to
father a new king. Aft er his death, he was king of the aft erlife,
where he admitted people to a fertile, green land.
In time, the life, death, and rebirth of Osiris became
symbolic of the cycle of the seasons in Egypt. His death repre-
sented the receding of the Nile and the dry season; his rebirth
represented the fl ooding and the growth of crops. Th is cycle
of death and rebirth was also seen as symbolic of the sun,
which daily “dies” and then is “reborn” the following day.
Further, Osiris’s battle with Seth came to be seen as symbolic
of the eternal struggle between the green, fertile area around
the Nile and the surrounding harsh deserts.
To celebrate Osiris, the Egyptians held annual festivals. A
festival called the Fall of the Nile was a period of mourning;
during this festival the Egyptians brought gift s to the banks of
the Nile and expressed their grief. When the river fl ooded again,
another festival to Osiris celebrated the event, commemorating
Isis’s location of his body. Shrines to Osiris were thrown into
the river, and priests offi ciated at celebrations signifying that
Osiris’s body had been located again. Th e Egyptians also be-
lieved t hat Osiris entered a person’s body when he or she ate t he
vegetables of his creation. Isis became a model of womanhood,
who taught women to weave cloth and grind grain.ADMINISTRATION
Agriculture in ancient Egypt was a highly organized activity.
Most people were involved in agricu lture in some way. Nobles
and wealthy people oft en owned the land that was farmed
and supervised the activities of farmers, who worked the land
in exchange for shelter and food. Because land was owned
privately (though, in theory, it was owned by the gods and
therefore by the pharaoh as the gods’ representative), some
landowners became wealthier than others, and class divisions
inevitably came about, sometimes leading to confl icts such
as boundary disputes that had to be resolved. In other cases,
people rented land from wealthy landowners, paying them
with a percentage of their crops. Th e Egyptian government
also enlisted people to work on the dikes, canals, and other
components of the irrigation system. Th is work was in eff ect
a type of tax called corvée, or unpaid labor exacted in place of
taxes by a governmental authority, usually for public works.
Th e economic system of ancient Egypt was a command
economy, that is, an economy controlled and directed by the
state. Th e state employed a large class of scribes, surveyors,
inspectors, and supervisors to manage agricultural activity.
For example, keeping track of land boundaries was diffi cult,
because the Nile River valley fl ooded each year, changing the
contours of the land, so surveyors had to be employed each
year to remeasure and mark out fi elds with stones. An oath
had to be taken that the boundary was correct: “I swear by
the great god that is in heaven that the right boundary stone
has been set up.”
Establishing boundaries was important, because the out-
put of each fi eld determined how much tax, in the form of a
percentage of the crops, the landowner or farmer had to pay
to the government. Th e amount of this tax varied, with higher
taxes assessed on the most fertile land, a smaller amount on
higher and less productive land, and a still smaller amount
on the highest and least productive land. Generally, it is esti-
mated that the tax amounted to about 10 percent of output,
usually assessed as a number of bags per unit of land. Th e
bureaucrats who measured and surveyed the fi elds also as-
sessed the tax and were responsible for collecting the grain,
storing it in local and regional granaries, and distributing it
as needed throughout the year.
Ancient Egypt experienced dry periods, when the Nile
did not rise as much as it did in other years and agriculturalagriculture: Egypt 23