The Low Price Of Land In Ancient Egypt Author(s): Klaus Baer Source: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 1 (1962), pp. 25-45 Published by: American Research Center in Egypt Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40000856 . Accessed: 01/02/2011 17:33 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=arce. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
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The Low Price Of Land In Ancient Egypt Klaus Baer
It is well known that private individuals could own farm land at all periods of ancient Egyptian history. Documents attesting the conveyance of land are quite common. In most cases they record a donation of some sort, either to a temple or towards the endowment of a mortuary cult, but the acquisition of fields for private purposes is also mentioned from the earliest periods, though not so frequently. The autobiography of Mtn from the early Fourth Dynasty is both the oldest connected text to survive from ancient Egypt and our first record of such a transaction.1On the other hand, documents which actually quote a price for a field are extremely rare. In the oldest one known to me, three arouras(about two acres) are sold for a cow.2 The stated value, 6 sHyor about 45.5 grams of silver, seemed exceedingly low, and Gardiner conjectured that this "does not suggest any great degree of fertility in the soil!"3 I hope to indicate in this paper that the price actually was normal, insofar as the limited evidence permits us to judge, and that it was a rational one within the general framework of the Egyptian economy. One should rather conclude from this and similar cases that cattle were extremely expensive in ancient Egypt in comparison with other items; the land probably was of ordinary quality. This seems reasonable in view of what is generally known about agricultural conditions in Pharaonic Egypt, but it would lead us too far to discuss the economics of cattle raising here.4 The prices quoted by Cerny5indicate that cattle cost up to 130 dbnof copper; the latter sum, dated to the reign of Ramesses V, would correspond to 65 sacks of grain6 or almost exactly the yearly income of a craftsman at Deir el-Medina (a top wage of 66 sacks a year). I know of the following documents that give the price of farm land in Pharaonic times: (price quoted per arourain silver) 1 Urk.
The following abbreviations are used in the footnotes: Texte Erichsen, Auswahlfruhdemotischer Archives(Thistoire du droitoriental Malinine, Choixde textesjuridiquesen hieratique"anormal"et en demotique Peet, The GreatTombRobberiesof the TwentiethEgyptianDynasty Journalof WorldHistory Late-EgyptianMiscellanies Instituts,Abt. Kairo Mitteilungendes deutschen archdologischen Documents Gardiner, RamessideAdministrative Griffith, Catalogueof theDemoticPapyriof theRylandsLibrary Hughes, Saite DemoticLandLeases(Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, no. 28) undAltertumskunde zur Geschichte Untersuchungen Agyptens Gardiner, The WilbourPapyrus 2 P. Berlin 9784. Gardiner, AZ 43 (1906) 28-35. 3 Ibid. 45. 4 Cf. Kees, Ancient 86 ff. for a brief discussion of animal husbandry in ancient Egypt and Egypt; A CulturalTopography references; note the very low figures for cattle holdings. The totals quoted from P. Harris include not only cattle but also smaller animals, which undoubtedly were in the majority. 5 Gerny, JWH 1 (1954) 908, 919-20. 6 For the prices of grain during the Ramesside Period see below and notes 30, 3 1. /, 2, 4-5. AFT AHDO Choix GTR JWH LEM MDAIK RAD Rylands SDLL Unters. Wilbour
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26 0.17 dbn 0.5 0.6 0.12 Stela of Sheshonk (late Dynasty XXI)9 0.08 of Stela Ewerot (late Dynasty XXIII)10 0.04-0.05 (nmhwn
