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Few had wealth in ancient Egypt Houses hint at polarized society 3,500 years ago. 29 November 2002 PHILIP BALL <../profiles/aboutus.html> Most ancient Egyptians were on the poverty line while a handful of priest-kings held fabulous wealth. Children earned their keep from a very early age and two out of every three people in an average family had to work. At least that's what the fourteenth century BC house market suggests, according to Egyptian mathematician A. Y. Abul-Magd of Zagazig University. The number of dwellings of different sizes in the ruined city of Akhetaten hints that wealth distribution was more polarized in ancient Egypt than in most societies today, he argues1. The area of a house, says Abul-Magd, is a good measure of its owner's wealth in a society without money such as Ancient Egypt. Most of the houses were single-storey, made of mud brick and covering about 60 square metres. But one or two cover about seven times that area. Akhetaten provides a perfect snapshot of wealth distribution, contends Abul-Magd. At about 2 km across it was relatively big, but it was also very short-lived, and so didn't acquire the alterations of many generations. King Akhenaten founded the city and attempted to introduce a new religion with a single god called Aten. He uprooted the entire culture, shifting the capital from Thebes - now Luxor - to his new city. When he died, the new religion was abandoned, Thebes was reinstated as the capital, and Akhetaten was deserted. It was occupied for just two or three decades before being buried in sand. Fundamental law In all urbanized societies, the number of people with a certain proportion of the wealth decreases as that proportion gets bigger. The degree of inequality can be gauged from the steepness of this decrease: the steeper it is, the more poor people and the fewer very rich people there are. In 1897 the Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto claimed that all modern cultures display the same kind of wealth distribution. Plotted on a certain kind of graph, this becomes a downward-slanted straight line. For his contemporary Italy, Pareto observed that 20% of the population held 80% of the wealth. The 'Pareto distribution' came to be regarded as a fundamental law of society. One economist claimed in 1940 that it was "destined to take its place as one of the great generalizations of human knowledge". The new findings lend weight to that assertion. Akhetaten has a Pareto distribution, albeit a very narrow one. There is no middle class to spread the wealth, so it benefits only a privileged few. Archaeologists have studied Akhetaten since 1891, when the Egypt Exploration Fund of London began excavation. Today there is a city called Tell el-Amarna on the site.
References
Abul-Magd, A. Y.Wealth distribution in an ancient Egyptian society. Physical Review E, 66, 057104, (2002). |Article| <http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.66.057104> http://www.nature.com/nsu/021125/021125-8.html
Kem-Au Member # 1820
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this is interesting, but i'm curious as how the size of a house can tell you so much, like the percentage of people in a family that had to work and the age that children started working.
if the vast majority of the houses are the same and only a couple are spectacular, then one could guess that only a small minority holds a majority of the wealth. but i'd like to see how he came to his other conclusions.
ausar Member # 1797
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''this is interesting, but i'm curious as how the size of a house can tell you so much, like the percentage of people in a family that had to work and the age that children started working''
I will have to do some reserch on this. I am not certain at what what paticular age Kemetian children started to work. We know that most of the Kemetians were farmers,and that a small minority were scribes,physcians,surgeons,dentists,and skilled tradesmen. The carpenders,masons,and other skilled tomb buildiers at Deir el Medina would often teach their children their trade and pass it down form geenration to generation.
Even some house amung the lower classes were multi-storied. Examples of these types can still be seen in rual Egypt amung the fellahin.
''if the vast majority of the houses are the same and only a couple are spectacular, then one could guess that only a small minority holds a majority of the wealth. but i'd like to see how he came to his other conclusions.'' Depends what time period in Kemetian history. I believe the article is refering to the Amarna period when there was a radical political change. Geernally,Kemetians were illiteratue;except for a few scribes.
During the Middle Kingdom Kemetians enjoyed a great prosperity in their country. We have the most evidence of how life was in these time period,because literacy was up. During this time period Kemetians almost invented a currency,but failed to do this.
Kem-Au Member # 1820
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quote:Originally posted by ausar: During the Middle Kingdom Kemetians enjoyed a great prosperity in their country. We have the most evidence of how life was in these time period,because literacy was up. During this time period Kemetians almost invented a currency,but failed to do this.
where do you get most of your middle kingdom info? of the three kingdoms, i find the least material on this one. i have middle kingdom literature by litchem, but that's it.
ausar Member # 1797
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''where do you get most of your middle kingdom info? of the three kingdoms, i find the least material on this one. i have middle kingdom literature by litchem, but that's it''
According to Ian Shaw's Oxford History of Egypt. Less has been written on the Middle Kingdom,as opposed to the Old and New kingdom. During the Middle Kingdom is when literary works Sinhue,Shipwreched Sailor,and much more was composed. Literacy was up more during this time than the Old Kingdom period.
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