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I'm in the process of writing a short story set in the southern Egyptian frontier sometime between the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period. My protagonist is a young runaway Kushite princess who finds a camp of "undocumented" Arab immigrants devastated by the Egyptians, with the survivors captured and held in detention at one of the Egyptian border forts. The story will basically be about her struggle to rescue the migrants from a fate of deportation or enslavement.
Now, one of the excuses the Egyptians give for capturing and deported these "undocumented" migrants is that they believe them to be parasites mooching off the Egyptian government's services without paying taxes themselves (since they would not be registered as citizens). This means I have to ask, did the ancient Egyptian government perform services to its population likempdern governments do? For example, did the Pharaoh dole out bread to poor and needy people? Keep in mind that I am not talking about symbolic or religious services (e.g. the rainmaker king thing) but practical and material ones that they wouldn't want undocumented immigrants to take advantage of.
the lioness, Member # 17353
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yes, they had food stamps made of papyrus (Howell, 1974)
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