The Low Price Of Land In Ancient Egypt

Abstract

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.1 On 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 sHy or 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 Cerny5 indicate that cattle cost up to 130 dbn of 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 aroura in silver)