Ancient Egypt's domestic trade: Barter, the exchange of gifts, abstract equivalence values, metal as a means of exchange, the introduction of money, credit, market places, the merchants. 
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Domestic tradeIn a society where most of the population made a living from agriculture and surpluses were small, trade was limited. The needs of the farming population were basic: grain for baking bread and brewing beer, dried fish, vegetables, some linen for a simple loincloth and mud bricks for a hut. Food and flax they could grow themselves. Mud was found at the nearby river bank. And sometimes there was a surplus which could be exchanged for little luxuries.BarterTrade was done by barter, a reasonably efficient method when mostly basic necessities were exchanged. Even after coined money was introduced in the second half of the first millennium BCE, barter continued to be widespread among the farming population for centuries.Grain and oil often served as a kind of coinage [17]. This use of basic storable food stuffs had both advantages and drawbacks. If all one earned was expended on food anyway and there was practically no choice about the kind of food one could get, then eating one's wages was a system less cumbersome than being remunerated in specie and having to acquire the food afterwards. During famines which were quite frequent, one did not starve if one had savings; and many a peasant rose on the social ladder by exchanging hoarded corn for land during times of dearth. On the other hand storing grain required facilities. Wastage because of groundwater, fire and pests such as rats and insects was high. Stores could not be hidden, neither from robbers nor from tax-collectors. Bulky commodities were more difficult to transport than precious metals. If your needs were out of the ordinary, you might have to use middlemen to get what you wanted. The question of measuring arose as well, as jars were not exactly of standardized size and weights and scales not easy to come by. Then, as today, business went smoothly as long as there was goodwill and both parties were honest: Do not move the scales nor alter the weights, The exchange of giftsAs was usual in many pre-industrialized societies, the exchange of wares was not just an economic activity, but was often also, in the case of luxury goods predominantly, of social significance. The custom of officially exchanging gifts between individuals of unequal status was called inw. It involved, apart from the economic value, the acknowledgment of the social positions and roles of the two parties involved, sentiments of honour and as a display of generosity increased the prestige of the giver.Institutions such as temples were often recipients of gifts and redistributed at least part of them among the needy. Abstract equivalence valuesThe value ratios between the most common commodities must have been known to everybody.But the difficulty of remembering all possible value combinations brought about the creation of an abstract value system. Certain amounts, a deben [2], seniu [4] or, since the New Kingdom, a kit of gold, silver and copper were used as units. Generally, no metal seems to have changed hands during these exchanges:Second month of the season of inundation, day 15.If he had received some commodity worth 2½ gold units from Baki, he would probably have mentioned it, as he had with all the other payments. In this case he seems to have been paid with gold metal. The price for a certain Syrian slave girl was 4 deben and 1 kit of silver. The payment included, among many others, the following items: a robe worth 5 kit of silver, 10 deben broken copper worth 1 kit of silver, a bronze kebet-vessel valued at 20 deben of copper worth 2 kit of silver. The buyer, a Theban woman named Iritnefer, had to get some of these items from neighbours to conclude her purchase. From the priest Ini for instance she bought a gai-vessel of bronze worth 16 deben of copper and one menet-vessel of honey worth 1 hekat of barley. This was valued at 5 kit of silver. At this time (i.e. during the reign of Ramses II) copper was worth 1/100 of its weight in silver and one hekat of barley 4 kit of silver and 84 deben of copper. In Hellenistic times the ratio between silver and copper seems to have been about 1/350. Metal as a means of exchange
The use of metal rings of a given weight seems to go back to the Old Kingdom. Among the things found in Queen Hetep-heres I's tomb was a jewel box with the inscription
Mother of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Hetep-heres.but the box had apparently held only jewellery, when it was placed in the tomb. Similar caskets are held by half the customers in one Old Kingdom market scene, while in another wall picture no one appears to be carrying one [19]. No archaeological support for the theory that the Egyptians used coined metal during the 2nd millennium BCE has been found, while large numbers of coins from the Hellenistic Period have been uncovered. Little metal, precious or otherwise, was available to the populace. Until the Late Period gold and silver were used almost exclusively for the needs of the pharaohs, dead or alive [13]. Much of the buried treasure came onto the market during the end of the New Kingdom, when graves were robbed of anything that would find a buyer. A general serving under Ramses XI wrote to his scribe When this letter reaches you, then you shall get ready one deben of gold and one deben of silver, and you shall send it to me by boat. During the New Kingdom at least silver (HD - hedj) was a common name for 'means of exchange' [8], similar to the later use of kesef in the Hebrew bible. The introduction of moneyIn the fifth century BCE, foreign coins were introduced. At first these imported gold and silver pieces were used by the Egyptians as precious metal of standardized weight rather than true money. From the middle of the 4th century BCE onwards, as Mediterranean traders came to rely more and more on coined metal as means of exchange, and as the Greek mercenaries who had been content until then with being given land for services rendered, demanded payment in specie, the Egyptian mint produced coins similar to Athenian tetradrachms [14]. Under the Ptolemies coins were struck bearing the effigies of the Hellenist rulers.While silver and gold coins were occasionally used, everyday goods were generally paid in bronze [18], just as in earlier times exchange values had been calculated based on the copper standard. 
Egyptian gold coin, having the weight of a stater CreditGranting credit to one another was probably quite widespread. Perhaps one of the parties did not have what the other wanted at the time of the exchange. Maybe the amount of one single transaction was too small and a number of outstanding payments were settled together, or one party put off delivering his wares until it was more convenient - and too late as it seems to have been in the case of the scribe Amennakht who died without having paid for a coffin:The scribe Amennakht, your husband, took a coffin from me and said: I shall give you the ox as payment.Most daily transactions were based on oral agreements, given the fact that the sums involved were often small, people could neither read nor write and scribes were not always available. But when the amount was significant, the wise lender had it put in writing. IOU's were written on pot sherds or any other piece of matter flat enough to be written on Owed by Apahte, son of Patai: 30 pieces of silver. The development of a banking systemApart from giving and receiving personal credits people could deposit grain in state warehouses and write withdrawal orders which served as payment [12]. Increasingly these banks began to deal with money instead of perishable grain. Orders of payment debiting and crediting accounts at the royal bank:[[And there is a notice of payment, as payment for the honourable . . .]] The form of the customary notice of payment is as follows. To be credited to the account of the sacred offices(?). Due to the king from Asklepiades son of Euphris(?), of the Zephyrian deme, as payment for the honourable office of prophet which he purchased in the temple in Menelais of the Menelaite nome, 500 drachmai(?). During the Hellenistic period this banking system became a countrywide and not just a local phenomenon. Accounts were kept at a central bank at Alexandria and the granaries formed a giro network. Making sure of the identity of a borrower was of some consequence to the bank who recorded his ancestry, age, physical characteristics, profession and the like: ... through the bank of Sarapion of the Stoa of Athena. Isidoros son of Marion, to Hermas son of Heron, grandson of Hermas, from the second Goose Pen ward, aged forty years with a scar in the middle of his forehead, (acknowledges) that he (Hermas) has received from Isidoros an interest-bearing loan of a principal of one hundred twenty silver drachmas, which he will pay back in the month of Pauni of the current year forthwith. InterestThe concept of interest was still unknown in the New Kingdom. During the reign of Ramses III a worker named Menna had sold the policeman Mentmose a pot of fat. The policeman promised prompt payment, but eleven years later the debt was still outstanding. Mentmose swore that he would pay up:If I do not pay for this pot before the last day of the third summer month of the third year, I shall receive a hundred blows with the stick, and I shall be liable to pay double.meaning that if he paid up before that he would pay the original price only–after eleven years of waiting. Still, the idea of lending for profit is quite an ancient one. The following advice of Any dates to the beginning of the first millennium: Wealth accrues to him who guards it;The idea of paying interest on deposits is apparently much younger. The grain banks, instead of paying interest on a deposit, deducted annually 10% of the total amount, which represented the grain lost through natural wastage [3]. The interest on loans could be horrendous. Rates of 100% or more were not unknown, during the Saite Period they reached 10% per month, more than 200% annually. Such rates compare unfavourably with those of economically more vibrant societies, the Roman empire for instance, where they were normally set at about 12% [5] and exceeded 15% only for high risk ventures. In Egypt the incentive for expanding trade through cheap credit was, perhaps not surprisingly in a command economy, non-existent through much of its history. Under Roman rule Egypt was integrated into the empire, and commercial usages changed accordingly. When Chairemon, son of Akousilaos, and his wife Thaubastis borrowed 84 drachmas [15], they undertook to return the money the next year, and pay 12% interest [10]. Chairemon, illiterate like his wife, acted as her guardian in accordance with Greek practice [7]. SuretiesMoney lenders have always been careful about making sure they did not lose anything by lending. The literary character Ankhsheshonq (about 1st century BCE) had some words of advice for a prospective lender: "Do not lend money at interest without obtaining a security." and "Do not be too trusting lest you become poor." [16]As Egypt opened up to the Mediterranean world, uncertainty grew in economic life, and greater risks were being taken by entrepreneurs, lenders and authorities began to require sureties: Year 21, corresponding to the year 22, Month of Tybi, of King Ptolemy III, living forever, son of Ptolemy (II) and Arsinoe, the sibling gods.A wise person standing surety would try to limit his own liabilities, by defining the exact time period for which he vouched, or sharing responsibilities with others [22] whom he, hopefully, could trust. Credit could also be had by pledging one's property. Pawnbrokers existed in Egypt at least since the Roman Period. The main items to be pawned were apparently jewellery, but furniture, metal implements and utensils were also pawned: ... Market placesQuaysides were preferred spots for setting up market places. The whole of the population of Egypt lived close to the Nile. Ships and boats were the cheapest and fastest means of transport. Farmers' wives would peddle cloth, grain or fowl. Sailors, paid with grain, might exchange some of it in order to supplement their diet. |
In this scene from the grave of Ipui at Thebes, sailors are seen leaving the boat carrying sacks containing grain. A woman is selling bread and possibly beer (top left), beside her a sailor is exchanging grain for fish. On the right a buyer checks out a cake or a loaf of bread while beside him another is acquiring some vegetables. During Roman times when trading was highly regimented the publicity of market-places prevented merchants from selling their wares at cut-price, which would have increased competition - a prospect not cherished by the merchants' guilds. Therefore, traders were often not allowed to sell anywhere but in the markets: To Flavius Thennyras, logistes of the Oxyrhynchite nome, from Aurelius Nilus, son of Didymus, of the illustrious and most illustrious city of Oxyrhynchos, an egg-seller by trade. | ||
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The merchants
Small scale commerce was often in the hands of farmers or their wives. They sold mostly grain, fruit, vegetables, fowl and cattle but also processed products like oil, beer, wine, bread and linen. Sailors and travellers may have taken the opportunity to make a profit from their displacement. Full time merchants are mentioned occasionally, but little is known of their methods.
The merchants sail upriver and downriver, used like copper (i.e. often), taking wares from one city to another and supplying him who doesn't have anything.There was little glamour in being a merchant and incentive for writing about about them was accordingly small, unless something went wrong and one had to lodge a complaint. This is what the builder Wenenamen did, when he sent a letter to a merchant belonging to the temple of Amen-Re, demanding compensation for a slave he had bought and who had subsequently been claimed by her family as a victim of abduction [20]. Overseas trade was mainly in the hands of royal emissaries. It is also probable that many inland merchants were agents  of the crown or the great temple estates [6]. Ramses III described the Memphis Ptah temple:
... Its storehouses were overflowing with numerous possessions, naval archers, collectors of honey, delivering incense and delivering silver, merchants without number, deliveries of clean grain by the ten-thousand ....During the 2nd millennium BCE contact with foreign traders on Egyptian soil was probably mainly in the hands of wholesalers, people who had enough resources to make the foreigners' venture worth their while. This role passed partly into the hands of foreigners themselves, who settled in Egypt, as the finding of great numbers of foreign weights at sites as early as the 12th dynasty indicates. On the whole the amount that could be transported in seagoing vessels of the time was not very large (the biggest ships displaced less than 100 tons), with quite a bit of the weight wasted on packaging. If the market scene in Qenamen's tomb is anything to go by, even Theban merchants hawking sandals seem to have traded with foreigners. By Roman times the pharaonic state which had controlled much of the economy by collecting and redistributing had given way to a colonial administration whose main aim was the exploitation of Egypt in favour of Rome. Trade was in the hands of private persons who were often organized in guilds, such as the association of the salt merchants of Tebtunis: The undersigned men, salt merchants of Tebtynis, meeting together have decided by common consent to elect one of their number, a good man, Apynchis, son of Orseus, both supervisor and collector of the public taxes for the coming eighth year of TiberiusThey assigned territories, special privileges like the one Orseus received had to be paid for. Orseus spent 66 drachmas for the monopoly of selling gypsum in the region of Tebtunis: (they, i.e. the merchants, have decided) that all alike shall sell salt in the aforesaid village of Tebtynis, and that Orseus alone has obtained by lot the sole right to sell gypsum in the aforesaid village of Tebtynis and in the adjacent villages,Prices were fixed and fines imposed on anybody undercutting them: they shall sell the good salt at the rate of two and one-half obols, the light salt at two obols, and the lighter salt at one and one-half obol, by our measure or that of the warehouse. And if anyone shall sell at a lower price than these, let him be fined eight drachmai in silver for the common fund and the same for the public treasury;The guilds also had, albeit limited, sociable aims. Once a month its members got together for a pint - or rather a gallon, as the chous everybody was expected to drain measured somewhat more than three litres. Interestingly, these Egyptianized Greeks drank beer rather than wine: It is a condition that they shall drink regularly on the 25th of each month, each one a chous of beer.
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[ ] Source of the picture of the jewel box: Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, vol. XXVII p.84 [2] deben: about 92 grammes, ten kit equalled one deben. [3] Some think that thanks to this demurrage Egyptians did not hoard their wealth but kept on spending it, often on the improvement and maintenance of old temples and the building of new ones. After the Roman conquest 'normal' positive interest rates on invested capital were introduced, and the cultic sites began to decline. [4] seniu: or shat, used until the New Kingdom, one twelfth of a deben, about 7.6 grammes, was replaced by the kit. [8] From a New Kingdom ostrakon found at Deir el Medine [9]. "Silver" is used to denote value in general, the modern equivalent would be "money", while the value quoted is generally in copper. Year of the reign 1, 3rd Ax.t 22. Communication concerning the silver given by the workman Qen, son of Parehotep, to the craftsman Qedhatef:[10] Papyrus Duk. inv. 7 - year 5 or 6 CE [13] In the following passage from a memorial stone in the temple of Osiris at Abydos Geb as the earth god harbours all the treasures hidden underground and Tenen is the god disposing of all the minerals: Yours (i.e. Thutmose I's) is the gold, yours is the silver, Geb has revealed to you what is hidden in him, Tenen has given you his possessions, all the mountainous lands serve you, all the flat lands are under your planning, all precious stones are enclosed in your house ...[14] Coins struck in Egypt displayed the Athenian owl, but sustituted a papyrus plant for the Greek olive branch and inscriptions were in Demotic or Aramaic. [15] Hellenists generally dealt in drachmas and other coined money, while among native Egyptians using Demotic the silver deben was still used. The alimentary contract agreed upon by the elder son of Harmiysis and his wife begins: You have caused my heart to be satisfied (with) 11 (deben of) silver of [the pieces] of the treasury of Ptah, refined, [amounting to 10 (deben of) silver] (and) 9 5/6 1/10 1/30 1/60 [1/60 . . .] kite .....In a summary at the end of the contract written in Greek they speak of 11 pieces of silver. [16] The author of the Instruction of Ankhsheshonq also had some ideas about how a borrower should behave: Borrow money at interest and put it in farmland.[17] The Middle Kingdom priest Heqanakhte preferred to be paid in grain: Concerning him who will give me payment in oil - he shall give me 1 big jar of oil for 2 sacks of Lower Egyptian barley or for 3 sacks of emmer. Behold, I prefer to be given my property as Lower Egyptian barley.[18] Arthur Verhoogt: Regaling Officials in Ptolemaic Egypt. A Dramatic Reading of Official Accounts from the Menches Papers , Leiden / Boston / Tokyo: Brill Academic Publishers 2005 [21] Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae website => Demotische Textdatenbank, Akademie für Sprache und Literatur Mainz => administrative und dokumentarische Texte => Bürgschaften => Lille 35 [22] Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae website => Demotische Textdatenbank, Akademie für Sprache und Literatur Mainz => administrative und dokumentarische Texte => Bürgschaften => Lille 42 |
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 | [19] Old Kingdom market scenes |
| [20] Letter from Wenenamen to the merchant Amenkhau of the temple of Amen-Re concerning the enslavement of a woman |
| Asiatic traders in Egypt |
| Overseas trade |
| The ancient Egyptian economy |
| Wages and prices |
| Means of transportation |
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| These are just suggestions for further reading. I do not assume any responsibility for the availability or content of these websites. | |
 | [5] A market economy in the Early Roman Empire by Peter Temin |
| [6] Was trading, at least larger scale trading, a virtual royal monopoly? by M.Silver |
| [7] Texts about women and children, papyri in the Duke University collection |
| [9] Deir el Medine online: Berlin P 10665 |
| [11] Wangstedt, Sten V. Ausgewählte demotische Ostraka aus der Sammlung des Victoria-Museums zu Uppsala und der Staatlichen Papyrussammlung zu Berlin |
| [12] Origins of Money and of Banking by Roy Davies |
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