Human Right Abuses In Egypt

By Henry

Focus and What is a Slave

My focus for these questions is slavery, and so the answers to my questions are based around the questions focus, slavery in Ancient Egypt.A Slave is the property of another. A slaves owner can posses, enjoy or dispose of his/her slave in whatever way they think fit.

My Questions

Question One: What nationalities were slaves?

Question Two: What were the slaves conditions like? E.g.: punishment, owners?

Question Three: What did slaves do?

Question One

The nationalities of the slaves in Egypt varied. Firstly, there were Egyptian slaves (traitors and the like), then the majority of the rest were P.O.W. (prisoners of war). Most slaves were foreigners.

Question One Continued

Slaves were known to come from Charu, Canaan, Karka, Cilician, Meroe, Kush, Libya and Mamlukes. Most of the slaves with known origins have been found to be of barbarian birth. A lot of slaves were African.

Question two

Slaves and peasants conditions were very alike. They both had to deal with simular home conditions – pests; fleas; mice; rats and the sort, as well as having a rubbish dump right next to most villages.

Question two continued

They both could be involved in dangerous work, with casualties found such as fractures to radius & ulna (arm), fibula (leg),and even severe blows to the head resulting in death, which suggests that punishments were given harshly.

Question three

Slaves were a large portion of the labouring workforce of Egypt. They weren’t technically slaves, because they could own property (sometimes), and were paid in the average wage of Food.

Question three Continued

Along with servants (local peasants), slaves would do a number of jobs ranging from normal household jobs to the more degrading prospect of working the land, digging canals, building monuments, quarrying and mining.

Peasants

They were attached to the land. If the land was sold they went with it.

Are not slaves because they can’t be sold (individually), they own their own home.

Next to the bottom of society; above slaves.

Some quick points about peasants and their similarity to slaves

Work for the Pharaoh. They are excused from

the military because they are needed for working the land.

Between labour seasons some were drafted to help build the pyramids.

Made to do similar work to that of a slave.

Other Information Some pyramids

were built not by slaves, but by conscript labour.

Slaves (mainly P.O.W.) were forced to build pyramids.

Slavery was not present in all of Ancient Egypt.

Slaves/servants were shown smaller in pictures to show lower status.

King = hm (khem) meaning servant, translated to majesty. Means ultimate servant not of man but of cosmos.

Bibliography Retrieved September 3, 2009, from

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/law.htm Retrieved September 3, 2009, from

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_life_like_for_ancient_Egyptian_slaves

Meltzer, M. (1993). Slavery – A World History – Updated Edition. Chicago: Da Capo Press, Inc.

Erman, A. (1971). Life in Ancient Egypt, London : Dover Publications, Inc.

El Mahdy, C. (2003). The Pyramid Builder: Cheops, The Man Behind the Great Pyramid. London: Headline Book Publishing

Jackson, K., & Stamp, J. (2003). Building The Great Pyramid. London: Firefly Books Ltd.