History of Money, Banking, and Trade
A historical look at the development and evolution of money, banking, and trade. From the ancient civilizations to the present.
History of Money, Banking, and Trade
Episode 14. Chronicles of Trade and Power in the Egyptian Middle Kingdom
Step back into the sands of time with me, Mike D, as we unlock the secrets of an ancient empire's rise from the ashes. Imagine a realm where black eyeliner symbolizes not just beauty, but a complex web of trade and cultural exchange that reaches across continents. We're setting sail on a narrative journey that spans from the Theban-led reunification under Mentuhotep II to the pivotal economic transformations that forged Egypt's Middle Kingdom. You'll be captivated by stories of shipwrecked sailors and lured into the mysteries of the fabled land of Punt, as we trace the spiritual and economic threads that intertwine to create the rich tapestry of Egyptian civilization.
Hold fast as we charge into the chariot-driven era of the Hyksos and the subsequent golden age under Theban King Amhose. You'll ride alongside the expansion of trade routes and stand in the shadow of the great Temple of Karnak, a testament to the prosperity and power wielded by a civilization at its zenith. Discover how these vast networks of commerce and conquest didn't just build monuments but reshaped the very foundations of society, from shifts in land ownership to the profound roles women played in the ancient economy. Our exploration is as much about the physical treasures unearthed as it is about understanding the societal evolution that these economic practices spurred.
As we near the conclusion of our odyssey, we'll confront the tumult of Akhenaten's reign and the religious revolution that threatened to unravel centuries of tradition. Witness the fragility of empire as we dissect the administrative neglect and corruption that left the nation teetering on the brink of ruin. The echoes of history resonate in our present, reminding us that the whims of rulers can shape the destinies of nations. Join us for a tale of grandeur and downfall, of the enduring legacy of a civilization that continues to mesmerize the world with its mysteries and marvels.
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Welcome Podcast Swissner. I am Mikey and this is the History of Money, banking and Trade Podcast. This will be the fourth episode in the Egyptian series. When we last left off, we were discussing Egyptian's Old Kingdom and how it was set up from a governing standpoint, which ultimately led to the building boom that bled right into their local economy, which ultimately affected trade within the Kingdom as well as within neighboring states. During the end of the Old Kingdom, we see the rise of local governors and, coupled with Pepe, the Second's long reign, which ended up causing instability from the Pharaoh standpoint, as several kings took over in a short period of time. This resulted in Egypt experiencing its first ever dark age. For this episode, I wanted to carry forward early Egyptian history and move it into the Middle Kingdom and how that ultimately transformed Egyptian trade within the Kingdom as well as with neighboring states.
Speaker 1:The first dark age is also known as the First Intermediate Period, and this would have lasted approximately 125 years, from around 2181 BCE to about 2055 BCE. Now, since this is called a dark age, not much really survived this time period, as you can imagine, because that would be typical of a lot of dark ages. It's referred to as a dark age, because there's just not a lot of information that flows from that particular time period. So therefore it's dark, we don't have information, we can't see the information that would have been happening during this time. It does appear that there was quite a bit of plunder during this time as well, because when society is in chaos, you don't really have the rule of law and it just appears that people were able to plunder local monuments or even local temples and therefore a lot would have been lost during this period of chaos. But really what happened was during this time period was Egypt was essentially split back into two places. You had Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, sort of like what it was before Dynasty Zero, which is kind of reverted back to almost its natural state, because Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt would have ultimately had different kind of economies and would have really had different ways of life within the particular region, because climate was different. The flow of denial would have been away from its source, so people in Upper Egypt could have controlled denial and affected the Lower Egyptians. So therefore you can see how its natural state would probably be that of two separate states within one Upper and Lower Egypt and, just as a reminder, upper Egypt is Southern Egypt because it's in the more highly elevated regions that's where the denial flows from and Lower Egypt is in the northern parts of Egypt up near the Mediterranean.
Speaker 1:So ultimately, after years of struggles, a local warlord from Upper Egypt in the city of Thieves had emerged as a powerful ruler of Upper Egypt. His name was Menetop II. Thieves was pretty large in comparison to other Egyptian cities at the time, with approximately 40,000 people by 2000 BCE. So this would have been a pretty large city, not just in Egypt, but it would have been a large city globally, you could say at this time, for Menetop II would have had a large population base, of which he could have a large pool of potential soldiers as well. Now, once in power, he was able to unify Upper and Lower Egypt, and this time would be known as the Middle Kingdom, and this is the time period that we're kind of getting into during this episode. So Menetop II immediately reformed the Kingdom's government. He limited the powers of the regional governors and he established a new set of government positions which were later given to only his most loyal men. Government officials from the capital were encouraged to regularly visit the many territories of Egypt, just so they can keep a close eye on the local regional rulers or leaders, and also it would have enabled the central government to get word out to the distant regions on what is expected of them, the local rules that have been adjusted over the recent time period, and it just allowed for information to flow back and forth.
Speaker 1:Now unification wasn't enough, as he ultimately would have looked to the south to replenish his kingdom and bring it back to its former glory. So he ultimately led expeditions into Nubia in order to gain back its old border to the Second Cataract. This enabled Egypt to secure gold and other natural resources, along with reopening certain trade routes, in addition to new fortified defenses which were built on the border of Nubia. But this did more than create military presence. It also allowed for trade to flow up and down the Nile without the worry of bandits and thieves and other kind of raiders that would have made trade insecure. But it wasn't just Nubia. Egypt had also built defenses up north, on the border of Palestine as well. As for these northern defenses, the structures were probably acting more like customs offices where they could monitor and tax trade that was flowing into Egypt from the Levant, from Anatolia and Mesopotamia.
Speaker 1:Now what is interesting is one of the things that was brought in from the Levant was the black eyeliner that became so famous in Egypt. So whenever I imagine an Egyptian royal really kind of the first thing that comes to my mind is the famous black eyeliner that I just always assumed was a local product. So it's kind of surprising to learn that this was not native to Egypt and that's kind of fascinating to me. It's like I have Irish heritage, for example, and the one thing people when they think of Ireland they tend to think of the potatoes. But it's interesting to know that the potatoes are not native to Europe, they're actually native to South America. So it's kind of interesting how certain things can be associated with certain places, yet those things are not native to those local places. Just one of those little things that I find fascinating. You know, being of Irish heritage, you know I love potatoes and it's not surprising that I eat potatoes because of my heritage, but it is surprising to learn that potatoes are not native to Ireland.
Speaker 1:Now, mentohotep now he died after reigning for about 51 years and he passed his throne to his son, mentohotep III. Now Mentohotep III only ruled for 12 years, but that would kind of make a lot of sense, because his father was on the throne for 51 years, and that would probably mean that he took the throne at a later age and therefore wouldn't be on the throne much longer. So, unlike other certain pharaohs that took the throne when they were children, he would have taken the throne a lot later. Mentohotep III was probably most famous for the fact that he had sent a successful expedition into the land of Punt. In addition, he sent thousands of men to the Red Sea to get rid of the region's rebels and pirates that were terrorizing the coast, and this would have had an effect in that it opened up trade routes to Punt and Libya. And that's the thing I think a lot of people fail to realize about a good, strong central government is, when you have a strong government, you have a good sense of a military might, and that would ultimately make trade a lot freer and safer. When I say freer, I mean free from pirates.
Speaker 1:Now, this trade, or the trade routes that were ultimately opened up, ultimately increased the amount of natural resources that were flowing into Egypt. The land of Punt is now that's a really fascinating place to me, because there's so many records compiled by ancient Egyptians discussing the trade in which these valuable items, such as golden, ebony and even certain hardwoods and ivory and other wild animals, were brought from the land of Punt. So Punt was an extremely important trading region, but the problem is nobody knows where it is. So it's almost like there's some mythical place, since no one knows if it really was a place to begin with. But the issue is there's an extensive amount of tax that indicate very successful trade emissions. So it must be real to a certain extent, I would believe.
Speaker 1:So it's quite possible that these traders were heading to a certain region, and this particular region was known as Punt. But they didn't really have a specific area laid out. They just knew that if you headed southeast, you would eventually run into this particular region. Now some would suggest that this was located in the Horn of Africa, or even Southwest modern day Saudi Arabia, or even Yemen, or it could be even into places like Somalia or Djibouti or even parts of Sudan. But more importantly, people seemed to point to the coast of the Red Sea. So it could be anywhere in that particular area, if that makes sense. Now, part of the problem is when we think of this particular region, we see it from a modern lens, we see what the region looks like today. But this region would have looked a lot different 3,500 years ago with regards to the local climate, because back then it's quite possible that animals such as giraffes or baboons, leopards and hippopotamus were found throughout the region. So it's quite possible that vegetation was also much different back then as compared to now. So this ultimately would have affected trade within the Middle Kingdom.
Speaker 1:Now, if you recall from my episodes about Sumer, when Sumer's trade increased quite a bit and their production levels increased, they needed to weigh, to track all these different transactions. And what they came up with was the Canadian Form writing system. Remember, canadian Form was developed as a business tool, as a way, as a kind of I guess you can say an early form of accounting. This was needed because trade was flowing throughout Mesopotamia and in order to track all this, we had to come up with some kind of way to make it a lot easier, and Canadian Form was the tool and it was more or less just an early accounting tool. So what we see in Egypt is kind of similar, in that trade is really really starting to take off and they needed a way to track all this. So what they needed to do was develop their own formalized writing system, and this would have been used as an accounting or even a business process that the Egyptians would have used for their writing, and this would have carried over for the religious scripts and other administrative documents as well.
Speaker 1:Now it's important to realize that this writing wasn't like the Sumerian Canadian Form, as this was still more like a hieroglyph, but you can still see literary works being developed in this time anyway, in particular the tale of Senui, which was a literary work that would kind of almost have a Shakespearean kind of element to it. The issue is we don't know who the writer was. Unfortunately, that was lost to history. So we got this great tale that was written, but we just don't know who actually wrote it down. Like, this is a tale that was written nearly 4000 years ago.
Speaker 1:Now. I won't read the whole entire story for you, but I'll kind of give you the Cliffstone's version of it. Also, no one really knows for sure if it's entirely fictional or if it's based on some real individual or not, but basically the story involves a man who fled his duties in Egypt because he became a Bedouin when he found out his king had died. So, essentially, he put himself into self exile. Now, while he was in exile, the king's ghost finds him and helps him through his journeys. While he's in exile, he marries a local chief's daughter. This marriage essentially puts him into a position of leadership, which meant that he would be able to lead his own tribe and lead his tribe into certain battles and gain plunder, along with taking captives of other warring tribes. After coming out victorious, he began to reflect upon his time in Egypt and decided that it was time to head back home. Around this time, he receives a letter from the king of Egypt, senecerate, who requested him to come home and meet the king, or what he would have to do is leave his wife and children behind and he would have to make his eldest son the new tribal chief, and then he would journey back to Egypt. Now, this meeting with the king was generally positive, and he was given new clothing, because Bedouins typically wore old, raggedy clothing. The king ultimately forgave Seneway for abandoning his post years ago and essentially gave him a position in the Egyptian elite class, where he would eventually die and be buried within the tomb for the elite. So while this may or not be a fictional story, the fact is it was written about 4000 years ago and these types of writings also give people a certain insight into what life was like during these ancient societies. So obviously people can see that, these fictional aspects of the writing, but it still gives some sort of insight into what life must have been like 4000 years ago in the middle kingdom of Egypt.
Speaker 1:Another fantastic story that might be even older is that of the shipwreck sailor. I found this story to be really nice and pleasant to read. By the way, now this particular story might be as old as 2000 BC, so that makes it just slightly older than the story of Snehu, and it's currently housed in St Petersburg, russia. So if you want to look at the original copy, you'd have to go to St Petersburg to check it out. Now, since Nubia was a huge part of the Egyptian story, this one in particular is about a trade expedition into Nubia. The sailor had to explain to the ferro about what happened to him and why the expedition failed. Since the sailor was very nervous about his upcoming meeting with the ferro, his servant decided to calm his nerves by telling the story of the sailor, a story about the shipwreck sailor on an expedition to a place of the mines of the ferro. So it's a little bit confusing because it's a story based upon another story, so it's a story within a story, but it's still fascinating nonetheless.
Speaker 1:In the story there is a shipwreck and the sailor was only one to survive. He eventually washed up on the island that appeared to be deserted. On the island, the sailor encounters a giant snake who allows them to live on the island. The giant serpent informed the surviving sailor that he was the prince of a land called Punt and that he would be rescued in four months and returned home. While on the island, the serpent told the sailor a story about the death of his family when a star fell on the island and burned him all to death. Now the shipwreck sailor believed he would be able to return to that island where he could bring the ferro valuable gifts. However, the serpent informed the shipwreck sailor that once he leaves, he would never be able to return as it would disappear under the waves. When the time came for the sailor to be rescued, the giant serpent gave him gifts of precious perfumes, of sweet woods, of cypress and abundance of incense. The sailor returns back home and gives the king the gifts that he had gotten from the island. The king is so impressed that he gives him an attendant and also gives him what would amount to a kind of serfs that would work for him.
Speaker 1:Now, the one thing I take away from that particular story is the fact that Punt was brought up, and once again you can see how this mythical place called Punt was so important to the people of the middle kingdom. Now, it's also during this time that the gods also began to change and transform a little bit. During this time period, amun, the god of the air, was one of the eight primordial Egyptian deities, and in the new kingdom he becomes a nationally worshipped god and he eventually merges with Ra, the ancient sun god, to become Amun Ra. So centuries go by with growth and prosperity within Egypt, and during this period no one really notices that on the eastern branch of the Nile Delta, the city of Avaris was booming. Initially the city was founded by Amun Abahat, and the city grew mostly out of the fact that the people from the Levant were flowing into the region. Now, of this population that was flowing in, some were in fact slaves, but people were also moving down on their own accord in search of work as the construction work became more widespread. This would have attracted more migration from the Levant as well. It is quite possible that they had been flowing in from the region of Canaan for centuries and resettling south into Egypt.
Speaker 1:Now my guess is it's quite possible that it was a similar situation that we saw in Babylon when the Amorites took over from the local Akkadians. If you recall, the Amorites were west Semitic people, so they would have been around the same region as the Hixos, and it's quite possible that the Hixos were actually a mix of the people that were included in the Amorites. So, in other words, it could have been the case that the Hixos did nearly the same thing that the Amorites had done in Babylon, in that they slowly built up a power base and eventually a charismatic leader would appear and thus alter the ruling class of the region. These people from the Levant, who were also called the Alvaris as well, became culturally Egyptian over time. So it really kind of like the Amorites, where the people move in and the people basically assimilate to the region, and they would also have the ability to cause a local civilization or local population to also incorporate some of the ideas that were brought in from the outside. So it's a very similar situation that we see really with modern immigration as well. Now these people, who were very much Egyptianized, had began to move throughout Egypt and they would have started inhabiting all the various cities and towns throughout the kingdom and as such, many of these people became successful and wealthy from various trade.
Speaker 1:Just like the Amorites in Babylonia, these Canaanites and other people from around the Levant had seized control of lower Egypt and started their own dynasty around 1750 BCE, which was known as the 14th dynasty. They ruled from the city of Avaris, where the immigration had originally started, so their main power base. Also, around this time, egypt was hit with a famine and the central government basically didn't have the means or even the capabilities to fix any of the problems. The Hicksos could see the government was in trouble and figured it was a great time to strike. The original writings regarding this period come from a person by the name of Manahetho, who was writing about 1400 years later, so he was not even close to being a first-hand account.
Speaker 1:The Hyksos had created some important technologies that may have caught the Egyptians off guard militarily. So, for example, the Hyksos may have created the horse and the chariot, along with the composite bow and even the sickle sword. So if it's true that the Hyksos had created these military weapons, then the Egyptians probably didn't have the means to fend off these people if they were invading from the north. So the Hyksos basically took over Egypt, lower Egypt from the Egyptians, and this would have been because they just had a wealth of superior weapons that the Egyptians just could not stop. The Egyptians were behind the times. The Hyksos were developing new military weapons and they were more or less easy pickings when you factor in the fact that there was a famine going on. Now. Manahetho, who was writing 1400 years after the fact, wrote that the Egyptians were massacred by the Hyksos and those who surrendered were subjected to slavery. Then that would have included both men, women and children.
Speaker 1:Manahetho's record is most likely a lot of nonsense because it appears to be infused with biased opinions, because Manahetho claimed that the Hyksos used terror and violence to conquer the northern part of Egypt, but the archaeological record and findings suggest otherwise, because there isn't any signs of mass death that you would find in certain areas of a massive invasion, especially around the city of Averus. Instead, it is most likely that they gained control of lower Egypt through other than military means and, like I said, egypt was going through a time of chaos because there was a famine. So, while all this is going on in northern Egypt, the Kushites, or Nubians to the south, were looking at the weakening Egyptian government as a time to strike and, as a result, they were able to invade from the south and conquer upper Egypt, which is southern Egypt. So the north was mostly conquered by the Hyksos, while the south was under control of the Kushites and famine was running rampant. In the middle of all this was the city of thieves.
Speaker 1:However, everything seemed to stabilize after a while and the economy began to flourish again. The reason being was the Hyksos rulers increased Egyptian trade with almost all parts of the known world. Egyptologists have noted that the various objects from the Levant and Anatolia began to emerge more often in this time period in the local Egyptian markets than in other time periods. In other words, trade was flowing into and out of Egypt and they can see that certain goods were appearing more often during this particular time period, and this would have ultimately attracted even more traders as more markets were beginning to open up. So, for example, a set of bowls with the inscription of the Hyksos king was discovered in Hattusa, which was an ancient city in modern central Turkey or Anatolia, and there were also a few other objects bearing the king's name that were found in Canosos, the capital of the Minoan civilization.
Speaker 1:Now, trade was further enhanced by the use of animals for transport. In this particular time, the main animal that would have been used would have been the donkey. Eventually, horses were introduced in Egypt during this time period as well, but they never really achieved economic importance, like you would see, in other regions of the world. Now, this was probably due to the fact that they were very expensive to keep, so they were only used by the aristocracy and the military for polling chariots and later for riding. Vehicles with light spoke wheels came into use during the new kingdom and served mostly for warfare, not really trade, so we won't really see it used to carry goods in and out of the empire. Anything that was transported by land, even in the arid regions, were either carried by humans or donkeys or were dragged on wooden sleds. So the wooden sleds would have been used for anything that was extremely heavy.
Speaker 1:Now, many historians would refer to the time period of the Hixos rule over lower Egypt as the second dark age or the second intermediate period. Now you've got to understand that this was the first time Egypt is ruled by non-Egyptians and it certainly won't be the last. The Egyptians were eventually able to copy the Hixos technology and were able to produce their own composite bow and their own chariots and eventually a charismatic Egyptian leader named Amhose I would rise the power in thieves and eventually send the Hixos back to the Levant and this would bring upon the new kingdom, as is known by Egyptologists, and this would have been really Egypt's golden era, and this would have been from about 1570 to around 1069 BCE. It's also during the time period that we start to see the term pharaoh being used more and more and in reality the term pharaoh wasn't really used until this time period and in reality we don't really see the term pharaoh used until we see a letter to Akka Hatton, and this would have been around 1350 BCE. And we also see in a description possibly referring to Tupmose III, all around 1479 BCE. So it was either Tupmose or Akka Hatton that the term pharaoh really started to be used. So we could say at the earliest it was, say, almost 1500s, 1479 BCE, and possibly wasn't used until 1353 BCE, but we're not really sure when they actually started using the term pharaoh, or at least I'm not really sure, when they started using the term pharaoh.
Speaker 1:Amhos, who was a Theban king, was able to unite the Egyptians and reconquer parts of lower Egypt. Sources claim that it took four attacks against the Alvarus before Amhos could finally capture the fortified city. The Hixos retreated out of Egypt and took shelter in a town called Sharahan, and, after the years of laying siege to Sharahan, the Hixos finally fell. With the fall of Hixos, egypt was set in motion to enter another golden age, maybe the most glorious time period, and this would have been in part with the new technological advances that they had developed in the military, where Amhos was able to lead successive campaigns farther up north into the Levant, where he was able to push as far as, potentially, the Euphrates River, but that is somewhat of a controversial statement, because it may have been that Tupmos, not Amhos, that made it this far. But either way, we do know that he was able to conquer Biblos. Amhos was able to reopen the mines and the quarries and the various trade routes throughout Egypt. This new golden age was the first time that we know of that Egypt had established trade relations with the people of the GNC. We know this because we see the gene pottery in Egypt. But I should actually take a step back from that statement, because does that really mean that it was trade, or was it more a case of the people from the GN region were just moving to Egypt? Or maybe it was a combination of both? I'm not really sure. Anyway, amhos died after at least 25 years on the throne. His success was remembered by his subjects to the point where he was essentially worshipped as a god as soon as the news of his passing was made to the public.
Speaker 1:Now, it was around this time of Amhos that gold mining regions were discovered in the eastern desert, as well as into the cataracts of Nubia. Since Egypt had conquered the region of upper Egypt and lower Nubia, they would have had access to the large gold reserves. So much of the gold prices actually diminished slightly due to the large supply that was flowing into Egypt in this period and beyond. In reality, gold was more important in the death industry for the Egyptians, not so much for trade. However, other kingdoms had seen the local population demand gold and silver. Therefore, egypt was able to use its large gold reserves as a foreign policy to finance wars and give gold as tribute to keep the peace when it was needed. In addition, copper was also found in the eastern desert and this was really important for toolmaking, especially during the Bronze Age, because, mind you, we're getting into the late Bronze Age, so bronze would still be used during this time period. We eventually will go into the Iron Age, but that's not until around 1200, when the sea people come into play. That's when we start to see the populations move from bronze to iron.
Speaker 1:Now, in the last episode I had mentioned a place in Nubia which potentially was in modern day Sudan, known as Yam, which was one of, if not the most important trade centers during the Middle Kingdom. But by the time we get to the new kingdom, yam had disappeared from the historical record and was replaced by a new trade center known as Iron. And since we're kind of in the golden age of Egypt, this was a time period when Egyptian trade was put on full speed ahead and contributed tremendously to the wealth of the kingdom. Much of the wealth that was generated was put into building huge monuments like the Temple of Karnak and the Colossian amendment and the mortuary temple of Hatspilat.
Speaker 1:Now it appears that for the longest time, scholars believed that it was during the new kingdom that Egypt suddenly wanted luxurious items instead of practical goods, and that would make a lot of sense, because whenever the economy improves, people look beyond just practical items. They want luxury, and that applies to people in modern times as well as people of ancient civilizations. There's really no difference. So it almost feels like Egypt was more or less humming along and the economy is doing good and then all of a sudden they started to come into some money and they wanted certain items that weren't appealing to them just a few years ago, because it went beyond practical. But this may not necessarily be true. It could be simply due to the fact that Egypt was just coming into more countries or kingdoms that had certain goods that just weren't available to Egyptians in the past. So what I'm saying is maybe they weren't looking for luxurious items, maybe it was more or less that they were just looking for new items. Things that were readily available in other places were now being available to local Egyptians. So I mean, it's not like you know, all of a sudden Egypt was made aware of luxury items. They just maybe they just had more options. By this point, however, it is clear that Egypt's trade was much more efficient and they were able to scale up certain operations due to better farming and shipbuilding techniques by the new kingdom. You combine scale and more trade partners and the outcome is more luxurious items flowing into and out of Egypt with its ever increasing trade networks.
Speaker 1:In fact, an Egyptologist by the name of Brunson wrote quite extensively about trade during his time period, and what he basically said was that there were massive amounts of caravans that were moving through and into the Libyan desert, and then we're also moving into the Mediterranean. It is believed that Egypt had conducted trade with places like Cyprus and Crete and the Ionians and the Aegean Islands, and even potentially with mainland Greece, but that's not a harm's unsure, but it certainly sounds like that may have been a thing Now. At the same time, syria had remained a popular destination for trading fleets, and also due to caravans. Now the Syrian products that were being brought in were being usually brought in through the Persian Gulf, and the Egyptians would have received certain kinds of woods and wines, and oils and resin. They also would receive silver. They would have received a little bit of copper they had some copper on their own, but they also received some copper and they would have received cattle as well, and because Egypt was able to get gold from the eastern deserts along with down into Nubia, they were able to use that gold and they were also able to develop linens and papyrus and other leather goods and grains and use that as trade as well. So what we see is we see a massive amount of trade that is flowing into and out of Egypt, whether it's up north or down south, and since Egypt had expanded its lands up north into Biblos, we can see that certain amounts of papyrus was also shipped up there as well. And to give you an idea where I'm actually referring to, it would have been about 26 miles or about 42 kilometers north of modern day Beirut. It was there that they processed papyrus paper well, papyrus into paper, which was then used by the people throughout Mesopotamia and the neighboring regions. Now you might be thinking Biblos. Why does that name sound familiar? The reason is Biblos was associated with bookmaking. Therefore, biblos was the basis, for the English word of Bible Makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:Now, egyptian trade in the Levant was so widespread by this time that later archaeologists believed that Egyptians had basically set up trade colonies in the region, similar to what the Assyrians had done in the Levant and Anatolia, maybe 400 years prior. If you recall, by 1690 BCE, wealthy Assyrian merchants had established the Karam, which were small colony settlements just outside of Anatolian cities, which were secure areas where merchants from Ashore could bring their goods and take it back to Asher. But the issue was, it doesn't appear that this was quite the same thing as the Karams that were established in Anatolia, because it appears that the goods that were brought in weren't brought in through designated trade colonies, but instead it was more or less a situation where just a ton of goods were just flowing in from Egypt and they were just making their way into the region. So, in other words, there wasn't specific trade colonies that were set up in the region like Asher had done prior. So, although the Egyptians were highly superstitious and religious, they did not rely solely on prayer to protect their trade internally or externally in foreign lands. Instead, they took a much more practical approach by supplying armed guards to protect government sponsored caravans. In addition, a military force was stationed at border crossings. Now, this force would have collected tolls and also would have protected toll collectors, but more importantly, they would have watched over merchants and their supplies between cities and villages. That was an issue.
Speaker 1:But once you supply armed escorts into the caravans, well people might think twice about robbing the caravan, as it would have been protected by trained swordsmen. There was a record of a trade expedition into a certain region and apparently the local warlord was considering just taking the caravan and all its goods for himself. But then, when he saw the size of the army escort, he quickly changed his tactics and gave the leader of the caravan many fine gifts, including bowls, and would have guided him along his way. So that doubt had been a typical account that would have been recorded. During this particular region. These local warlords were probably used to just ripping off the trade caravans. But once you had the armed escort and it would have been a pretty significant armed escort that would have been stronger than their little gang of thugs well, this would have changed how you would have dealt with them. Instead of robbing them, you would have offered them free passage and made sure that everything was A-OK, because in the end, if you decided to attack them, you probably would have been cut down or worse, you could have had a local garrison that would have been stationed right in your region and you would have lost all your power. So in the end, what we see is we see a militarization of protecting trade in the region.
Speaker 1:In addition, the one thing I always go back to, especially in these early ancient podcasts, is the fact that standardized weights and measures were often evolving and changing during these various military conquests. And the fact is, standardized weights and measures always make trade more efficient, and this is no different during this time period as in previous time periods. Now the new kingdom, which was from 1570 to about 1069 BCE, the unit to measure metals was often referred to as the Deben. A standard Deben appears to have evolved over the years. Now, in the new kingdom it evolved from the old kingdom Now the old kingdom the Deben was about 12 to 14 grams per Deben weight. However, this unit of measurement had changed around 1500 BCE, as the Deben was then equated to about 91 to 92 grams of a metal such as gold, silver or even copper, mostly copper, because copper would have been the most widely exchanged good. Now the Deben could be divided into 10 cadet of about 9 grams or up to 9.5 grams. So these units of measure were ultimately used when Egyptians conducted any kind of trade.
Speaker 1:Now, since Egypt had extensive trade networks into the Levant, it shouldn't be shocking to know that the Phoenicians and the Egyptians also had extensive trade agreements. Most of the trade that was brought to Egypt was done overland, despite the fact that the Phoenicians were great seamen. Herodotus specifically mentions the wares of Egypt when he is writing about Phoenicians, and from a Phoenician standpoint, probably the most important thing that was brought in from Egypt would have been its fine linen, which would have been used for its sales, for its commercial and military ships. In addition, egypt sent its natron, which was a key component in its glass making process. It also exported its papyrus. In return, egypt would have imported large amounts of wine, tin and the ever popular Phoenician purple fabrics, along with other manufactured products that were produced by the Phoenicians.
Speaker 1:So what I'm getting at is, during this time period, we see a vast trade network that was flourishing into and out of Egypt and, as a result, trade would have been changing society as well. Prior to this period, I'd say that a minimum of 90% of the population lived off the land, and it may even have been a higher amount, it might have been like 99%, I don't know but it was a very significant amount of people that would have consumed the goods that they produced. So in other words, they would have been practicing in early form of subsistence farming and, as a result, egypt always had this apparent feeling of that. They were very self-sufficient, they didn't need outside goods because they can produce and live off their own land. Now that's not going to work when you move into more modern societies and you've got to worry about outside forces coming in. So everything would have been changing because of their trade and the lands that they worked, while the ownership of that land would have evolved as well. Initially, the way they kind of really believed is they thought that the land that they worked would have really belonged to Osiris, but after his downfall it would have passed to Aaris and his earthly incarnations, who would have been the pharaoh. But this practice of ownership had evolved quite a bit over time and I tend to think that we kind of don't realize how old Egypt is. The ancients of the ancients were in Egypt.
Speaker 1:So this time period is 1,500 years away from when Normers died into the zero, 1,500 years away from that. So if we went back 1,500 years we'd be in the Byzantines, for example, or just after the fall of the Roman Empire. So that gives you an idea of how long ago the time periods were. So, in other words, what I'm getting at is it's easy to lose sight of the length of time in the Egyptian dynasties and the different Egyptian time periods. So obviously over 1,500 years, which is a long period of time, think about how much society's changed in the last 1,500 years. Now think about Egypt Dynasties zero to this time is 1,500 years. So obviously there's going to be a lot of change Now. Change nowadays happens a lot faster than it did 3,000 years ago, but nonetheless it still changes. So in practice, one of the things that would have changed would have been land ownership, is it would have emerged to where land could be freely bought and sold.
Speaker 1:Now, apart from the Tenant Peasants, a large section of the population worked as farm laborers on the estates of the noblemen and the temples. During the New Kingdom, it is believed that up to a third of all the lands were in the hands of the almond priesthood, with a huge number of workers and in a smaller percentage of slaves that would have worked the lands Like the Samaritans. The priests were a wealthy class of citizens. Remember, in Sumer, the wealthiest people were the priests. In ancient Egypt it's not that much different. The priesthood were the landowners, and the landowners were the ones who derived majority of the wealth. The farmers were under a labor tax that required them to work on irrigation or other construction projects in the form of unpaid labor. Now, in previous episodes I had mentioned tax breaks at certain points. When I mentioned tax breaks previously, what is meant by that was if you worked on a pyramid in the past or if you did some kind of government construction, you didn't have to work in the irrigation fields as well. You fulfilled your tax work obligation and that would have been looked like a tax break, so you did your thing for the ferrule. Now you don't have to work in the irrigation fields.
Speaker 1:I also brought up slavery. Slavery is kind of a weird thing because that idea has evolved dramatically when looking at ancient Egypt. Over years it was thought that the pyramids were built by slave labor, but we've come to realize that that is certainly not the case. There were slaves in Egypt, but they were far less than what we would have seen in Mesopotamia and later on in Greece and in Rome. There were slaves, but not as many. They obviously weren't like the American chattel slavery that we see in the southern part of the United States and, even worse, in the Caribbean. It was from a modern perspective. It appears that the slaves were treated probably better and they're more or less paid with food and beer, which more or less meant that they were paid similarly to the same kind of pay that was given to people that worked on the pyramids, for example. So that's kind of how slavery works in Egypt. I think the biggest takeaway up until this point with regards to slavery is there was slavery, but it wasn't quite the same as we see in Mesopotamia. There's a lot less of it, but it was present, but not nearly as much as in other parts of the world.
Speaker 1:Now also, what we see in the New Kingdom is the emergence of loans and the emergence of debt and credit, but there was some caveats to this. It wasn't quite the same as what we see in modern lending programs. For example, interest wasn't even charged. Loans were granted in time of need, to tide over the beleaguered party, and it sounds like interest wasn't really a thing. What interest was was more of a penalty for late payments. The loan agreements were typically oral, so they weren't written like you see in Mesopotamia, and these contracts would have been difficult to categorize as loans. So I guess technically they were loans, but it doesn't really have the same connotation as a modern loan or the loans that you see in Mesopotamia. Rather they seem to be a continuation and modification of tribal hospitality, where clan members were guaranteed some kind of subsistence. So this was unlike what we see in Mesopotamia, where in Mesopotamia we clearly see banking operations being developed during this time period where we're not really seeing that in Egypt.
Speaker 1:And a lot of it probably goes back to the fact that Egypt had historically been a lot more self-reliant and people were more likely to live off the land than you would see in Mesopotamia. And the one thing that you see that is different as well in Egypt as compared to Mesopotamia is in Mesopotamia they really started moving towards silver as a formalized medium of exchange. Silver was a lot more widely accepted and items and goods were priced in terms of silver. It was the silverization process that didn't really happen in Egypt the way it did in Mesopotamia. In Egypt things were basically still priced in various commodities, so silver was used, but not to the extent that it was being used in Mesopotamia. So what happens is in Egypt you can price goods in terms of the price of grain or the price of copper and silver, of course, and you can also price things in terms of linen the given price of any object or even the price of real estate or an animal or a slave could be expressed in any of these various commodities. So, in other words, money really wasn't in existence in Egypt in a modern sense.
Speaker 1:In fact, I would say the monetization of goods were more likely to take place in Mesopotamia at this time than, say, egypt, because at least in Mesopotamia we start moving towards a standard silver as how we would price goods and how we would exchange goods. That wasn't quite happening yet in Egypt. And of course a lot of this was due to the fact that Egypt was a lot different than Mesopotamia. And in fact Egypt I don't know if you want to say it was slower evolving than Mesopotamia, but the fact is is Egypt had moved away from a redistributive economy to a mixed economy by then, but I think in Mesopotamia that happened a little bit faster than it did in Egypt.
Speaker 1:But either way, the economy had moved away from a centralized government that basically pulled all the economic strings, whereas foodstuffs and other supplies are being distributed to the local population from the palace or the temple. So, in other words, you're paid in kind. In kind means you're getting the actual goods that you need to basically live. So instead of getting paid money to go buy bread, you're actually being paid bread. Instead of giving money to go buy beer, you're actually being paid in beer, because beer and bread were staples of the Egyptian diet in this time period.
Speaker 1:So what we see is the economy had fully evolved into a mixed economy where it's partly a redistributive economy but also there is a private sector aspect to it as well. So, in other words, you have a centralized government that's pulling all the strings, but now also you have a complex economic system where there are middlemen and producers and it's getting to the marketplace. So it's kind of a combination of both, and each one would have played its complementary role on the other. So, therefore, a citizen of Egypt would have known that the palace or the temple would have been able to step in and make sure that they get a certain allotment of goods that they would have to use to live off of. So they got their food and they got their beer, and they got that as a minimum amount. But then there was also the private sector that was actually adding more to that of which a lot of these goods that were produced not by the central government would have come from goods that were manufactured by large families and the temples which produced the raw materials.
Speaker 1:And in order to produce these raw materials, you would have to have a labor force that could handle this, and the labor force was typically divided according to gender. Now, the women were typically responsible for producing the raw materials, and, to give you an idea how it worked, for example, the men would grow the flax while the women would spin it into a thread and then they would weave it into a linen and I kind of alluded to it previously, but beer was extremely important and, as a result, a sizable proportion of the grain that was produced was ultimately used for beer production. Everything was typically done by the men, while the women would clean and dry it. In Mesopotamia, the factories were run by the temple, whereas in Egypt, the small factories were often financed by rich noblemen. And when I say factories, I'm typically referring to more large scale bakeries and breweries and the carpentry workshops that would employ a few dozen people to produce finished goods of which the manufacturing weaving, for instance would have been largely a male occupation in this time period as well, but I think it's important to note that women in ancient Egypt had almost the same amount of rights as men. Women in ancient Egypt could start their own company, they could marry and divorce their partners, they could own properties and they could even become witnesses in courts. However, allowing a female to be crowned as a high ruler wasn't something that had occurred in Egypt up until this point.
Speaker 1:Hatshetsub was the daughter of Tupmost I. She was married to her half-brother, tupmost II, and after her husband's death she ruled initially as a regent for her stepson, tupmost III, who was too young to assume power as he'd inherited a throne at the age of two. Hatshetsub assumed the position of Pharaoh as she was the co-ruler alongside Tupmost III. She took on traditionally male roles, and in her seventh year on the throne she began to be depicted as a male Pharaoh, with physically masculine traits and traditional male garb, including the beard. She even referred to herself as Hatshetsu, which contained a masculine ending. Hatshetsub reign was a period of great prosperity and general peace throughout the region. Egyptologists today recognize her as one of the most notable pharaohs to ever rule over Egypt. During the New Kingdom, she was known as a great builder in Egypt and she also led successful trade missions to the land of Punt, in addition to her reliefs that indicated that she had marched alongside her army in battle. So she was a do-it-all kind of pharaoh.
Speaker 1:And once again I'm bringing up the land of Punt, and it's important to stress that the land of Punt isn't necessarily a fictional place in the work of literature, as expeditions to this place have been recorded by ancient Egyptians as far back as into the Old Kingdom at around 27 BC, and this would have been during the age of the Great Pyramid Builders. To give an idea of what time we're referring to at this time period Now the exact location of Punt is debated by historians. Various locations have been offered to Southeast Egypt, to the Red Sea coast, to Somalia, to Djibouti, northeast Ethiopia, northeast Sudan, yemen. There's this like it could be just about anywhere. So it's basically covers. Like I said prior, it covers the Horn of Africa in southwestern or, yeah, southwestern Arabia. Pharaohs have been traveling to Punt for thousands of years, where Egyptians were able to acquire incense, ebony and cattle and gold and ivory and other animal skins. So I just wanted to kind of reiterate what Punt was and where it is. I've mentioned it a few times and I'm sorry if I'm beating you over the head with it, but it's a pretty fascinating place. It's kind of a mixture of mythological and real, so that's why I find it so interesting.
Speaker 1:Now, when Hajjeta passed away sometime around 1458 BCE, took most of 3rd, immediately assumed the title of the 6th Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. The issue is, the people of the Ovan had used her death as an opportunity to rebel, since they thought he might be a weak leader. This is a common thing. I've talked about it in Mesopotamia several times A powerful ruler dies and the people in the outer regions want to rebel and test to see if this new leader can put the rebellion down or if they can get their freedom. Same thing happened here. However, it was closer to the opposite, as he had conducted at least 16 campaigns in 20 years. As such, he may have captured as many as 350 cities during his rule. So he was obviously not a weak ruler. And of which? Of those 350 cities, many were in modern day area of Syria, so he was moving to the northeast.
Speaker 1:The ultimate problem was the fact that they were conquering lands kind of far from Egypt. Now what this led to was that when they enter into the region, they can put down these revolts, but as soon as they leave, people start to revolt again. This is a common thing in ancient societies Whenever you conquer a land you're able to put down a revolt, you leave and that revolt kind of springs back up. So this kind of would have happened again and again. So essentially it was almost like a never ending cycle, and it sounds like he figured out a way to break the cycle, and what he did was he would essentially take hostages of the elites in Syria. Most of the third found that by taking family members of these key people to Egypt as hostages, he could drastically increase their loyalty to him. So, in other words, don't cause any trouble and pay your tribute and taxes and nothing will happen to your son, which, honestly, in ancient civilizations that was a pretty common tactic that people use to stop rebellions from happening and to basically develop some kind of loyalty to a foreign crown.
Speaker 1:Now it was Tupemos's last campaign that was waged in his 50th year of his reign, that he went south in a Tachnubia of which he was able to go as far as the fourth cataract of the Nile. Apparently, this was the furthest south anyfair would ever gone, but it's worth noting that by this time the Egyptian culture had spread throughout Nubia and, as a result, the people of Nubia were almost become an Egyptian. And also around this time period, we start to see a scribe class that was beginning to emerge in Egypt, just like we had saw in the Sumerian culture, where a scribe class that typically would have been the upper echelon of society would have developed into this great career path. We start to see that in Egypt as well around this time period. So, in the grand scheme of things, everything appears to have been humming along for the next 100 years or so. A Pharaoh would rule, he would die, his son would take over, and he would rule, and then he would die, and then his son would take over, and on, and on and on, and there wouldn't be any serious succession or political concerns happening during this time period.
Speaker 1:Now, it wasn't until Amenhotep IV that a shakeup would happen in Egypt. It was early during his reign that he essentially converted to a new religion and therefore had changed his name to Akhenaten. It appears that he originally worshipped the traditional gods of Egypt, such as Amun, ra and Osiris. However, he chose to abandon those old gods and he wanted to institute a more monotheistic religion. Now, it's quite possible that this change was brought on from the traders that we had been discussing, that had been moving into and out of the region, and they would have also brought their new religious ideas with them. As such, this new religion would be known as Atonism, which was a religion that was centered around the sun god, aton. Since the monotheistic religion forced Egyptians to worship only Aton, atonism was not widely accepted by many. You can't expect the whole population to change the belief system overnight, so it's not really that unexpected. Now, as a result, akhenism had resorted to closing down all the temples that were once dedicated to the old gods, and the capital was moved from Thebes to a newly constructed city called Akhenaten, which meant the horizon of Aton, of which it is now known as Amarna.
Speaker 1:On top of all this, it sounded like he was just an awful administrator, as well, as it sounds like he had zero interest in doing anything that a king was supposed to do. So, for example, he basically neglected his military and his kingdom's trade and economy, and because of this, rampant corruption started to seep its way throughout the kingdom, and this would have obviously started on a local level. So if a person was supposed to collect taxes from a local region, instead of funneling the money up to the king, a lot of the local officials were just basically pocketing the money for themselves and their friends and family. By doing all this, he essentially bankrupted the entire country. Before he got on a throne, egypt was the most wealthy and prosperous country in the local region, or even the world for that matter, and it only took one bad king to nearly wipe out the whole entire country.
Speaker 1:And if I remember correctly, I was listening to Dan Carlin in one of his episodes one of his great episodes, I should add, because he's the best in the business as far as I'm concerned. But anyway, what he was saying is he was talking about how the kings, how going from one king to another, could be almost like a role of the dice, right? So you roll the dice and you get a great role and, as a result, you get a great king who turns out to be the great administrator and moves the country forward, and there's a lot of prosperity and trade, and the economic growth in the country makes everybody else more prosperous, and on and on and on. So you roll the dice, you get a great king, but then you can roll the dice again for the next king and it comes up snake eyes and he's absolute garbage as a king and in the end he basically bankrupts the country and moves everybody three steps backwards. So it sounds like in this particular case that that's kind of what happened for decades upon decades the country was moving forward, prosperity, trade was increasing and people were happy, and one person comes in, wants to make changes and put his own stamp on things and essentially undoes everything and sets the country back.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for taking your time to listen to this episode. I truly hope you enjoyed it and were able to learn something new, and I hope that you can stick with me for the next episode and beyond. If you like what you hear and want to donate to the show, you can visit us at patreoncom slash history of money banking trade or you can visit our website at moneybankingtradecom. Also, you can help to show out a ton by leaving a five star review and telling your friends about it. Thank you very much. Talk to you soon.
