>Astonishingly, the papyri were written by men who participated in the building of the Great Pyramid, the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu, the first and largest of the three colossal pyramids at Giza ... the entries provide a never-before-seen snapshot of the ancients putting finishing touches on the Great Pyramid.
really amazing to learn that such documentation survives to this day. just amazing.
Funny thing how the invention of plastics might reverse the pattern of future artifacts. Valuable/costly artifacts are currently over-presented, since they were made either of stone or metal, as opposed to mud and wood.
What fascinates me from reading the article is this expands the scope of the ancient Egyptian economy. While we assume the pace of technological change back then was far slower and less disruptive, it is still a remarkable accomplishment that their civilization's economy lasted intact for over 3,000 years. Much of that time the economy existed was built on barter, without the abstractions we take for granted as superior, such as money.
Now with Tallet's contributions to our understanding, not only did that economy support the massive royal bureaucracy and pyramids projects, but apparently much more extensive brown water and offshore naval infrastructure than we previously thought. The taxes were apparently quite heavy [1], but somehow they made it work for a much longer time than any extant civilization has existed. The kind of archaeology that could explain how they pulled that off would be really interesting. I don't think it could be explained by a single factor like "just" slavery, or "just" religious devotion, etc.
> without the abstractions we take for granted as superior, such as money.
That's only true if by "money" you mean coinage, which is a definition so narrow that it also excludes the modern notion of money (you think that's dollar bills you're spending with your credit card?). The Egyptians did have currency that wasn't explicitly coins (e.g. shaped piece of metal), and, at least a 1000 years before they had currency at all, they exchanged items according to the items' value measured in units of metal, even if they didn't exchange the actual metal [1]. Calling this barter (as the linked articles do), from which it's perhaps reasonable to conclude the Egyptians lacked money as an abstraction, is then disingenuous because that's no different than how we exchange goods in the modern world (again, you think that's actual dollar bills that are moving around when you purchase from Amazon? or when you deposit or pay via checks?).
What the ancient Egyptians did lack for most of their history is the device of interest-bearing debt (see [2], pp. 217-219).
>they exchanged items according to the items' value measured in units of metal, even if they didn't exchange the actual metal
This is still bartering. When I order something off Amazon, I don't have to package up an item of equal value and physically mail it to them. This is the fundamental problem that money solves - an abstract, finely divisible, non-spoiling value store.
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[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 25.2 ms ] threadreally amazing to learn that such documentation survives to this day. just amazing.
Now with Tallet's contributions to our understanding, not only did that economy support the massive royal bureaucracy and pyramids projects, but apparently much more extensive brown water and offshore naval infrastructure than we previously thought. The taxes were apparently quite heavy [1], but somehow they made it work for a much longer time than any extant civilization has existed. The kind of archaeology that could explain how they pulled that off would be really interesting. I don't think it could be explained by a single factor like "just" slavery, or "just" religious devotion, etc.
[1] http://classroom.synonym.com/taxes-were-collected-ancient-eg...
That's only true if by "money" you mean coinage, which is a definition so narrow that it also excludes the modern notion of money (you think that's dollar bills you're spending with your credit card?). The Egyptians did have currency that wasn't explicitly coins (e.g. shaped piece of metal), and, at least a 1000 years before they had currency at all, they exchanged items according to the items' value measured in units of metal, even if they didn't exchange the actual metal [1]. Calling this barter (as the linked articles do), from which it's perhaps reasonable to conclude the Egyptians lacked money as an abstraction, is then disingenuous because that's no different than how we exchange goods in the modern world (again, you think that's actual dollar bills that are moving around when you purchase from Amazon? or when you deposit or pay via checks?).
What the ancient Egyptians did lack for most of their history is the device of interest-bearing debt (see [2], pp. 217-219).
[1] http://classroom.synonym.com/ancient-egyptian-forms-money-57...
[2] http://libcom.org/files/__Debt__The_First_5_000_Years.pdf
This is still bartering. When I order something off Amazon, I don't have to package up an item of equal value and physically mail it to them. This is the fundamental problem that money solves - an abstract, finely divisible, non-spoiling value store.