1st Edition
The Economy of Ancient Egypt State, Administration, Institutions
The aim of this book is to theorise the state, administration and economy of ancient Egypt taking ancient records as the starting point for the analysis. The Egyptian state is theorised as an administrative field of material and symbolic powers with emphasis upon the latter because it has received scant attention in Egyptology. Maat (truth, fairness, connective justice) is theorised as symbolic power discursively authored, disseminated and monitored by senior administrators who discursively redefined its meaning to suit changes in the socio-political contexts.
The book examines the classification schemes of the Egyptian population devised by the administrative field of power and how they were used to differentiate, hierarchise and fix specific individuals within clearly demarcated social and economic categories that aimed to fix the subjectivity of those assigned to each category. Ancient Egyptian had a significant state economic sector and a private sector. A multiplicity of sources of state economic resources are examined: taxation/impost, war booty and tributes, and gifts exchanged between the Egyptian kings and foreign kings. A nuanced understanding of Polanyi’s work on redistribution is used to theorise the cycle of levying, collecting, storing and redistributing tax revenues. Gifts exchanges between Egyptian kings and kings from Asia Minor are theorised as occurring on as stage of institutional drama, war booty as an ‘economy of force’ and tribute as an economy of restitution. Private exchange is theorised by developing the concept of ‘sociable markets’ and drawing on Maat in its various meanings as truth, fairness and connective justice.
This book will be of interest to readers in economic history, ancient Egypt and ancient history more broadly.
Introduction
PART I : THE EMERGENCE OF THE EGYPTIAN STATE AND ADMINISTRATIVE INSTITUTIONS
1. Concepts of the state and ancient Egypt
2. The administrative field of power
3. The administrative field, symbolic power and social connectivity
PART II: THE INTERNAL ECONOMY OF EGYPT
4. The Egyptian economy: The debate
5. Economic resources of the state: Taxation
6. Labour, the state and Redistribution
PART III: THE STATE ECONOMY: EXTERNAL RESOURCES
7. International trade
8. International relations and the economy of the gift
9. The economy of war booty and tribute
PART IV: THE PRIVATE EGYPTIAN ECONOMY
10. Barter, money and private trade
11. Private exchange in close-knit community and sociability
12. Private exchange in Deir el-Medina and sociable markets
Biography
Mahmoud Ezzamel is Distinguished Research Professor at IE University, Madrid, Spain. He is the author of many books including Accounting and Order (Routledge, 2012) and has published extensively in leading organisation and management studies journals. His interdisciplinary work on accounting, management and economic history draws on insights from social theory and anthropology. He is the recipient of the 2009 Hourglass Award from the Academy of Accounting Historians.
