THE JOURNAL OF

Egyptian
Archaeology
VOLUME 97
2011
PUBLISHED BY
THE EGYPT EXPLORATION SOCIETY
3 DOUGHTY MEWS, LONDON WC1N 2PG
ISSN 03075133
The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
All rights reserved
ISSN cc,-+
website: http://www.ees.ac.uk/publications/journal-egyptian-archaeology.html
Published annually by
The Egypt Exploration Society
Doughty Mews
London WC1N 2PG
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A limited Company registered in England, No. z8+6
Printed in Great Britain by
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Editorial Team
Roland Enmarch, Editor-in-Chief
Violaine Chauvet, Editor
Mark Collier, Editor
Chris Eyre, Editor
Cary Martin, Editor
Ian Shaw, Editor
Glenn Godenho, Editorial Assistant
editorial email address: jea@ees.ac.uk
The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology g, (zc++), Reviews, z+g,
ISSN cc,-+
REVIEWS
Dienstverpichtung im Alten gypten whrend des Alten und Mittleren Reiches. By Iciiovi H:ii::.
Internet-Beitrge zur gyptologie und Sudanarchologie +z. Pp. z6. Berlin and London, Golden
House Publications, zccg. ISBN g,8 + gc6 +,++ . Price z.
As with many other disciplines, Egyptology is inuenced by national traditions that have left their
distinctive mark on the way in which specic subjects are treated, or even in their specialisation in
a particular branch of knowledge, like the German philological school of the late nineteenth/early
twentieth century. Perhaps one of the least known of these are the Egyptological studies developed
in the former USSR area of inuence: the fact that many publications were then written in Russian,
as well as the narrow perspectives of research imposed both by Stalinism and a by a rather stagnant
Marxist tradition, made it dihcult for Western scholars to be acquainted with their Eastern colleagues
production, scholarship, and research priorities.
+
Additional dihculties further hindered a normal
academic life in Eastern Europe and the USSR, like the impediments to free circulation of scholars,
or to access to specialised libraries and Egyptian collections. However, even under such restrictive
conditions, Eastern contributions were in many cases of a high academic standard and, what is more,
explored some paths of research traditionally neglected by Western Egyptology. Economic and social
studies are the most evident of them, and the quality of the work of scholars like Berlev still continues
to inspire contemporary research. For these reasons, re-evaluations of the contributions of the Eastern
European Egyptological tradition have ourished in recent years.
z
Thus P. Andrssy, Untersuchungen
zum gyptischen Staat des Alten Reiches und seinen Institutionen (IBAES ++; Berlin and London, zcc8),
and the volume currently under review give an insight into the approaches and theoretical concerns
discussed in the GDR prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Similar ehorts are also evident with regard
to Eastern Assyriologists, whose collaboration with Western colleagues was nevertheless more
frequent on the basis of the periodical Rencontres Assyriologiques Internationales (RAI). The so-called
Leningrad School and its most renowned exponents, I. M. Diakonoh and M. A. Dandamaev, are well
known in the eld of Mesopotamian studies as promoters of a socio-economic perspective inspired
by a non-dogmatic historical materialism, where collaboration with Western scholars was uent,

and
led to a general recognition of the quality of their work, as shown by the extensive participation in
the volume M. A. Dandamayev, I. Gershevitch, H. Klengel, G. Komorczy, M. T. Larsen, and J. N.
Postgate (eds), Societies and Languages of the Ancient Near East: Studies in Honour of I. M. Diakono
(Warminster, +g8z).
Unfortunately, the limitations which hindered the normal development of Egyptology and
Assyriology in the former Soviet sphere also prevented the development of the full potential of
Marxism as an analytical tool in both disciplines, of the fruitful and creative variety pursued by Italian
scholars like M. Liverani, C. Zaccagnini, and F. M. Fales; their work, quite signicantly, did however
travel the opposite way, as it was partially translated into English and published in Budapest as late
as +g8g, just prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The aim was to familiarise Eastern scholars with
a renewed Western Marxism, still able to cast valuable light on Ancient Near Eastern history and,
+
The terms Western and Eastern are here used as purely geopolitical and do not intend to carry any
pejorative or disdainful nuance.
z
E.g. S. Quirke (ed.), Discovering Egypt from the Neva: The Egyptological Legacy of Oleg D. Berlev (Berlin,
zcc). Some recent issues of the IBAES series are also intended to highlight the Egyptological research which
ourished in the last years of the former German Democratic Republic. See also the early publication by R. Mller-
Wollermann of J. J. Perepelkin, Privateigentum in der Vorstellung der gypter des Alten Reichs (Tbingen, +g86),
originally published in Russian in +g66.

See, among other examples, B. Brentjes (ed.), Das Grundeigentum in Mesopotamien (Jahrbuch fr
Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Sonderband; [East-]Berlin, +g88).
zz REVIEWS JEA g,
admittedly, to stimulate the local tradition of Near Eastern research within the framework of historical
materialism.

However, and in spite of such late and isolated attempts, it must be admitted that the
dominant narratives, historical approaches, and theoretical discussions in both Eastern Assyriology
and Egyptology were rather conservative.

This, which could have been a serious disadvantage,

turned out in fact to be quite the opposite in the case of Egyptology: given the traditional isolation of
Egyptology in respect of other disciplines, its lack of interest in social sciences and, consequently, its
traditionalist views, the gap between Western and Eastern Egyptological traditions became thus much
less evident than in other branches of knowledge. Only the work of Egyptologists like Berlev or Luft
departed from this trend and stood as an original and promising but, in the end, isolated alternative.
With these considerations, it is not a surprise that the book written by Ingelore Hafemann (between
+g8 and +ggc) is a good illustration of both the intellectual concerns and limitations of Egyptology
in the former Soviet sphere. It also shows the unexpected resilience of Egyptology in preserving the
core of its traditional scholarship and academic practices even within a rather diherent intellectual
environment, dominated by historical materialism, and more receptive, a priori, to dealing with the
socio-economic and political aspects of the past.
To begin with, the subject treated in her book concerns an important aspect of ancient tributary
states quite often assumed in Egyptology under the term corve: the use and extent of compulsory
work in Ancient Egypt, and more precisely during the Old and Middle Kingdoms. This dihcult topic
involves careful lexicographic research (e.g. who were the mrt and the Hm-nswt, and what were their
diherences from, say, the nzwtjw?), a systematic analysis of the written sources (and the use of the
archaeological evidence when possible), a reappraisal of the previous theoretical discussions in order
to evaluate their pertinence or to calibrate the accuracy of the concepts employed (serfs? conscripts?
corvables? corve?), and, nally, a general interpretation of the logic of the scal and productive system
where compulsory work was preferred (or predominated) instead of wages, slavery, or informal work
systems (like the mobilisation of clients by powerful patrons, voluntary occasional work for religious
reasons, etc.). To put it another way, it is the political economy of manpower and its role in a tributary
state like Ancient Egypt that should be the main focus of the analysis.
6

However, the methodology followed by the author is a traditional one, where one gets a rather
patchy and impressionist view of the topic treated, deprived of any rm link with the overall structure
of the state and the logic it imposed over social and economic relations. It is true that the author
frequently asserts that the primary aim of her book is not to deal with the complex questions of the
economic structure of Egypt, or the prevailing social relations during the Old and Middle Kingdoms.
However it is also evident that her interpretation is dominated by several assumptions which provide
a general narrative taken for granted, but never suhciently claried or proved by the evidence used.
Thus, from the very beginning (p. ix), we are told that the management of manpower on a huge scale
raised considerable problems only solved thanks to a system of compulsory work imposed by a state
whose main concern was ensuring that production was duly redistributed. In Chapter 6, she continues
arguing that the vast architectural works of the Third and Fourth Dynasties helped a class society
emerge where the state and private sectors were integrated into a despotic scal system, strengthening
the legitimacy of the king. In other words, architecture is invoked as the prime motor in the move
towards a class society and the consolidation of a centralised state. Such an assertion doubtless deserves
more balanced consideration, especially when the book rightly insists on the dihculties of dening the
status and condition of the workers engaged by the state, or the exact nature of the activities carried out
by specic departments, not to mention the scarce and ambiguous administrative evidence relating to
state architecture. This is particularly evident when the author correctly stresses the limited and rather
elusive information which can be gathered from titles, from occasional passages in autobiographies,
and from the bare mention of ohces in some inscriptions (Chapter z).
Consequently one gets the impression, from reading the book, that the authors interpretation was
intended from the start to be another conrmation of the well known trope that hydraulic or architectural
works led to the birth of the rst states, and that they made it possible for ancient societies to advance a
further step in the long path towards complexity and progress. As the conclusions appear thus to have

C. Zaccagnini (ed.), Production and Consumption (Budapest, +g8g).

See, for example, the excellent review of I. M. Diakonohs, The Paths of History (Cambridge, +ggg) by
J. Haldon, Historical Materialism +.z (zcc6), +6gzc+.
6
J. C. Moreno Garca, La dpendance rurale en gypte ancienne, JESHO + (zcc8), gg+c, especially
+zg+.
zc++ REVIEWS z
been already self-evident even since the beginning of her research, any in-depth analysis seems to have
been dismissed as redundant at best, as if the author had limited herself to providing an additional
illustration to conrm the common assumption that compulsory work prevailed in Ancient Egypt.
This idea has indeed enjoyed a long life in Egyptology, to the point that the myth of the all-powerful
centralised bureaucratic state which surveyed, controlled, and redistributed all production and provided
for the needs of the population still represents the main interpretative framework, despite the scarce
evidence available (written or archaeological), or the alternative views that this very evidence permits.
Consequently, systematic analysis is neglected while the overall picture which emerges from the book
is that the author has limited her research to choosing some titles, institutions, and case studies in order
to illustrate a preconceived narrative, thus contributing to the rather patchy and impressionistic aspect
of the volume. Alternative views and diherent ways of questioning the documentary evidence would
have certainly enriched her analysis or, at least, provided a background against which to assess her own
interpretations. Various works
,
could have been a good starting point for discussing the organisation
of administrative ohces, work centres, and categories of workers. Thus, for instance, pages , are
devoted to the study of the overseers of all the works of the king in the Old Kingdom, and digressions
about their relationship with the royal family are followed by lists of the holders of the title, classied
by chronological order and accompanied by concise comments not always related to the main topic of
the book. Description thus replaces true analysis and, quite surprisingly, even the ohces presumably
related to the management of manpower are neither treated in any detail in this section of the book
(pp. 6g,+) nor in the chapter devoted to the royal decrees (pp. +cz++).
Another area where a contradiction emerges between the analysis of the sources and the overall
historical explanation is in the types of work and workers employed by the state. The fact that
workers could also be provided by dignitaries and high ohcials reveals the existence of a private
sector also involved in the works of the state, as the author rightly stresses (pp. +c6, +z+, +,
+z6). Nevertheless, the fact that the state granted workers (on a full or part-time basis) to ohcials
leaves open the question of the degree of state control over the personnel transferred to the private
sphere, an aspect insuhciently studied in the book. Crucial new evidence, like the papyri of Gebelein,
the team marks from the Middle Kingdom pyramids at Lisht, and the team marks from the Old
Kingdom mastabas at Balat, was not available when the author originally wrote her dissertation,
8
but
many other inscriptions demonstrate that personnel was part of the remuneration routinely bestowed
to dignitaries, as in the well-known Stle juridique of Karnak. In any case, a precise analysis of the
articulation of the private and domestic spheres, on the one hand, and the institutional and state
sectors, on the other hand, is essential in order to gain a thorough comprehension of the role and
impact of compulsory work in Egyptian society. Lexicographical contributions are fundamental in this
respect, and the chapter devoted to the denition and characteristics of several categories of workers,
like mrt, Dt, mnjw, Hsbw, nfrw, and Hm-nswt (pp. +z6, also +czc6, +z) could have proted from
Berlevs studies on mrt and Hm-nswt. Nevertheless, the risk of establishing too rigid categories solely on
lexicographic grounds is rightly avoided by the author when she makes the important observation that
the same group of workers could be described with diherent terms (mnjw, Hsbw, wpwtjw) depending
on the context of their activities (p. +).
To sum up, this book is an appreciable general overview of the problem of compulsory work in
Ancient Egypt. However, the sources and theoretical approaches available when it was originally
drafted out could have certainly allowed it to be more incisive, and to treat in more detail the logic
and political economy of compulsory work in an ancient tributary state like Pharaonic Egypt. This
is, however, a debate which is still open, and so Ingelore Hafemann deserves our gratitude for having
taken a step forward in a dihcult and still much discussed topic.
Ji: C:vios Movio G:vI:
,
E.g. P. Posener-Kriger, Les papyrus de Gblein: Remarques prliminaires, RdE z, (+g,), z++z+;
N. Strudwick, The Administration of Egypt in the Old Kingdom (London, +g8), a book cited but insuhciently
used; S. Quirke, State and Labour in the Middle Kingdom: A Reconsideration of the Term xnrt, RdE g (+g88),
8+c6; O. D. Berlev, A Social Experiment in Nubia During the Years g+, of Sesostris I, in M. A. Powell (ed.),
Labor in the Ancient Near East (AOS 68; New Haven, +g8,), +,.
8
See also the recent contributions of P. Andrssy and J. Budka, in P. Andrssy, J. Budka, and F. Kammerzell
(eds), Non-Textual Marking Systems, Writing and Pseudo Script from Prehistory to Modern Times (LingAeg SM 8;
Gttingen, zccg), as well as P. Andrssy, Builders Grahti and Administrative Aspects of Pyramid and Temple
Building in Ancient Egypt, in R. Preys (ed.), . gyptologische Tempeltagung: Structuring Religion (KSG /z;
Wiesbaden, zcc,), ++6.