The state, temples, and populace had varying and fluctuating access to farmland, marshes, waterways, and desert resources throughout the Pharaonic period (Goelet 1999: 65-103). Small settlements and transitory camps facilitated access to these resources, which included cropland, grazing land, orchards, gardens, fishing, fowling, wild game, mines, quarries, and trade routes (Butzer 1976). During the Old Kingdom, the Palermo Stone records King Snefru creating 35 estates and 122 farms in undeveloped land throughout the Nile Valley and south-east Delta (Kemp 2006: 166-7). Their produce maintained his mortuary cult at Dahshur. Exemption decrees and other texts reveal that various mortuary cults made similar arrangements, obtaining clothing, grain, bread, beer, and livestock for state and cultic installations and settlements in the Memphite region and elsewhere. Such land holdings range from 2-110 arouras (16.4 to 905 ha). Elite tomb chapels (e. g., Ptahhotep, Ti, Mereruka) portray diverse scenes of daily life from similar estates. During the late Old Kingdom many high officials shifted their residence from Memphis to the provinces, redirecting more wealth and independence outside the capital. This pattern intensifies during the First Intermediate Period.
The Middle Kingdom experienced a significant drop in water levels, perhaps encouraging Senwosret II-III and Amenemhet III-IV to expand irrigation, farming, settlements, and shrines around Lake Qarun in the Fayum: e. g., Qasr es-Saghr, Medinet el-Maadi, Biahmu, and Kiman Faras. Senwosret II cut a canal from the Bahr Yusuf to Lake Qarun, added water catchment basins, and placed a dyke at el-Lahun. Amenemhet III introduced further basins and dykes, obtaining more arable land near Medinet el-Fayum (Leprohon 1999: 51-2).
The Middle Kingdom tomb of Khnumhotep at Beni Hasan reveals that Egypt controlled and received payment (e. g., malachite) for Bedouin access to pastureland in the Nile Valley. These migrants probably sheltered in small seasonal encampments along the desert edge and may have traded livestock, wool, meat, milk, and other items. Similar arrangements were made between the Theban and Hyksos kingdoms during the Second Intermediate Period. The Kamose Stela mentions Theban cattle in grazing land in the delta fens, whilst grain fodder is shipped south to feed pigs. Hence, Egypt had a complex system of exploiting and redistributing resources and products within and between settlements, their agricultural hinterlands, and adjacent regions.
The level of interaction between settlements and their hinterland becomes more complex during the New Kingdom when the state and temple cults owned much land throughout Egypt, Nubia, and Canaan. In the reign of Ramesses III, the Great Harris Papyrus testifies that the cults of Amun of Thebes, Ptah of Memphis, and Re of Heliopolis owned estates in the Levant and Nubia: the cult of Amun received annual payments of 19 cattle, 53 mskh-measures of oil, 1757 mn-measures of oil, 542 mn-measures of oil, six cedar slabs, a cedar mast, and 336 cedar logs from its Syrian estates. In contrast, the cult of Ptah obtained 40 hekets of grain and eight beams of cedar from Syria, while the cult of Re got only five hekets of grain (2/3 bushel).
Following the geo-political fragmentation of the Third Intermediate Period, the Late Period witnessed growing numbers of foreign mercenaries (e. g., Greeks, Judaeans) and shifts in land ownership and wealth. The nobility gained greater independence, while the priesthood and military are attributed with owning the bulk of Egypt’s cultivable land and its revenues. Pious donations of land to temples occurred more frequently in which the donors obtained tax concessions and retained revenues for their mortuary cults (Lloyd 1983: 279-348).
World History
