Knowledge of urban life is very fragmentary (Kemp 1989: 305-17; 2006: 326-33). Major cities were the centers of royal government. Regional and provincial centers had independent local rulers at times of political disunity and were foci for channeling revenue to the central state at periods of strong government. There was, however, always a well-endowed local temple economy that was typically granted strong protection from the revenue demands of civil government and provided an important focus for regional and often national economic activity. There is no evidence for distinctively urban styles of production and market; this is the context in which Pharaonic Egypt has in the past been described as a ‘‘civilization without cities.’’ Nor does it seem possible to discuss rural immigration to the towns or the extent to which employment was available for peasants migrating to the towns.
There is no evidence for independent, craft-guild organization. In the absence of a real coinage equivalent or structural market in grain a non-agricultural workforce required a salary in food. Deir el-Medina provides the basic model, where the workmen received monthly grain rations but also sold tomb furniture and tombbuilding services to individuals (Cooney 2008). Similarly in the Old Kingdom royal sculptors carved the reliefs of private tombs. Palace - or state - and temple workshops provided the context for regular employment and training for the highest-value specialist crafts, as they provided the main market for their production. More ordinary craft and service employment was widespread, through the houses of great men. Pictures from the Theban tombs of the New Kingdom focus on the workshops of the Temple of Amun, while those from Old and Middle Kingdom tombs show work directly associated with both tomb preparation and the working estates of great men (Drenkhahn 1976). Evidence is, however, lacking for wholly unattached craft workshops.
The lower levels of service industry are also associated with this quasi-institutional model. The workmen at Deir el-Medina were supported by a service staff - smdt - that included vegetable-growers and fisherman, providing core foodstuffs, but also water carriers, wood-cutters (Janssen 2003), washermen, and potters (Frood 2003a), producing quotas of work against a monthly grain-salary. Basic crafts such as pottery manufacture, or service tasks such as laundry, which are described in very negative terms in Satires on the Trades (e. g., P. Lansing 4, 2-5, 7; Lichtheim 1976: 169-70), provided core support for the more complex activities and are not attested simply as independent enterprises. For example, letters and daybooks from the Middle Kingdom temple at Kahun record the assignment of animal skins to sandal-makers. The regular daily sacrifice provided the source of raw material and so the practical context for the craft itself. For a craftsman without control of his subsistence - without his own plot of land - association with a higher-level institution, provided structural security of employment, as well as the context for training and access to raw materials. All such work was, however, organized on a limited scale: workshop and not factory production. This mixture between institutional and domestic craft production is inextricable. For instance, cloth provided both a domestic necessity and the primary commodity for the market. It was widely (if not universally) produced in individual households but also in state and temple workshops. Even so, much of the cloth production required by the state seems to have been put out for domestic working (Kemp and Vogelsang-Eastwood 2001: 427-76).
The temple or great house itself marketed some surplus production, but individuals also exploited the opportunities to supplement income through production or provision of services. It is impossible, then, to estimate what proportion of the urban population might have been outside core institutional patronage and dependent on seeking wages in food for casual employment. For instance, market scenes show stalls providing food and drink, notably to sailors in return for grain, perhaps a necessary service for travelers rather than simple entertainment (Eyre 1998a: 176-7). This casual, insecure service economy is the least documented, important for individuals involved, and structural to the economy as a whole, but its very lack of organization makes it impossible to describe systematically.
World History
