Read Online A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium by Chris Harman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Chris Harman
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temples. But kings began to emerge in Mesopotamia alongside the priesthoods as secular administration and warfare became important, and a non-priestly aristocracy with its own estates (and dependent peasant cultivators) rose alongside those of the temples and the royal palace. Similarly, in Meso-America the warrior elite seems to have enjoyed growing power. 89
In Egypt the kings were dependent on regional priests and governors for administering the 500 miles of the Nile Valley and ensuring the continual flow of food, material and labour to the royal capital. Land grants used to buy the loyalty of such groups enabled them, over the centuries, to siphon off a chunk of the total surplus for themselves and to exercise a degree of power independent of the central monarch. One sign of this was the way in which priests and civil administrators began to build lavish tombs imitative of the pharaohs, even if considerably smaller.
The rise of new exploiting groups alongside the old had a double effect. On the one hand, it meant an ever larger layer of people living off the surplus and put increased pressure on the cultivators. On the other, it meant challenges could arise to the monolithic power of the original rulers, from people who themselves controlled resources, armed power or the dissemination of ideas. So it seems the collapse into crisis of Old Kingdom Egypt was, in part at least, a result of provincial governors and chief priests putting their own interests above those of the central monarchy—leading, according to Kemp, to ‘civil war…among men whose aspirations were of a thoroughly traditional nature’. 90
The splits within the ruling class were accompanied by the growth of new subordinate classes. Specialist groups of craft workers—carpenters, stonemasons, leather workers, weavers, workers in metals—had begun to appear as increased agricultural productivity allowed some people to be freed from working in the fields. The concentration of a growing surplus in the hands of the ruling classes gave an added impetus. The priests and kings demanded an ever growing supply of luxury goods for themselves and their attendants along with ever more elaborate temples, tombs and palaces. But this meant concentrating around the palaces, tombs and temples the skilled labour which could make such things. A whole new class of artisans grew up as part of the core population of the new cities.
Typical were those who built the pyramids of Giza and carved out the tombs in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. ‘Contrary to popular belief’ these ‘were not constructed by slaves, nor…by men who were subsequently put to death in order to protect hidden royal treasures’. 91 The forced labour of large numbers of peasants may have been used to move huge chunks of rock. But writings from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC in Thebes (present day Luxor) show the quarrying, carving and carpentry to have been the work of skilled craftsmen. They lived in a special village of stone houses and were paid sufficient wages in the form of grain, oil and fish to keep a family of ten—giving them an income about three times that of the average land worker. Their eight hour day left many with time to improve their living standards by doing additional private work, and some were skilled enough to be among the very few people able to read and write. They were not completely free. They were subject to arbitrary acts of oppression from the scribes and foremen in charge of them and, on at least one occasion, those deemed ‘surplus’ to the requirements of the pharaoh’s vizier were compelled to undertake forced labour. 92 But in 1170 BC, backed by their wives, they took part in history’s first recorded strikes when their rations were late and their families faced hunger. 93
These were not wage workers in the modern sense, since they were not free to choose who they worked for, were paid in kind and depended for their livelihood on the centralised
In Egypt the kings were dependent on regional priests and governors for administering the 500 miles of the Nile Valley and ensuring the continual flow of food, material and labour to the royal capital. Land grants used to buy the loyalty of such groups enabled them, over the centuries, to siphon off a chunk of the total surplus for themselves and to exercise a degree of power independent of the central monarch. One sign of this was the way in which priests and civil administrators began to build lavish tombs imitative of the pharaohs, even if considerably smaller.
The rise of new exploiting groups alongside the old had a double effect. On the one hand, it meant an ever larger layer of people living off the surplus and put increased pressure on the cultivators. On the other, it meant challenges could arise to the monolithic power of the original rulers, from people who themselves controlled resources, armed power or the dissemination of ideas. So it seems the collapse into crisis of Old Kingdom Egypt was, in part at least, a result of provincial governors and chief priests putting their own interests above those of the central monarchy—leading, according to Kemp, to ‘civil war…among men whose aspirations were of a thoroughly traditional nature’. 90
The splits within the ruling class were accompanied by the growth of new subordinate classes. Specialist groups of craft workers—carpenters, stonemasons, leather workers, weavers, workers in metals—had begun to appear as increased agricultural productivity allowed some people to be freed from working in the fields. The concentration of a growing surplus in the hands of the ruling classes gave an added impetus. The priests and kings demanded an ever growing supply of luxury goods for themselves and their attendants along with ever more elaborate temples, tombs and palaces. But this meant concentrating around the palaces, tombs and temples the skilled labour which could make such things. A whole new class of artisans grew up as part of the core population of the new cities.
Typical were those who built the pyramids of Giza and carved out the tombs in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. ‘Contrary to popular belief’ these ‘were not constructed by slaves, nor…by men who were subsequently put to death in order to protect hidden royal treasures’. 91 The forced labour of large numbers of peasants may have been used to move huge chunks of rock. But writings from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC in Thebes (present day Luxor) show the quarrying, carving and carpentry to have been the work of skilled craftsmen. They lived in a special village of stone houses and were paid sufficient wages in the form of grain, oil and fish to keep a family of ten—giving them an income about three times that of the average land worker. Their eight hour day left many with time to improve their living standards by doing additional private work, and some were skilled enough to be among the very few people able to read and write. They were not completely free. They were subject to arbitrary acts of oppression from the scribes and foremen in charge of them and, on at least one occasion, those deemed ‘surplus’ to the requirements of the pharaoh’s vizier were compelled to undertake forced labour. 92 But in 1170 BC, backed by their wives, they took part in history’s first recorded strikes when their rations were late and their families faced hunger. 93
These were not wage workers in the modern sense, since they were not free to choose who they worked for, were paid in kind and depended for their livelihood on the centralised
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