What a Day's Pay Bought in Ancient Egypt

In the 29th year of Ramesses III, the royal tomb builders of Deir el-Medina walked off the job: "We are hungry, for 18 days have already elapsed in this month." To understand why, we open their own paperwork: ration lists, receipts, court notes and sick-day registers written on limestone flakes, and work out what a workman's pay actually bought. Sandals, a bed, a donkey, an ox, and a coffin paid for with a pig and two goats. All prices come from Ramesside documents as studied by Egyptologists. Comparisons are given in days and months of a workman's grain wage, not in modern dollars, because the two economies can't be converted honestly. All images are public domain / CC0. Many Met images are 20th-century facsimiles of tomb paintings; some objects are earlier than the Ramesside period and are shown as illustrations, with their dates on screen. CHAPTERS 0:00 The walkout 0:47 The Place of Truth 2:08 Money without coins 3:15 The pay slip 4:39 The shopping list 6:09 The price of eternity 7:34 Debts and the village court 9:21 Sick days 10:22 The strike 12:47 What a day's pay bought SOURCES Jac. J. Janssen, Commodity Prices from the Ramessid Period (Leiden: Brill, 1975) A. G. McDowell, Village Life in Ancient Egypt: Laundry Lists and Love Songs (Oxford University Press, 1999) K. M. Cooney, "The Functional Materialism of Death in Ancient Egypt", IBAES VII (2007); The Cost of Death (NINO, 2007) P. J. Frandsen, "Editing Reality: The Turin Strike Papyrus", in Studies in Egyptology Presented to Miriam Lichtheim (1990) J. Cromwell, "The First Recorded Strike in History", Papyrus Stories (2022) Ostracon OI 12073, translation by J. G. Manning et al., papyri.info A. Loktionov, "New Kingdom Egyptian justice with a happy ending", Göttinger Miszellen 253 (2017) British Museum, Ostracon EA 5634 (attendance register), collection online Museo Egizio, Turin, Strike Papyrus (Cat. 1880), online collection The Deir el-Medina Database, Leiden University J. Toivari-Viitala, "Deir el-Medina (Development)", UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (2011) A. Austin, "Accounting for Sick Days", Journal of Near Eastern Studies (2017) IMAGES The Met Open Access (CC0), object IDs: 548574, 557797, 557816, 544766, 548354, 545194, 555944, 544069, 548729, 544646, 544704, 566616, 545281, 571402, 549536, 547713, 557822, 548949, 544637, 554340, 544655, 544642, 545141, 557814, 545914, 549256, 561347, 544640, 568365, 548357, 572197, 544764, 544719 Museo Egizio, Turin (CC0): Cat 1880, S 9618, S 6523, S 8613, S 8327, S 6629, S 6636, S 9754, S 6296 Narration uses a synthetic voice. #AncientEgypt #History #DeirElMedina