10 Facts about Egyptian Slaves

Sunday, April 29th 2018. | History

Slavery was a common practice in the world. One of interesting to discuss is slavery in Ancient Egypt. The slaves come from various sources including children from poorer or from different countries when Egypt’s soldier won a battle. Let’s talk the facts about Egyptian slaves completely to know why slavery in Egypt is a popular event in the history.

Fact 1 : Had a Lot of Children and Foreigner Slaves

How Egypt got their slaves? Actually, the slaves were coming from poorer who has children. They couldn’t feed their children and finally sold it to the slave market. Moreover, Egyptian slaves were also received from other countries such as after won a battle, war, or trading. It can be concluded that in the past, Egyptian got more money by doing human trafficking and it was a legal activity to do at that time.

Fact 2 : Slaves to Develop the Area

So, why Egyptians want to have slaves? One of the answers is help to do something. The interesting facts, slaves in Egypt have important role in built most of great buildings there. If it is not, people bought slave to use them as a house servant, gardener, farm labor, dancer, and many more. Some of them were worked as accountant, talent, and scriber.

Egyptian Slave Market

Fact 3 : Slaves to Improve the Civilization

Egypt should say thanks to their slave. In fact, slavery also has an important role to improve the civilization. The best example is Mesopotamia in which this area developed rapidly caused by slavery. Slavery was included on their daily activity and even it becomes a culture.

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Fact 4 : Use Slave as a Peasant

Egyptians really rely on their slaves and one of the functions is to cultivate their soil. This is concerning to the fact that Egypt has a rainy season annually and it helps fertilize the soil a lot. As the result, Egyptians who have soil need more slaves to work on their fields.

Egyptian Slave Statue

Fact 5 : No Slaves were Work to Build Pyramid

Egypt history stated that slaves were used as a worker to build buildings. But the interesting fact is that no slaves were found work to build pyramid. Even, Egyptologist stated that there were no large numbers of slaves found during the Old Kingdom or when the era of pyramid was built.

Fact 6 : Egyptologist Learn about Egyptian Slavery from Hieroglyphs

Egyptian has a unique way to record something. They use picture or cartouche known as hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphs talk everything about Egypt from different era including information about slavery. Too bad, there is small information related to Egyptian slavery shown in Hieroglyphs but it still a unique way to analyze about history because examining written text is different than picture.

Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Fact 7 : Special Treatment for Children of the Slaves

One more interesting fact is about the children of the slaves in which those children become the property of the master. It means that the master or the owner of the slave has a duty to take of the children of their slaves. That’s why slaves who work as a housekeeper tend to get better live than slave who becomes a peasant.

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Fact 8 : Slaves in Royal Family have Better Live

It is your luck if you are a slave in a royal family of Egypt. They have duty to give their slaves education especially in writing and accounting. Then, those slaves work as a scriber or accountant. At the same time the slave also has to take care of children, cook, clean, and many more. Slaves in royal family of Egypt are the highest strata.

Slave of the Prince

Fact 9 : Winning a War Means Bringing More Slaves

Besides purchasing from the poorer, Egyptians also get slaves from war when the soldier won. The soldier brings all people in that area home and let them work as a slave in Egypt. The slave follows the same culture and included on the social structure. The biggest slavery in Egypt was in the New Kingdom era.

Fact 10 : Excellent Slaves Got Reward

Some of slaves were lucky because they can improve their ranking to the better position. Egyptians give that reward when a slave work well and show good attitude. The interesting fact, Egyptians tend to hire foreign slaves instead of native Egypt slaves.