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FARMERS & SERFS. FARMERS. Backbone of Egyptian Society ( Callender ) Provided: Food, Wool & Flax 3 Seasons: Season of Innundation : p When land was flooded. No field work is possible. Time for organised labour. ‘Coming Forth Season : Planting is done and wheat grew Summer :
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FARMERS • Backbone of Egyptian Society (Callender) • Provided: Food, Wool & Flax • 3 Seasons: • Season of Innundation: p When land was flooded. No field work is possible. Time for organised labour. • ‘Coming Forth Season: Planting is done and wheat grew • Summer: Harvesting took place
Tools & Methods • Simple Tools • Sowing Scattering seeds from a basket Ploughed under (breaking up and turning soil) Plough: At least 2nd Century Pulled by either animal or man Farmer held handles at other end Sometimes they used animals to do the job. Hoes, Rakes, pitchforks, sickles and dribbles used: Evidence - Depictions in tomb paintings and reliefs
Tools & Methods • Harvesting • Grain was cut with wooden sickles (had animal teeth or splinters of flint glued into cutting edge) • Bundles of grain tied together and heaped onto haystacks • Women sorted grain from chaff by threshing and winnowing crop • Donkeys used for threshing
FARMERS • Tomb owners display themselves as owners of large estates • Work being done is shown to be by servants • Farms divided into land units called aroura • Farmers made up the bulk of the population • Majority of them were conscripted labourers
Mastaba of Idut in Saqqarah: Bas-reliefs With Fishing and Farming Scenes 5th or 6th Dynasty
SERFS MERUT / MERWET
SERFS • Non-landowning farmers • Considered to be part of the land • Transferred to new owners when the property was transferred • Lowest in society: paid rent to landowner by produce & labour • Beaten for non-payment • Conscripted to work on state projects • Lived in suburban sprawls along the banks of the Nile & in Village communities. Estates they lived on belonged to the nobles.