Accounting and redistribution: The palace and mortuary cult in the Middle Kingdom, ancient Egypt

Accounting Historians Journal, The,  Jun 2002  by Ezzamel, Mahmoud

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This administrative order does not specify who the recipients of the message are, but no doubt they were known to those carrying the message. More importantly, these recipients were charged with the responsibility of each providing precise measures of new wheat (150 hekat-measures), malted barley (one double hekat-measure), 10,000 loaves of ter-bread and an ablebodied slave girl. It is not shown how these tax figures were calculated, and it may be presumed that they were based upon previous calculations. But it is clear from the above that the maintenance of the Residence (which was part of the palace complex) required these provisions and levied them in the form of dues on the Pharaoh's subjects. Identification of objects or commodities to be delivered (new wheat, malt barley, ter-bread, etc.) was rendered more precise through accounting enumeration in the form of specific quantities measured through the application of the accounting calculus. This calculus invoked both precise measures (hekat, double hekat; ter-loaves) and counting to signify tax liability more clearly.

There is further evidence on final tax assessment and collection from the Kahun papyri [Griffith, 1898] which offers us a glimpse of practices in the Middle Kingdom. Despite the damage to the papyri it is still possible to make some sense of the entries. Papyrus Kahun XVI, 1 (ibid., p. 54), dating from the late Twelfth Dynasty, contains a summary of the number of hekat of Southern corn that had to be collected and paid by several overseers (nazir), making a total of 40171/2 hekat (see Figure 2).

Moreover, the entries on lines 30-31 show other amounts of taxation paid from the total outstanding. In this tax document, accountability can be traced directly to every individual overseer or nazir, as each has recorded against his name the precise tax liability. Moreover, one type of money of account, that of the hekat, was used to quantify tax liability.

Another interesting example relates to the taxation of game.

Game keepers had to pay a fixed amount of dues on the stock of animals and birds they owned or those committed to their care.

In those years when their account fell short, they paid less tax with the arrears carried forward to future periods when their stock was higher. Part of a tax account, Kahun LV.4, late Twelfth Dynasty [Griffith, 1898, p. 18] is shown below.

The practice of valuing game stock required the scribes to first inventory and then value the stock of each type of game. As Griffith [1989, p. 18] noted: "The contributions were made not all in one payment, but at intervals during the year, and the scribes had continually to draw up, mentally or in writing, "balance sheets" of the state of the account." Figure (3) above shows the amount of tax levied on certain types of geese, cranes and ducks. Unlike the previous account of the taxation of corn, where the product is homogeneous, the scribe was faced here with heterogeneous products. These different types of birds are reduced to one common denominator by using the Set-duck as a `money of account' in order to place a value on each type of bird that is meaningfully comparable across all types. The aggregate amount to account for is stated in line (44) as 100 Set-duck. The number of birds inventoried in each category (second column) is multiplied by the relevant value indicator for that category in Set-duck (first column) to arrive at the total value of tax (third column; added by Griffith in his translation to make the account clearer). Against the total due of 100 Set-duck, only 45 were inventoried, leaving a remainder of 55 Set-ducks (line 52). For a reason which remains unclear, the scribe of the account appears to employ yet another denominator, that of 11 to convert the remainder of 55 Set-ducks into five times that number of 11 (line 54).