Corvée, slavery and wage labor in ancient Egypt
“ An income strategy different from subsistence was labor, either voluntary or compulsory. Compulsory labor is known from ancient Egypt in two forms: corvée and slavery. Corvée (bH) is well attested as periodical compulsory labor (especially in earlier periods), and everyone but the highest functionaries could be subjected to it (Eyre 1987a: 18 - 20). In the Old Kingdom, groups of workers subject to this practice were called mrt and worked in agricultural domains founded by the government (Moreno García 1998). The same word mrt was used for the personnel of temple workshops in the New Kingdom; these were often prisoners taken during military campaigns (Eyre 1987b: 189). In the Middle Kingdom, temporary compulsory labor on state fields was controlled by the xnrt (interpreted as "labor camp" by Quirke 1990: 135 - 136). Even the nmH(y) of the New Kingdom (see Institutional and Private Interests above) could be summoned for service to government officials, as becomes clear from the decree of King Horemheb (Kruchten 1981: 30, 50).
Chattel slavery is attested in Egypt from the late third millennium BCE onward. Persons could be bought and sold, and inherited, and may thus be called slaves in the legal sense of the word, although Egyptian terminology is vague: Hm (fem. Hmt) and bAk (fem. bAkt) can both be translated as “slave,” but also as “servant” (Hofmann 2005). Not only could the slaves themselves be sold, but also their services; Ramesside texts refer to this practice with the expression hrw n bAk “day of service” (Menu 1998). From the Late Period onward we know of the practice of individuals entering into slavery by contract as a means to pay off heavy debts (for example, papyri Rylands III-VII: Cruz-Uribe 1982).
Although it is clear that chattel slavery was common, it is more difficult to assess how important slavery was to the Egyptian economy. Economic anthropology considers two criteria for establishing the importance of slavery to society: 1) great hierarchical differences among social strata, allowing for the delegation of work to lower ranks; and 2) the existence of “open” economic resources (i.e., freely accessible means of livelihood), without which there is no need for slaves as a separate social category. The extent of open economic resources in ancient Egypt is far from clear, but Egyptologists assume that compulsory labor was chiefly corvée, rather than slavery.
Textual sources apparently concerned with wage labor actually refer to institutional workforces who were given rations. Rations could, however, be so high as to enable the receiving institutional craftsmen to trade with their grain surplus (Eyre 1987b: 201). The same craftsmen could use their expertise to produce items for the market in their spare time in order to obtain additional income (Cooney 2006; Eyre 1987b: 199 - 200). There are no indications of the existence of a free labor market for craftsmen or other specialized workers. It is unlikely, however, that craftsmanship was only institutional: archaeological and ethnological research suggests industry, seasonal or permanent, in peasant households and local workshops (see, for example, Köhler 1997 for pottery production).”
The UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, entry “Economy” - https://escholarship.org/content/qt2t01s4qj/qt2t01s4qj.pdf?t=qxvbyl
