Caste and Race in India c10.3

c10.3

In Egypt during the Pyramid age there were three principal classes—the land-owners, the serfs and the slaves, the last two being distinguished from the first by the fact of their owning no land.¹ During the Eighteenth Dynasty, to judge from the classification made in an official census, there seem to have been at least four classes. They were the soldiers—who included among them all free persons of the middle class, not engaged in any of the other callings—the priests, the craftsmen, and the serfs. The first two classes had so many common interests that they were clearly distinguished from the rest.² Yet in actual influence and possession of wealth the clergy were far superior to the soldiers.³ And they had by then formed themselves into a huge sacerdotal organization.⁴ The social situation is thus summarized by Petrie: "When we look at the various classes of the country, it is evident that there was, very naturally, a large amount of hereditary succession to office and to business. We see the same in England or any other country, although everyone is free to change his occupation as he prefers. In Egypt, on the contrary, no artisan was allowed to have another trade or employment, or be reckoned in any other class. Hence, once in a trade, it was impossible to move out of it, and the natural facility of a boy learning his father's trade tended to fix each generation into the same line. Thus the impression which the Greeks received when stepping into such a society was that its structure was a group of genea or hereditary tribes."¹ It was not only the artisan who was prevented from attempting to enter another calling but it appears that a member of other lower classes as well was not allowed to follow any other occupation than that of his father. As a result, offices often remained in the same families for many generations. Thus we are told in the inscriptions that the office of architect continued in a certain family for twenty-three generations.² The goldsmith's art as well as that of the painter and the sculptor was traditionally handed down from father to son.³ As regards the three middle-class professions, viz. those of a priest, a scribe, and a warrior, though generally they ran in the same families, yet there was no restriction against any one following any of these callings, even if one's father might not have professed that particular calling but had carried on one of the other two. Nay, one and the same man, on suitable occasions, could be a priest, a military or naval commander or could act as a scribe and an official. "A general in the army could marry the daughter of a priest, and his children could be scribes, priests or public functionaries."⁴ By the time of the early Ptolemies, however, and possibly earlier, only persons descended from priests could enter their profession. They had secured for the members of their class exemption from poll-tax.⁵ Under the influence of their scribes, who were trying to exalt their own profession over the others, the Egyptians came to hold the agriculturists as well as the able craftsmen in light esteem.⁶