Social Hierarchy of Ancient Egypt

Scribes kept the records on which the state ran. They counted harvests and herds for taxes, surveyed fields, issued rations, wrote letters and recorded court cases for the king, the temples, the army and the great estates. Most were the sons of scribes who learned the craft at school or from their fathers, copying set texts in the cursive hieratic script, and only a small minority of Egyptians could read and write. A favourite school text, the “Satire of the Trades”, told pupils that every other trade was misery and that writing would spare them hard labour and beatings; it was among the most copied texts in the schools of Thebes under the 20th Dynasty. Scribes were indeed spared the corvée that farmers owed. Their badge was the scribe’s palette, their patron the god Thoth, and the most able rose into the high offices of state.

Moving in or out. Boys, mostly the sons of scribes, learned the craft at school or from their fathers; a gifted scribe could rise into the high offices of state, which were closed to men who could not write.

How many? Estimate: probably less than 1 per cent of Egyptians could read and write, and those few included the officials and priests above.

The New Kingdom was born in the war against the Hyksos, and its pharaohs turned the old levies into a standing professional army. Infantry with bows, spears and the curved khopesh sword fought beside the chariotry, two-man chariots carrying a driver and an archer, whose crews came from the upper classes. The army fought in Nubia and the Levant: Ramesses II marched to the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BCE with four divisions named after the gods Amun, Ra, Ptah and Seth. Soldiers were paid, and the brave won the “gold of valour” and captives: Ahmose, son of Ebana, who fought the Hyksos at Avaris, received gold and slaves from his kings. Veterans were granted plots of farmland. Foreigners served too, Nubian Medjay, Libyans and Sherden from among the Sea Peoples, many of them prisoners who had been made soldiers.

Moving in or out. War was the quickest way up for an able man: soldiers won rewards and land, and Horemheb, a general under Tutankhamun, became king himself.

How many? Estimate: an army of some 20,000–30,000 men in the 13th century BCE (Ramesses II took four divisions to Kadesh in 1274 BCE), with garrisons and their families.

Craftsmen ranked above farmers, but most worked for the state or the temples, in workshops attached to the temples and palaces, and were paid in rations from their stores. Masons, carpenters, sculptors, painters, metalworkers and weavers produced everything from statues to coffins. The best documented are the tomb-builders of Deir el-Medina, the “servants in the Place of Truth”, who cut and decorated the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings; their village dates from the time of Thutmose I. They lived with their families in a walled village of about 68 houses and worked in two gangs under foremen, eight days out of ten, for a monthly ration of about 5½ sacks of grain (7½ for a foreman), up to three times a field hand’s pay; many of them could read. In the 29th year of Ramesses III (about 1157 BCE), when their rations were weeks late, they downed tools in the first recorded strike.

Moving in or out. Places in the royal crew were prized and usually passed from father to son; the village was abandoned under Ramesses XI, when tomb robbery, Libyan raids and civil war brought the work to an end.

How many? Estimate: the craftsmen of the temples, the palace and the towns, from the royal tomb-builders of Deir el-Medina (about 68 houses) to village potters and weavers.