Tag: archeology

From repression to revolution: Egypt’s Tax Collectors

Posted on By 3arabawy

The pic below is taken by archeologist Nora Shalaby, in Sakkara’s Tomb of Mereruka. The latter was the Prime Minister and the son-in-law of Pharaoh Teti, from the 6th Dynasty. The full mural shows Egyptian tax collectors torturing tax evaders, dragging the village elders to give evidence on their faulty tax returns, to be paid in produce. One man has been stripped, and his arms and feet are bound round a post where he is being beaten

Egypt's Tax Collectors

This was 5,000 years ago. Today, under King Mubarak I, the Egyptian property tax collectors are the ones leading the fight against the state.

Real Estate Tax Collectors' Strike إضراب موظفي الضرائب العقارية

Egypt under Ramses III, c1155BC: First recorded workers strike

Posted on By 3arabawy

This is one other thing they don’t teach us in history classes at school. The first recorded workers’ strike in history happened in Ancient Egypt…

A contemporary document recounting the first ever recorded labor strike, which occurred in Deir el Medina, Ancient Egypt during the reign of Ramses III when workers did not receive their rations.
The stoppage occurred in the 12th century BC, on the 21st day of the second month in the 29th year of the reign of the pharaoh Ramses III, while Ramses was fighting a series of wars and engaging in an extensive building campaign.
The strikers were hereditary craftsmen who worked on the tombs of the pharaohs, the vast complexes that to this day draw visitors from all over the world to the Valley of the Kings.
This papyrus was written by the scribe Amennakhte at Deir el Medina. It describes the workers’ struggle, and the corruption which had spread throughout the administration.