The large towns, as well as the capital, possessed their double storehouses and their store-chambers, into which were gathered the products of the neighbourhood, but where a complete staff of employés was not always required: in such towns we meet with “localities” in which the commodities were housed merely temporarily. The least perishable part of the provincial dues was forwarded by boat to the royal residence,* and swelled the central treasury.
* The boats employed for this purpose formed a flotilla, and
their commanders constituted a regularly organized transport
corps, who are frequently to be found represented on the
monuments of the New Empire, carrying tribute to the
residence of the king or of the prince, whose retainers they
were.
The remainder was used on the spot for paying workman’s wages, and for the needs of the Administration. We see from the inscriptions, that the staffs of officials who administered affairs in the provinces was similar to that in the royal city. Starting from the top, and going down to the bottom of the scale, each functionary supervised those beneath him, while, as a body, they were all responsible for their depot. Any irregularity in the entries entailed the bastinado; peculators were punished by imprisonment, mutilation, or death, according to the gravity of the offence. Those whom illness or old age rendered unfit for work, were pensioned for the remainder of their life.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius, Denkm., iii. 95. The
illustration is taken from one of the tombs at Tel el-
Amarna. The storehouse consists of four blocks, isolated by
two avenues planted with trees, which intersect each other
in the form of a cross. Behind the entrance gate, in a small
courtyard, is a kiosque, in which the master sat for the
purpose of receiving the stores or of superintending their
distribution; two arms of the cross are lined by porticoes,
under which are the entrances to the “chambers” (dît) for
the stores, which are filled with jars of wine, linen-
chests, dried fish, and other articles.
The writer, or, as we call him, the scribe, was the mainspring of all this machinery. We come across him in all grades of the staff: an insignificant registrar of oxen, a clerk of the Double White Storehouse, ragged, humble, and badly paid, was a scribe just as much as the noble, the priest, or the king’s son. Thus the title of scribe was of no value in itself, and did not designate, as one might naturally think, a savant educated in a school of high culture, or a man of the world, versed in the sciences and the literature of his time; El-kab was a scribe who knew how to read, write, and cipher, was fairly proficient in wording the administrative formulas, and could easily apply the elementary rules of book-keeping. There was no public school in which the scribe could be prepared for his future career; but as soon as a child had acquired the first rudiments of letters with some old pedagogue, his father took him with him to his office, or entrusted him to some friend who agreed to undertake his education. The apprentice observed what went on around him, imitated the mode of procedure of the employés, copied in his spare time old papers, letters, bills, flowerily-worded petitions, reports, complimentary addresses to his superiors or to the Pharaoh, all of which his patron examined and corrected, noting on the margin letters or words imperfectly written, improving the style, and recasting or completing the incorrect expressions.* As soon as he could put together a certain number of sentences or figures without a mistake, he was allowed to draw up bills, or to have the sole superintendence of some department of the treasury, his work being gradually increased in amount and difficulty; when he was considered to be sufficiently au courant with the ordinary business, his education was declared to be finished, and a situation was found for him either in the place where he had begun his probation, or in some neighbouring office.**
* We still possess school exercises of the XIXth and XXth
dynasties, e.g. the Papyrus Anastasi n IV., and the
Anastasi Papyrus n V., in which we find a whole string of
pieces of every possible style and description—business
letters, requests for leave of absence, complimentary verses
addressed to a superior, all probably a collection of
exercises compiled by some professor, and copied by his
pupils in order to complete their education as scribes; the
master’s corrections are made at the top and bottom of the
pages in a bold and skilful hand, very different from that
of the pupil, though the writing of the latter is generally
more legible to our modern eyes (Select Papyri, vol. i.
pls. lxxxiii.-cxxi.).
** Evidence of this state of things seems to be furnished by
all the biographies of scribes with which we are acquainted,
e.g. that of Amten; it is, moreover, what took place
regularly throughout the whole of Egypt, down to the latest
times, and what probably still occurs in those parts of the
country where European ideas have not yet made any deep
impression.
