favorite drink. The reference to two hekat of grain is of 

 great interest. The hekat was the basic grain measure in 

 ancient Egypt, equal to 4.57 U.S. dry quarts, or about a 

 quarter of a bushel. As grain averaged 2-4 deben of cop- 

 per for a two-bushel sack, the six loaves were costing 

 about V4 to Vz deben of copper. This is relatively more 

 expensive than the grain price alone, the difference 

 perhaps representing the miller's and baker's profits. In 

 Egyptian grain measure, the sack (khar) contained six- 

 teen hekat, and it was subdivided into double and quad- 



ruple hekat measures. Two quadruple hekat, or half a 

 sack, was about a peck in modem terms, and the double 

 hekat was V'^ bushel in modem terms. 



The next scene also is interesting from the eco- 

 nomic standpoint. A customer with a shopping sack 

 slung over his shoulder and clutching a roUed-up papy- 

 rus in his hand offers a metal vase, probably copper, to 

 the merchant (above). The customer says: "A crafted 

 item of a cieben-worth." The deben was a unit of weight. 



but also used for metals. Such vessels in the context of 

 ordinary society were usually copper, so a copper vessel 

 is most likely at issue here. The merchant replies: "See, 

 this is the equal of your deben," as he extends a similar 

 vessel to that of the customer. Perhaps we are dealing 

 with a metal vessel maker and a merchant buying from 

 him. The deben was divided in 12 shat (10 kite later in 

 the New Kingdom Period). A deben in modem measure 

 is 90-91 grams. In usage for metals it was especially 

 found with copper, silver, and gold, the metals that 

 underpinned the Egyptian economy. The ratio of value 

 between copper, silver, and gold fluctuated in different 

 periods, based upon the general economic situation 

 and their availability to the Egyptians. In the Old 

 Kingdom, the Egyptians had the resources of their own 

 eastern desert, with gold, silver, and various stones use- 

 ful for building or decoration, and after the IVth Dy- 

 nasty, limited access to the resources of Nubia, to the 

 south of Egypt. Copper was in good supply, but gold 

 and especially silver were relatively rare. Unfortunate- 

 ly, no ratio figures for the relative value of the metals 

 survive, From the New Kingdom Period there is docu- 

 mentation that silver was in a 5:3 ratio with gold. This 

 relatively high value of silver was caused by the vast 

 quantities of gold that Egypt was exploiting in the Nu- 

 bian and Sudanese desert mines. Silver, by contrast, 

 was found in limited quantity with the gold, but mostly 

 had to be imported. Metallurgical analysis of some sil- 

 ver vessels found in the ruins of the temple of Tod 

 (south of Luxor-Thebes) has shown that the silver ori- 

 ginated from the well known Laurium mines, near 

 Athens, in Greece. In antiquity, Mycenae controlled 

 this area, and there is a variety of evidence for trade 

 between Mycenae and Egypt, if not directly, through 

 northern Syrian intermediaries. Copper was mined 

 locally in the eastern desert, in Sinai, or else was im- 

 ported in quantity from Cyprus, the ancient world's 

 principal copper source. In the New Kingdom period 

 copper was in the ratio of 100:1 to silver, and 167:1 to 

 gold. One common method of trade in Egypt was to 

 evaluate the goods to be traded in terms of one of the 

 three metals; inexpensive goods in copper, medium 

 priced in silver, and only the most costly in gold. In the 

 Ny-ankh-Khnum and Khnum-hotep market most of 

 the trade was done by evaluating in copper. 



The next scene shows a seal carver before a mer- 

 chant offering fish cut open and cleaned (p. 18, top). 

 The merchant remarks that he would be satisfied to 

 hand over the rest of his basket offish for the seal being 

 carved. The seal cutter remarks: "I'm cutting the seal." 

 The seal might well be worth the whole basket of fish 



17 



