“I brought you ten bags; why do you return to me only nine now?”
Somewhat irritated, the scribe replies, “Don’t you see that was a year ago?”
“So?”
“Do you see that guard standing in front of the storage building? He eats, you know! So do I, for that matter. Notwithstanding all our precautions, we also lose some wheat to rats and mice.”
“Yes, but what has that to do with my tenth bag?”
This tenth bag is a demurrage charge equivalent to the cost of storing the wheat for one year. The redemption value of these Egyptian ostraka receipts would “age.” For instance, had you returned six months instead of one year later to recover your bags, you would have received 9.5 bags in return (a 0.5 bag demurrage charge, or one half of an annual demurrage fee for storage). In essence, the longer the food was held in storage, the greater the cost that was incurred, similar to the fees of a parking meter. For this reason, people would tend not to hoard such currencies, but would use them instead as a pure medium of exchange; in as timely a manner as was practical and possible.
These wheat receipts served as a local currency, circulating in parallel with the long-distance money of silver bars and gold rings.
Egyptian versus Medieval Demurrage
Though far more ancient, the Egyptian demurrage system was patently more sophisticated than its medieval counterpart. This approach was not only fine-tuned to the month and even the day, but was also tied to the “real world” of spoilage and costs of storage. The analogous medieval Renovatio Monetae was instead a stop-and-go process performed every five or six years, or after the death of a lord.
The arbitrariness of both the frequency and level of taxation in the medieval demurrage resulted in abuses. For instance, Duke Johann II of Saxony had his money reminted 86 times during his 18-year reign (from 1350 to 1368). One ruler in Poland changed his coins systematically four times per year. Such misuse ended up discrediting the entire practice.
The Egyptians seemed quite content with a monetary system that permitted even the most modest farmer’s production to become money at the farmer’s choice. Often teased by the Greeks for their mundane-looking local money, Egyptians in turn considered the Greek passion for gold and silver coins a rather odd obsession, and viewed such precious-metal coins as “a piece of local vanity, patriotism or advertisement with no far-reaching importance.”411 The Egyptians accepted foreign coins only for their bullion content—as a simple raw material—as confirmed by Greek coins found in Egypt that had been cut open just to verify their metal content.
The particulars of how or when this food-storage, demurrage-charged money was first implemented are unknown. What is known is that during the Ptolemaic period (332–30 BCE), the Egyptians considered the demurrage-charged currency as the old money.
One intriguing hypothesis regarding this currency’s origin is offered in the Bible (see insert).
Joseph and Demurrage
The biblical story of Joseph (ca. 1900-1600 BCE) may offer a clue to the origins of the demurrage currency in Egypt. It is not, however, only what is written in the bible but also what is left unexplained that is of interest.
Betrayed by his jealous brothers, Joseph was “sold to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought him to Egypt,” (Genesis 37:28). Once there, Joseph managed to interpret the Pharaoh’s premonitory dream of seven fat and seven lean cows. Joseph recommended that food reserves be stored during the seven fat years, to make them available for lean times. The Bible claims that the pharaoh and others were so impressed with this solution that Joseph was named General Superintendent, the second most powerful position in all of Egypt.
We know, however, that food storage was a typical component of ancient economies and dream interpretation seems a flimsy reason for Joseph’s dramatic rise in power. Another explanation is tempting.
Would it not be possible that Joseph may have helped either promote or invent a demurrage currency system backed by food storage and was, thus, credited with saving the Egyptian economy?
These ostraka appear to have served as common currency for ordinary daily exchanges for at least sixteen centuries and perhaps much longer still. The demurrage charge was built into all transactions using the “wheat standard” and standards based on other similar storable food items (such as grains, barley, and wine) as currencies. This monetary system may help explain some of the as yet unanswered mysteries regarding the economic strength of Dynastic Egypt, unique in its time.
The Case for Ostraka
It must be stated here that though millions of ostraka wheat receipts have in fact been found in various places in Egypt dating to the time periods in question, the generalized use of these pottery shards as fully-fledged demurrage-charged monetary system has yet to be directly confirmed.
The main study on demurrage currencies was conducted in 1910 by the German Greek-classics scholar, Friedrich Preisigke, who focused exclusively on the Ptolemaic period from 332 BCE onwards.412 His research was also limited to those paper-like currencies in the form of papyri found in the Imperial Collection of Greek-language papyri from Egypt.
Almost completely ignored in this research, however, was the abundant and more ancient ostraka.413 No less than 1.6 million ostraka were found in one single dynastic village (at Medinet), a relatively well-preserved and ancient region in the Egyptian desert.414
Preisigke himself certainly does not make the claim that the food-receipt system was invented or was new during the period he describes. There were some additional banking functions added during the Ptolemaic period, but receipts for food deposits with temples are abundant much earlier. Nor does he state that money was used only in the form of papyri. Preisigke instead implicitly inferred that the papyri and ostraka played the same function. He points out for example that he found papyri used in some areas of the Delta, but in Memphis ostraka were used.415
Preisigke also makes astute points regarding the use of wheat in Egyptian accounting mechanisms:
There seems even to exist a clearing system between long-distance deposits through a state- run accounting system. One could therefore receive a cheque drawn in wheat that was deposited in one place, and withdraw that amount in another place, for a fee. Netting between transactions seem to have taken place (if one needed 100 units of wheat transported from A to B; and 90 units from B to A; they would only have to transport 10 units from A to B).416
Another observation made by Preisigke, that taxes were payable in ostraka, lends itself to the argument that food receipts were commonly used as money. Preisigke observed that, “Particularly in villages, some taxes were payable in nature. A landlord would request to have the renter of a farm pay for him the taxes in wheat owed by the landlord to that location, and that amount would be deducted from the renter’s dues.”417
Because of the limited time focus of Preisigke’s work, some may conclude incorrectly that demurrage currencies first appeared during the Ptolemaic period. It must be emphasized here that no study other than Presigke’s has ever been undertaken regarding such “unconventional” currencies. To our knowledge there has not been much interest in yin-type currencies, be it of ancient Egypt or of the Central Middle Ages. The zeitgeist of academia during the 19th and much of the 20th centuries simply did not lend themselves to such investigations.
Though direct, irrefutable evidence in support of our monetary claims is still lacking, there is, however a strong convergence of many indirect circumstantial claims that we believe support our claims that the ostraka may be considered to be like modern day paper with many different uses, from informal notes to formal contracts and the like. We claim that this would include their use as common money, similar to the use of modern-day checks or paper money. What is an established fact is that countless numbers of ostraka have been found all over Egypt with information indicating that they were receipts for storable food, specifying the amount in weight of the commodity exchanged and its dates.
Again, fur
ther study on the yin-currencies of dynastic Egypt along with many other ancient societes is certainly warranted.
A GRECO-ROMAN ENDING
That the monetary system may have been linked to the prosperity of Dynastic Egypt is also suggested by the fact that the end of the good millennia in Egypt coincided with the demise of the dual-currency system by the conquering Romans. The net results of the replacement of the demurrage-charged ostraka by a monopoly of “modern” Roman currency with positive interest rates—with the interest tending to accrue to Rome—were significant and enduring. The Egyptian economy, which had enjoyed a distinctive prosperity for well over 2000 years and was once the envy of the ancient world, eroded after only a few generations under the new monetary regime. Egypt ended up degenerating to the status of a developing country, a condition it retains to this very day.
General opinion, dating back to the Greek historian Plutarch in the first century CE, claims that ancient Egypt’s abundance was merely a gift of the Nile. But an economy that functioned quite successfully for millennia came to an end at the same time as the demise of the dual-currency system. The Nile, ever-present and ever-flowing, was there when the economy flourished and remained there after the economy declined. We submit the hypothesis that at least some of the credit for the proverbial “breadbasket of the ancient world” should be attributed to those funny-looking, demurrage-charged ostraka.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
The converging evidence from Dynastic Egypt offers testimony that using a dual-currency system provided solutions and new possibilities that otherwise could not have existed. The Central Middle Ages and Dynastic Egypt were two civilizations that enjoyed economies that were exceptionally prosperous and stable, encouraging a more active participation of all social classes.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN - Dynastic Egypt Revisited
The basic discovery about any people is the discovery
of the relationship between its men and its women.
~PEARL S. BUCK
Archetypes do not belong to any one culture or period of history; they are fundamental psychological patters that belong to humanity, and transcend race, nationality, society, and time itself. What does significantly differentiate one individual, community, culture, civilization, and epoch from another is the degree to which archetypes are integrated or repressed and the type of money that is operational.
We repeat our claim that archetypal repression is inexorably linked to today’s major issues and that the lack of integration of the Great Mother archetype in particular has profoundly influenced our monetary paradigm and its spread of skewed patriarchal values. With our own present-day interests in mind, we continue our reexamination of another past society that used a dual-currency system and that honored feminine as well as masculine values.
DYNASTIC EGYPTIAN ARCHETYPAL INTEGRATION
As previously noted, among the many important similarities between the Central Middle Ages and Dynastic Egypt are: dual-currency systems, prosperous economies, and long-term thinking. Additionally, a similar archetypal coherence was in play. In Dynastic Egypt, veneration of the Great Mother archetype took the symbolic form of Isis.
The Isis Cult
Most of today’s commonly held beliefs about Dynastic Egypt emanate from Western research dating back to the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. Egyptologists of the period, likely influenced by their own cultural biases, held that Egyptian culture was inherently patriarchal, with an all-powerful male pharaoh at the top. More recent findings, however, paint a very different picture, with religious, legislative, and social traditions that were clearly and predominantly matrifocal. At the center of this tradition was “the great Isis,” the supreme goddess in Egypt, the almighty Great Mother, worshipped uninterruptedly for more than three millennia, from well before 3200 BCE to at least 200 CE.
The relationship between Isis and temporal power is illustrated by the many representations of a pharaoh suckling the breast of Isis to receive the divine nourishment of wisdom from her, thus giving the pharaoh his right to rule. She was also the Seat of Wisdom, identified by her hieroglyph in the form of a high-backed throne that rested on her head. This cathedra chair was her key distinguishing feature.418 “The throne maketh the king,” as many texts have said since the first dynasty.419 The lap of the Goddess Isis became the royal throne of Egypt.
Isis was also the indispensable “bridge” between the land of the living and the realm of the departed. Mythology holds her as the originator of the important ritual of mummification, and all the magical rituals necessary for the transition to the hereafter.
The apparent Egyptian fixation with death centered on the belief that though mortality was inevitable, it was not necessarily the end. By taking all the correct precautions it was possible to enjoy an afterlife in the “Field of Reeds,” a land of pleasure and plenty.420 The elaborate mummifications and burial arrangements were considered pragmatic undertakings necessary to ensure the continuation of the “good life,” even after death. The Egyptians believed they could take their material possessions with them to the afterlife, which is why they were buried with their most precious belongings.
Initially reserved for the pharaohs and their family members, such arrangements became accessible to any men and women who could afford them, starting from the Middle Empire onwards. These customs revealed an acceptance of death and preparation for it as a fact of life, an outlook quite consistent with Great Mother cultures, which encompassed her key attributes of sex, death, and money.
The Isis myth provides abundant clues of the Egyptian reverence for the Great Mother archetype. In contrast with Greek and other Indo-European mythologies, the feminine principle was not only honored, but also systematically empowered. Osiris, the male God of the Afterlife and the God of the Nile (including floodwaters and vegetation), is, comparatively speaking, almost a sidekick. He is the hapless one whom Isis rescues time and again out of love (see insert).
Isis: the Feminine Savior
Isis was the first daughter of Nut, the overarching night sky “who bore all the gods,” and the little Earth-God, Geb. Her Egyptian name was Au Set (Exalted Queen), which was later modified during the Ptolemaic Period to the now familiar Isis by the colonizing Greeks.
According to popular legend, Isis lived with her brother and lover, Osiris, God of the Nile. Their brother Seth, jealous and evil, killed Osiris, dismembering him into 13 parts. Thus began the long saga whereby Isis recovered Osiris’ body parts, one by one, marking each location where a part was found with a temple and sacred city. All parts were found but one, his sexual organ, which Isis replaced with a golden phallus. She then invented the art of embalming and returned Osiris to life, after performing a magical ritual on his body. Impregnated by his golden phallus, Isis bore a child, Horus, the Golden Sun God.
In stark contrast to contemporary and subsequent patriarchal religions, it is the feminine principle that embraces the heavenly, solar, male god. As Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann explains, “The daytime sky is the realm where the sun is born and dies, not, as later, the realm over which it rules.”421
Initially the Goddess of the Hearth and Home, Isis became universal in her powers. She became known as “the Lady of the Innumerable Names” (myrionymos) and as “Isis the All-Goddess,” (Isis Panthea).422 “I am the Mother of All that is, Mistress of all elements, origin of all time, first among all gods and goddesses…I govern everything.”423 She was the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of the Sun, the Maker of Sunrise and Maker of Kings. She was the mourning wife, tender sister, and the originator of all the arts and of all that makes life civilized, comfortable, and worthwhile. She was the Lady of Joy and Abundance, Sochit (the grain field), and Hathor (the generous source of food), giving humans their daily bread. As “Destiny,” she overcame Fate and caused righteousness to prevail. As Isis Medica, she was the healer of all ills. Finally, “She was in the fullest sense Love.”424 Isis was indeed Almighty.
From the beginning, Isi
s turned a kind eye to humans, teaching women to grind corn, spin flax, weave cloth, and to calm men enough to live with them. Each living being was considered to be a drop of her blood; and feminine values were as important as masculine values as revealed in the conditions of women.
The Status of Women in Egyptian Society
Egyptology confirms that women were remarkably privileged in Egyptian society, especially when compared to the relative conditions of women from other cultures of the time and down through history.
Legal Status
Historian Max Mueller claims that, “No people ancient or modern has given women so high a legal status as did the inhabitants of the Nile Valley.”425 The legal status of Dynastic Egyptian women not only surpassed other societies of the period, but compares favorably to the status in many nations today.
New Money for a New World Page 29
