The Study Of The Administration Of Egyptian Granary During The Old Kingdom

Grain lays the foundation of the agricultural societies on their sustainable development. Thus, the safe storage and equitable distribution of the grain is the priority concern that every civilizations has. Many systematic and perfect Granary management systems were established in order to achieve that goal, and ancient Egypt was not an exception. During the Old Kingdom, or known as “the Pyramid Times”, the Egyptians had created an independent Granary management system. Unfortunately, due to the lack of related archaeological or textual evidence, few studies on the details of its personnel and organization have been conducted for recent years. With preliminary analysis of existing documents, granary as an independent institution was founded in the 5th dynasty, and it was possible this institution was entrusted to the overseer of the labor(imy-r ka.t) or vizier in the beginning. As for the composition of its personnel and classification, the ancient Egyptian granaries can be categorized into state granary, royal granary, temple granary and private granary. There were two-leveled administrative sections in the state granary: central granary and the provincial granary, and separately, the chief administrative officials of these two sections were “the overseer of double granaries”(imy-r vnwty) and “the overseer of the granary”(imy-r vnwt). Moreover, other managerial personnel with different responsibilities were appointed to these departments, such as senior official “overseer of scribes of the granary”(imy-r zv(w) vnwt), “overseer of document scribes of the granary”(imy-r zv(w) mjat n vnwt), “overseer of the granary of the offices of food-offerings”(imy-r vnwt swt etpw jfaw), “overseer of the king’s granary”(imy-r vnwt nzwt), and so on. All of them, along with abundant ordinary labors, were integrated into a complete staffing of granary system. In the ancient Egypt, the duty of the granary was transportation, process, store and re-distribution, the main income of granary was grain tax. Therefore, the transportation, process, store and re-distribution of grain were constituted the basic granary management system during the Old Kingdom. With the assistance of granary management system, ancient Egyptians maintained normal social economic activity, which had also ensured the regular function of the government, as well as the prosperity and stability of entire society for a persisting time.