The small marking irons of ancient Egypt were likely used to mark the skin of human slaves, according to a new study.
Several ancient texts and illustrations, as well as 10 irons to mark dating back 3,000 years, recommend that the ancient Egyptians marked slaves. These bronze marking irons are now part of the collections of the British Museum and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London.
It is believed that the irons to mark date from approximately the XIX Egyptian dynasty, from around 1292 BC. C. hasta the 25th dynasty, which ended in 656 B. C. , according to an article published Oct. 15 in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (opens in a new tab).
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Until now, most Egyptologists had assumed they were used to mark farm animals, a practice seen in ancient Egyptian paintings, or perhaps horses. But the markings on museums are too small for that, said Ella Karev (opens in a new window), an Egyptologist at the University of Chicago and the study.
“They’re so small they can’t be used on farm animals or horses,” he told WordsSideKick. com. “I don’t rule out the possibility, but we have no evidence that small animals like goats are labeled and many other evidence that humans are being labeled. “
Modern farm animal labeling rules require a mark at least four inches (10. 6 centimeters) long so that the scar it leaves behind is not illegible as a calf grows, a challenge the ancient Egyptians probably knew about as well.
But the British Museum and Petrie Museum markings are a third of that length, too small for cattle, Karev wrote. Cattle marks in ancient Egyptian paintings are also square or oblong and appear larger than museum marks.
Some of the ancient Egyptian marking irons are almost exactly the same length as the marking irons used by Europeans on African slaves from the transatlantic slave industry centuries ago, Karev said. shape of the smaller markers discussed here,” he writes in the study.
Ancient Egyptian writings also speak of “marking” slaves, which was intended to be a reference to tattooing, Karev told WordsSideKick. com. For example, the mark is noted on a depiction of prisoners of war in a sculpture at Medinet Habu near Luxor in Upper (southern) Egypt dates to the twentieth dynasty, most likely around 1185 BC.
But studies show that tattoos in ancient Egypt were practiced almost exclusively on women and for devout purposes, he said, and the mark of prisoners of war on Medinet Habu’s sculpture is unlikely to be a tattoo.
“In practice, ‘doing a tattoo by hand’ [without a tattoo machine] requires a lot of time and skill, and if you do it on a large scale, it can’t be replicated without problems,” Karev said. much more sense for it to be a brand. “
In addition, the equipment used to mark prisoners in the Medinet Habu sculpture are other brands of farm animals used in ancient Egyptian paintings. It has been noted that this is because they were tattoo needles and the sculpture shows them placed in a pigment bowl. But Karev argues that instead, the depiction shows small, red-hot marks on a portable heater called a brazier.
The practice of slavery in Egypt is very different from the fashionable concept of slavery informed by the transatlantic slave trade, Karev said.
“The way we describe slavery, serfdom, indentured bondage, debt bondage, are all fashionable classifications and categorizations,” he said. “The ancient Egyptians didn’t have those classifications, so it’s up to historians to perceive what, in context, is going on. “
While ancient writings claim that other people were bought and sold as property, and perhaps with the land on which they lived, what is now called “serfs,” there is also evidence that dowry for a slave’s marriage can be paid for by its owner. and that many slaves were followed in families.
In addition, there is evidence that other people were freed or freed from slavery and became normal members of Egyptian society, he said.
“What is ancient Egypt like?”
Blacks were enslaved in the United States until 1963
—How do we decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs and ancient languages?
In such cases, a slave’s mark may simply be a “permanent marker of an impermanent state,” Karev said. the categories. “
Antonio Loprieno (opens in a new tab), an Egyptologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland who was not involved in the study, said the paper was “a study. “
Only foreigners, than local Egyptians, seem to have been marked in this way, so “assuming that the bronzes to be marked were used for humans. . . is empirically more likely at that time, when the number of foreign personnel and infantrymen in Egypt was at its peak,” he told WordsSideKick. com in an email.
Loprieno also said that fashionable concepts about slavery were applied in Egypt at the time and that more evidence is needed on the “moral conceptions” of slavery in ancient Egypt.
Tom Metcalfe is a freelance journalist and regular contributor to Live Science in London, UK. Tom writes mainly about science, space, archaeology, the Earth and the oceans. He has also written for BBC, NBC News, National Geographic, Scientific American, Air.
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