"Years of Hunger" in the Orix Nome: on the Egyptian Arable Farming in the First Intermediate Period and Early Middle Kingdom

Abstract

Throughout the Egyptian history of the III–II millennium BC, most of written mentions of famines occurs from the First Intermediate Period to the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, and such really happened then more often than usual. The article points out some of the reasons for this and the grounds for the food security restoration in the XII dynasty. The newest data proves some deterioration of ecological conditions, to which arable farming was unable to adapt after the collapse of the Old Kingdom legal and economic order. For “private farms” that figure in the First Intermediate Period inscriptions, it was often difficult to formalize their rights to fertile lands and to gather seed grain, livestock, workers in the necessary short time. In the absence of an established grain market, but with prevalence of violence and robbery, even strong households often avoided expanding their plowing. Detrimental to arable farming was a flow of workers to other sectors of economy and the depopulation of the Middle Egypt. The cessation of the famines was caused not only by environmental improvement, but also by the restoration of peace and order in the country, and above all the implementation of the state economic regulation, including spreading and support of arable farming. Even in the times of crop failures, it preserved tillage wherever possible and quickly re-introduced it to the lands with restored fertility