Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Calendars
- List of abbreviations
- Maps
- Chapter 1 Introduction and historical framework
- Chapter 2 The historical development of the form, content, and administration of legal documents
- Chapter 3 The languages of law
- Chapter 4 The family
- Chapter 5 Capital
- Chapter 6 Sale
- Chapter 7 Leases
- Chapter 8 Labor
- Chapter 9 Slavery in Greco-Roman Egypt
- Chapter 10 The judicial system in theory and practice
- Concordance
- Suggested reading for introductions to papyrology in English
- Glossary of technical terms
- Works cited
Chapter 8 - Labor
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Calendars
- List of abbreviations
- Maps
- Chapter 1 Introduction and historical framework
- Chapter 2 The historical development of the form, content, and administration of legal documents
- Chapter 3 The languages of law
- Chapter 4 The family
- Chapter 5 Capital
- Chapter 6 Sale
- Chapter 7 Leases
- Chapter 8 Labor
- Chapter 9 Slavery in Greco-Roman Egypt
- Chapter 10 The judicial system in theory and practice
- Concordance
- Suggested reading for introductions to papyrology in English
- Glossary of technical terms
- Works cited
Summary
Introduction
This chapter is concerned with the contractual relationship between laborers and employers. As it was elsewhere in the ancient world, the economic form that labor took ranged from fully free labor in the household, to paid wage labor, to slavery (Chapter 9). As such, the texts that are presented here are generally concerned with free labor subject to certain contractual restrictions. Those restrictions, documented for example in the paramonê contracts (for which see also 5.5.2–3), included the stipulation to remain in a particular place to work during the length of the contract. The use of contracts to hire labor has an earlier history in the Ancient Near East. There was of course dependent labor particularly in agricultural work and domestic service (Chapter 9). In the periods covered by this volume, most labor arrangements were oral and therefore escape us entirely.
The preserved Ptolemaic contracts – only a few survive – are concerned generally with agriculture and related work, including the clearing of brushwood (8.1.1) and canal maintenance (8.1.3), or specifically with work in a so-called monopoly industry such as beer-making (not represented below). 8.1.2, however, is a private agreement between two parties for the manufacture of a yoke and basket.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Law and Legal Practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab ConquestA Selection of Papyrological Sources in Translation, with Introductions and Commentary, pp. 401 - 441Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014