Slavery in Antiquity - Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

The difficulty of distinguishing between slaves and levied peasant labour has bedevilled the study of this subject. Private ownership of slaves, captured in war and given by the king to their captor, certainly occurred at the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty (1550 - 1295 BCE). Sales of slaves occurred in the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (732 - 656 BCE), and contracts of servitude survive from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (ca 672 - 525 BCE) and from the reign of Darius: apparently such a contract then required the consent of the slave.

The Old Testament also recounts tales of slavery in Egypt: slave-dealers sold Joseph into bondage there, and the Hebrews suffered collective enslavement (Exodus, chapter 1) prior to the Exodus. However, the historicity of the Biblical account is questioned. It is noteworthy that outside of the Biblical account, no evidence has ever been found indicating the systematic enslavement of Israelites.