Ancient Egypt Population Estimates:
Slaves and Citizens

Dr. Mark Janzen

 The tomb of Rekhmire the vizier, the highest ranking official under the pharaohs Tuthmosis III and Amenophis II (New Kingdom). Representation from foreigners, bringing trades, tibutes and taxes to the tomb owner. Wikimedia

There is no clear method with which to determine population of Egypt, let alone an accurate figure for the number of slaves in Egypt at any given point. The absence of anything approaching a census or list of slaves in ancient Egypt (as opposed to ancient Rome) makes it difficult to arrive at a reasonable population estimate of slaves. This problem has long vexed scholars, who have offered wildly differing estimates of the population at different times:^[1]

• Guillemette Andreu has suggested that the population more than doubled from 850,000 at the start of the third millennium to over 2 million by 1800 B.C.E.^[2]

• Karl Butzer estimates a generally steady growth from just under 1 million inhabitants in the Predynastic era ( 6000-3100 BCE) to over 5 million in Roman/Byzantine times (c. 30 BCE -640 CE).^[3] During the New Kingdom (c. 1550-1069 B.C.E.), this leads to a population total of approximately 2.5 – 3 million.^[4]

• David O’Connor puts the population during the New Kingdom at 2.9 – 4.5 million and as high as 7.5 million in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt.^[5]

How Many Slaves Were in Egypt

Considering the complications in estimating the population growth over time, and uncertainty about the number of foreigners who arrived in Egypt at different times and the extent to which they were integrated into the population, it is very difficult to determine the number of slaves living in Egypt at a given time precisely. Any attempt to do so is unfortunately largely speculative.

John Madden estimates that during the Roman Empire the slave population never rose above ten percent.^[6] This is considerably less than his estimate that 1 out of 3 persons were slaves in the rest of the Roman Empire.

Since the Egyptians did not take censuses, unlike the Romans, attempting to determine one cannot say with any certainty how many slaves lived in Egypt during the New Kingdom. That said, it is certain that the strain of supporting a nearly permanent army of 40,000 troops, many drawn from the agricultural sector, led to an increase in dependence on slave labor.^[7]

Many foreigners were brought into Egypt, either as booty from campaigns or as purchased slaves.  For example:  

• Among the many spoils of war mentioned in The Annals of Thutmose III (1457 B.C.E.) were 340 prisoners, …1796 male and female servants (Hm.w/Hm.w.t) and their children, etc.^[8] They were incorporated into the Egyptian workforce as part of temple estates where they worked as weavers and farmers, among other tasks.

• Another 80 “men in captivity,” 606 male and female slaves were captured during Thutmose III’s Year 33 campaign (1447 B.C.E.), while 513 male and female slaves are listed as part of the tribute sent from Syria shortly after.^[9]

• Amenhotep III (c. 1386-1351 B.C.E.) records his building activities at Karnak, Luxor, and Soleb and mentions that the workshop of the monument Millions of Years is filled with male and females slaves (Hm/Hmt) and the children of foreign rulers.^[10]

• Ramesses II ( 1279-1213 B.C.E.) says of prisoners from the Battle of Kadesh: “Their dependents are brought as prisoners, to fill the workshops of his father, Amun.”^[11]

• His father, Seti I (c. 1294-1279), made a comparable claim after his first campaign.^[12]

Such figures and statements were, of course, not intended to be comprehensive, nor is the above an exhaustive list, so one cannot simply add up the totals.

A Comparable Estimate 
A better, though far from perfect approach, is comparing Egypt’s great empire period, the New Kingdom, to the Roman Empire. Given the New Kingdom’s pharaohs propensity to carry off large numbers of captives during their numerous campaigns in the Levant and Nubia, and due to the simple fact that the status of slavery was inherited barring manumission, if one tentatively adopts Madden’s “no more than ten percent figure” for the New Kingdom and sets it at slightly less (perhaps eight percent), combined with the population total estimated by Betzer (the most scientific estimate), a very rough estimate of approximately 200,000-250,000 slaves in Egypt during the New Kingdom can be made. Unfortunately, Egyptian sources simply do not allow a more precise total to be determined at this time.

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Inverse Midrash: A Symposium Envisaging the Exodus Story: Meet the Egyptians

Dr. Mark Janzen is assistant professor of history and archaeology at Southwestern Baptist Theologocial Seminary. He holds a Ph.D. in history, with an emphasis on Egyptology from the University of Memphis, and an M.A. in Biblical and Near Eastern Archaeology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Trinity International University. His dissertation is titled, “The Iconography of Humiliation: The Depiction and Treatment of Foreign Captives in New Kingdom Egypt.” He has a number of forthcoming articles, including, “Akhenaten and the Amarna Period.”

[1] Ancient writers give various estimates: Diodorus Siculus claims the population of Egypt was not less than 3 million in the first century B.C.E. and that it had been 7 million “in antiquity”(I, 31, 7-8); Herodotus believed there to be 20,000 inhabited towns in Egypt (Histories, 199).

[2] Guillemette Andreu, Egypt in the Age of the Pyramids (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 2; Meskell, Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt (Princeton University Press, 2002), 26.

[3] Karl Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization (University of Chicago Press, 1976), 80-87, fig. 13; Barry J. Kemp, Anatomy of a Civilization (2^nd edition. London & New York: Routledge, 2006), 49-50. Butzer’s attempt remains the best at scientific demography regarding pre-Roman Egypt.

[4] Hassan generally agrees with this citing the population at 2.1 million in F.A. Hassan, “The Dynamics of a Riverine Civilization: A Geoarchaeological Perspective on the Nile Valley, Egypt,” World Archaeology 29.1 (1997): 51-74.

[5] David O’Connor, “New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period,” in Ancient Egypt: A Social History (Cambridge University Press, 1983), 190. To the present writer these figures seem high, and Butzer’s estimate is far more likely due to it being based on substantial research on geographical and agricultural realities.

[6] John Madden, “Slavery in the Roman Empire: Numbers and Origins,” Classics Ireland 3 (1996), accessed March 30, 2016, http://www.ucd.ie/cai/classics-ireland/1996/Madden96.html. Bagnall and Freir place the figure in town slightly higher (13.5%) and rural areas considerably higher (8.5%) in The Demography of Roman Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 1994).

[7] F.A. Hassan, “Chapter Four: The Wealth of the Land,” in Ancient Egypt (David P. Silverman, ed. Oxford University Press, 1997), 67.

[8] Hoffmeier, “Annals,” in Context of Scripture, vol II: 12. The reliability of the totals is less important for this particular discussion than the simple fact that various captives are noted using several different terms to distinguish their social standing. Similar lists can be cited for texts from Amenhotep II’s reign. For details see: Bernadette Menu,. “Captives de guerre et dépendance rurale dans l’Égypte du

Nouvel Empire” in La dépendance rurale dans l’Antiquitéégyptienne et proche-orientale (B. Menu, ed. IFAO, 2005),190, especially note no. 15; J.J. Janssen, “Eine Beuteliste von Amenophis II und das Problem der Slaverei im alten Aegypten,” JEOL 17 (1963), 141-147; P. Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II (HÄB. Hildesheim, 1987).

[9] James H. Breasted, Ancient Records in Egypt, vol. 2 (University of Illinois Press: 2001 (reprint of 1906), 203.

[10] Menu, “Captifs du guerre,” 190.

[11] K. A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions Translated & Annotated, Volume II: Ramesses II, Royal Inscriptions (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 24.

[12] K. A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions I: 33; Peter J. Brand, The Monuments of Seti: Epigraphic, Historical and Art Historical Analysis (Leiden, Boston, & Köln: Brill, 2000), 221.