1 - Introduction

Summary

This chapter introduces the following corpus of texts from ancient Egypt, and outlines the differing meanings ascribed to slavery and dependence from antiquity to modern times. The terms used for dependents and slaves in the various languages of the texts translated here – Egyptian (Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, Demotic, and Coptic), Greek, and Arabic – are briefly presented, and defining features of the condition of those so labelled are discussed. How and from where such persons were acquired, their life experiences, and the different forms of exploitation in which they were involved are introduced, as are forms of slave resistance and limits to the archaeological and textual evidence available, and so to what we can learn from it.