Severed hands as trophies in New Kingdom Egypt

[Jim Webster]

But the 'Field army' never reached that sort of numbers 

Do we know this for certain?

Given that most field armies had to be supplied by boats travelling down the Nile, or if campaigning in Palestine, delivered by ship to a port, I think we can make a fair estimate of what is possible to supply.

Jim

[Erpingham]

Indeed.   And the reason Patrick favours numbers as written in these sources is that the picture is consistent across the ancient world and fits with the populations, societies and approaches to war of which we have records.

A brave statement but not one I will challenge here (because I frankly don't have the knowledge base).  However, records aren't everything.  Archaeology, studies on the carry capacity of ancient landscapes, logistics all have to be considered too.

[Patrick Waterson]

And the grain storage capacity of ancient cities, which seems to have been the key to most campaigning in the period.

[Dangun]

Sometimes it can be demonstrated that an author is using a large and round number - like 1 million - as nothing more than a synonym for "a lot". Sima Qian springs to mind as a possible example. It might relate to the language used too?

[Patrick Waterson]

I am not sure there is any such equivalent abstraction in Ancient Egyptian, and while the modern reader might attempt to dismiss, say, 400,000 as 'just 40 and a lot of zeroes', it is harder to apply the same approach to, for example, Sargon of Assyria's listing of armaments captured in the Urartian royal arsenal during his eighth campaign, wherein inter alia he details the 25,212 bronze shields ('great and small') and the 305,412 bronze daggers ('heavy and light') he found there.  305,412 is not a 'large and round number' (well, it is large) by any reckoning.

Granted that Diodorus' transcribed 400,000 is most likely a rounded number, as is Tacitus' 700,000 for Thutmose III's military manpower pool, but Egyptians did maintain careful bureaucratic records of their manpower (one of these caused Dudimose I Djedhotepre to order the male children of the Hebrews to be killed in order to stop their population expanding, thus demonstrating a sad lack of appreciation of basic population science) and hence such temple pronouncements would have been based on records rather than being an abstraction for 'many'.

[Jim Webster]

Granted that Diodorus' transcribed 400,000 is most likely a rounded number, as is Tacitus' 700,000 for Thutmose III's military manpower pool, but Egyptians did maintain careful bureaucratic records of their manpower (one of these caused Dudimose I Djedhotepre to order the male children of the Hebrews to be killed in order to stop their population expanding, thus demonstrating a sad lack of appreciation of basic population science) and hence such temple pronouncements would have been based on records rather than being an abstraction for 'many'.

I've always had a problem with some of the numbers around this period, especially with regard to this incident.
In Numbers 1:45 So the whole number of the Israelites, by their ancestral houses, from twenty years old and upwards, everyone able to go to war in Israel—  their whole number was six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty.

Now then with this sort of numbers they had much the same manpower as Egypt, but were concentrated in a comparatively small area. It was also about the same number of fighting men as the Amalekites who fight them later. It's an awful lot of people to be living as nomadic herdsmen in the Sinai.
But even more troubling with regard numbers is that In Exodus 1:15 we get
"The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 'When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.' 17 But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. 18 So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, 'Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?' 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, 'Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.' 20 So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, 'Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.'

A couple of problems here.
One, a population of about 2.5 million (to have 600k men of military age) has two midwives. No wonder Hebrew women were giving birth before the midwife could arrive!

Two, if this augmented policy of all Egyptians overseeing the killing of Israelite boys was actually implemented, then it happened before Moses was born. Now Moses was supposed to have been 120 when he died meaning he was probably about sixty-eighty when he went back into Egypt.
Working it from the other way, he'd been in exile long enough to have a wife and sons, so he was probably at least thirty.
But if the killing of male babies ever was a policy, then by definition there would be no Israelite males under either thirty (or more Biblically) 60.
So these 600k plus fighting men must all have been over thirty (or sixty)
But when we have Joshua son of Nun who apparently died at 110, having been in the land since he was sixty and was therefore 20 when they left Egypt.
So obviously this killing of male babies had hardly been efficient, even if it had been carried out at all.

Trying to get figures from the other direction we have
Gen 46:26-7 All those who went to Egypt with Jacob -- those who were his direct descendants, not counting his sons' wives -- numbered sixty- six persons. With the two sons who had been born to Joseph in Egypt, the members of Jacob's family, which went to Egypt, were seventy in all.
Over 430 years, at 1% compound interest (not a bad rate of population growth for an oppressed people) there would be about 5,000 of them. At 2% which is a high population growth there'd be 350,000. I think you'd struggle to find a contained population in the ancient world that grew at that rate for so long.

But what I'm trying to say is that these books were written for a purpose and that purpose wasn't the transmitting of statistically accurate data.

The advantage we have with the Old Testament is that it's a long enough ancient document covering a specific people in enough details for us to realise that the numbers weren't designed to be taken too seriously from the point of view of data. It's even better in that large chunks of it are written by people with differing viewpoints and theological standpoints (compare Kings and Chronicles for example)
With a lot of other records we get only the one standpoint. We get the official figures that the Pharaoh published, but we don't know enough working class argot to know whether, like the Napoleonic French population, they had an expression, "To lie like a bulletin."

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

Interesting, Jim.

I went through much the same sort of calculations when looking at how long the Hebrews would have to stay in Egypt in order to generate a population of millions from the original 70 or so, and also how fast they would need to breed in order to overtake the Egyptian population at some point, preferably a few generations before the Exodus.

The measure used for population increase by demographers is 'doubling time', which, as one might expect, measures how long it takes for a population to double.  The fastest figure under optimum conditions is usually 23 years or thereabouts.  The usual limiting condition is the number of available females of breeding age.  Doubling time gives rise to a measure known as the net increase rate, which is a per annum overall population growth (which compounds), and for a 23-year doubling time the net increase rate is 3%.

Being settled in the best land in Egypt, tax free and with nothing initially to do except breed like rabbits and live long lifespans, I gave them a benchmark doubling time of 23 years to reflect these ideal conditions.

The Hebrews spent about 80 years (3 reigns) of their 430-year stay in servitude, i.e. under the same obligations as the Egyptian population.  Until then, they were free to propagate, which gives them 15 doublings (70x2¹⁵), bringing their population to 2,293,760.

Now it is noticed that they are starting to outnumber the Egyptian population (putting this at slightly above 2 million).  Life is no longer so idyllic as they are progressively subjected to taxation and compulsory work for Pharaoh, so we can increase the doubling time, perhaps to 46 years, which means that during the 80-ish year period of 'oppression' they get one more doubling, i.e. the population starts to pass the 4 million mark, and this happens maybe 30-40 years (or one and a bit reigns) into the 'oppression', prompting the short-lived and abortive attempt at culling by the second Pharaoh during the period.  The Egyptians were, according to the Book of Jasher, progressively freed of their taxation and compulsory work obligation as these were shifted onto the Hebrews, so probably had a population spurt of their own, I am guessing to 3 or 3.5 million by the time of the Exodus.  The Egyptian concerns about being outnumbered seem to have lifted somewhat by this point.

Then come the catastrophic 'plagues' which precede the Exodus.  Moses, aged maybe 60 by this time, has reappeared, does his stuff and off go the Hebrews heading out to their new home, meeting and fending off the 'Amalekites' en route.  (Egypt suffers rather more at the hands of these 'Amalekites' or Amu.)  Both populations are greatly diminished by the events preceding the Exodus, and neither recovers for quite some time, but the Hebrews still manage to leave with 600,000 men fit to fight ('military age' might be a bit elastic given traditional Hebrew longevity to this point).

While Old Testament numbers may not have been intended as serious scientific data, one can draw a coherent picture from them, and one which also answers the question of whether the Hebrews stayed 215 years or 430 years in Egypt.  Simply by applying rudimentary demographics, it has to be 430 years, and the numbers actually work out rather well.  (It also enables us to evaluate the family tree in Exodus 6:15-20 as genealogical fiction.)

So I would not dismiss the numbers we are given.

[Erpingham]

Not particularly expert in these matters but 3% seems a bit on the high side given the sorts of historical growth figures for premodern societies.  The long term averages seem to be 0.1% or less.

I'm a bit more familiar with expressions of infant mortality or life expectancy at birth as a population gauge - what sort of figures for these would your 3% model be yielding?

[Patrick Waterson]

Not particularly expert in these matters but 3% seems a bit on the high side given the sorts of historical growth figures for premodern societies.  The long term averages seem to be 0.1% or less.

I'm a bit more familiar with expressions of infant mortality or life expectancy at birth as a population gauge - what sort of figures for these would your 3% model be yielding?

The point about doubling time is that one does not need to consider these: only the time period it takes for a population to double - which is why demographers use doubling time, because birth and death rates are often hard to substantiate or even guess at while doubling time is immediately obvious.  However we can make a guess.

If we look at the UK population over time (chart here) we see that 6,000,000 in 1642 has become 12,596,803 by 1811 - a doubling time of 169 years (actually slightly less because 1811 is double-and-a-twelfth).  Then the population leaps to 20,893,584 in 1821; 24,028,584 in 1831 and 26,709,456 in 1841.  Doubling since shortly before 1811 (12 million) occurs by 1831 (24 million), giving a doubling time of a little over 20 years.  The next doubling occurs between 1921 (44,024,091) and 1946 (48,939,000), say 1940-ish, for a doubling time of 99 years.

The doubling time during the early 19th century - interestingly, before many of the really significant advances in hygiene and sanitation - is much quicker than in preceding and succeeding eras.  Given that in c.1811-1831 we had a doubling time of slightly over 20 years, I see no reason to grudge the Hebrews, who were let loose on the best land in Egypt without let or hindrance and who had a culture of large families, a general doubling time of 23 years.  They could have done this with birth, death and infant mortality rates not dissimilar to those of Great Britain in the early 19th century.

Sustained doubling is another matter, as with increasing population size the doubling rate tends to fall off considerably.  However the Hebrews were a comparatively small population for most of their stay in Egypt, and did not have the attrition of wars or the burdens of taxation and compulsory labour to worry about until they had grown to match the population of Egypt (which itself would have proceeded along a rather more leisurely doubling time).  I assume the doubling time starts to lengthen considerably once these burdens are imposed.

Hope that makes sense.

[Jim Webster]

Not particularly expert in these matters but 3% seems a bit on the high side given the sorts of historical growth figures for premodern societies.  The long term averages seem to be 0.1% or less.

I'm a bit more familiar with expressions of infant mortality or life expectancy at birth as a population gauge - what sort of figures for these would your 3% model be yielding?

The other problem is that whilst the initial 70 might have been "settled in the best land in Egypt, tax free and with nothing initially to do except breed like rabbits and live long lifespans, I gave them a benchmark doubling time of 23 years to reflect these ideal conditions."

But unless you assume continuing preferential treatment for a number of generations (and why would Egyptians be dispossessed from the 'best land in Egypt' forty years after Joseph's day?) these factors very soon fade into insignificance.
To achieve these factors you have to assume a progressive programme of dispossessing native Egyptians in favour of Israelites which continued for multiple generations.

Edited to add that if you accept the figures in the source, it would be entirely inconsistent to deny the other details in the source, so you end up with population collapse in the last few years due to total lack of males born after a certain date (but a date that is at least forty, and perhaps eighty (following the same data source) years before the figures we have for their manpower


Jim

[Dangun]

I know very little about this topic, but a quick google suggests the hieroglyph numerals peaked out at one million, with the image of the God of Eternity (infinity?). This might suggest that at about this level they were saying little more than "many". Only slightly more generously, perhaps we can say we are getting specific information about the order of magnitude?

[Erpingham]

Thanks for the explanation Patrick.  A few points arise for me.  One, as Jim has already pointed out, is the whole narrative.  The Hebrews start off as a small, favoured group but end up as a subject people engaged in manual labour like brick making.  How quick is the transition and what impact will it have?

Secondly, I think you need a better model to justify those enormous growth figures.  Tax free status and the best land doesn't sweep away disease and inadequate medical care.  So, while infant mortality rates, or maternal mortality or other such are not strictly necessary, some thinking on them is helpful in not being a "pick a number" activity.  What part does continued nomadism play, for example, in terms of population shifts?

On your historical doubling rate example, why choose the rate of a fast urbanising country with growing industrialisation, as opposed to the more agrarian period before it?  Why indeed chose that rather than estimates from elsewhere and elsewhen in the Ancient period?  Even today, few modern third world countries seem to reach a sustained 3% growth rate.

[Patrick Waterson]

Thanks for the explanation Patrick.  A few points arise for me.  One, as Jim has already pointed out, is the whole narrative.  The Hebrews start off as a small, favoured group but end up as a subject people engaged in manual labour like brick making.  How quick is the transition and what impact will it have?

Fortunately we have a source - the Book of Jesher - which allows us to pin this down with reasonable exactitude.  The Hebrews are not subjected to such mundane tasks (which were part of the ordinary obligations of Egyptian citizens) until the last three reigns of the 13th Dynasty.  In the first of these reigns (Dudimose I Djedhotepre) they are subjected to a 10% tax (previously nothing) while the Egyptians pay the same (previously 20%).  In the second, much the same, except for a brief - apparently less than a year - culling of Hebrew male children (which was rather less than 100% efficient) and the imposition of the same work obligations as for Egyptians.  In the third and last reign (Dudimose II Djedneferre) the Hebrews have the entire tax burden (20%) and work obligation thrust upon them while the Egyptians pay and do nothing - which incidentally explains why Pharaoh was so reluctant to let the Hebrews go when Moses asked: the Pharaoh (who was a usurper) had built his entire popularity base on abolishing taxes and work obligations for the Egyptians and loading them onto the Hebrews.  Being faced with the prospective departure of the entire tax-paying population adequately explains why he dug in his heels until the people of Egypt clamoured for him to let the Hebrews go.

Exactly what impact this had was not recorded in detail, but the Hebrews did not like it at all, and I would guess that it sapped their vigour.  Our sources note that the Hebrew population went on increasing, but that is not difficult once one gets to the numbers I estimate: even with a significant drop in net increase rate the population still rises quite noticeably.

Secondly, I think you need a better model to justify those enormous growth figures.  Tax free status and the best land doesn't sweep away disease and inadequate medical care.  So, while infant mortality rates, or maternal mortality or other such are not strictly necessary, some thinking on them is helpful in not being a "pick a number" activity.  What part does continued nomadism play, for example, in terms of population shifts?

Which is why I take the comparison of early 19th century Britain - 1811 to 1836 saw the industrial revolution getting under way with all that meant in terms of deprivation and insanitary living conditions, disease, inadequate medical care, mortality rates, etc.  And yet a doubling time of 25 years or slightly less was achieved.  Compared with early 19th century Britain, I think the Hebrews in Egypt were on to a good thing: it would be tempting to give them a shorter doubling time, but I wanted to be conservative in my estimates.

Nomadism is unlikely to have played any part in the growth of the Hebrew population: having settled in Egypt by special favour, there they stayed, and the Egyptians were generally not keen on letting nomad types into the country.

On your historical doubling rate example, why choose the rate of a fast urbanising country with growing industrialisation, as opposed to the more agrarian period before it?  Why indeed chose that rather than estimates from elsewhere and elsewhen in the Ancient period? 

The reason is that we have accurate records for Britain from AD 1811 onwards.  I prefer accurate records, where available, to estimates, which can be questioned (and are being questioned ).

As for fast urbanisation, coincidentally we see this at Tell el-Daba, the old Biblical city of Ramses (Goshen) in the Nile delta.  The Asiatic (Syro-Canaanitic) population grows very rapidly during the 13th Dynasty period.

Even today, few modern third world countries seem to reach a sustained 3% growth rate.

Well, here is one of them.  Note that it has a sustained doubling time of 25 years despite the drop in net increase rate, which itself seems to result from attempts to slow the growth in population.

[Jim Webster]

Book of Jesher?

The problem with that is that there doesn't seem to be any manuscript older than the 16th century does there?

[Patrick Waterson]

I know very little about this topic, but a quick google suggests the hieroglyph numerals peaked out at one million, with the image of the God of Eternity (infinity?). This might suggest that at about this level they were saying little more than "many". Only slightly more generously, perhaps we can say we are getting specific information about the order of magnitude?

From what I can see, the customary way of expressing a non-specific very large number goes something like this:

"I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore." - Genesis 22:17

Having a numeral for one million allows one to express two million to nine million simply by scribing two to nine of the 'million' symbol.  This suggests that nobody in Egypt felt the need to express a number as high as ten million.

Book of Jesher?

The problem with that is that there doesn't seem to be any manuscript older than the 16th century does there?

Well ... the book (also referred to as the Book of Jasher, which results in it being confused with the actual Book of Jasher) was supposedly transcribed or translated from an original by Alcuin, who took it back to Charlemagne.  All I know is that it contains quite a bit of useful information which is illuminating for the period - plus a few slight anomalies, e.g. the idea that Caleb 'invented' the bow.  It is useful rather than perfect, but the information therein makes sense.

The Book of Jasher is a long collection of stories, some more believable than others - and one of which is partly repeated in the Joseph Sura in the Koran.  It also provides some interesting information, mainly peripheral rather than central, e.g. statements that Hebrews on occasion accompanied Egyptian armies on their campaigns, which helps to explain how it is that when "Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel at Rephidim," the Hebrews were able to put up a fight rather than being massacred out of hand - some of them had military experience.  The Book of Jesher also confirms that they brought weapons with them.