An Exploration of the term ‘inw’

from the Early Dynastic Period to the New Kingdom

Barbara O’Neill

This article was first published on www.Egyptological.com

http://snipurl.com/28htz5x

Introduction:

The term inw has been described as ‘vexatious’ in its complexity, touching as it
does on a range of intricate subjects outside the scope of this article. The
following article does not claim to cover all aspects of inw. A reading list for those
who wish to explore the subject in more detail, is provided at the end.

In his book The Official Gift in

Ancient Egypt (1996) Edward
Bleiberg notes that there are
thirty eight different
interpretations for the term
‘inw’ in English, French and
German. As Bleiberg notes
‘The Egyptians could not have
been as vague as the
numerous translations
suggest’ (Bleiberg, 1996, p.27). Ostensibly, in its earliest form, inw is a
transaction which expresses a socio-economic relationship between the Egyptian
king and others, ‘kingship itself being an integral institution in the socio-economic
scheme’ (Bleiberg, 1984, p. 156). Image: Princes bearing offerings, Luxor Temple
A closely associated term, ‘bAkw’ often appears in any list of inw exchanges, with
bAkw understood by Bleiberg as a form of gift exchanged between a foreign
country and the Egyptian state. bAkw could also take the form of local
commodities presented as offerings to a temple, whereas the inw exchange
almost always involved the king in the transaction, as recipient or donor. The
social status of the individuals involved in inw exchanges appears significant in
determining if a ‘gift’ can be categorized as ‘inw’ or ‘bAkw’. In its earliest phases
at least, it appears that the inw transaction was primarily a royal prerogative.
(Bleiberg, 1996).

Bleiberg sees the redistributative model as providing the clearest picture of the
Ancient Egyptian economy, with inw and bAkw component elements within a
system in which goods were collected by the temple for eventual redistribution to
the people. Rations were distributed from the temple to people on the basis of
rank rather than need or ability to buy goods. All Egyptians were subject to this
system except for the king (Bleiberg, 1984, p.156). There was no vocabulary for
the concepts of buying, selling or of money throughout most of Egypt’s history.
The Egyptians used words such as ‘give’ rdi or ‘acquire’ ini to describe the barter
system which underpinned their economic system. In the redistributative system
most resources moved from the periphery to the centre; from peasant to palace
or temple, with commodities then redistributed on the basis of class and social
position. There was no coinage in Egypt before the Twenty Sixth Dynasty and
‘true’ money did not exist there before the Twenty Ninth Dynasty. Precious
metals, including gold, silver and copper were used as a medium of exchange
and as a standard of value well before this date.

Ancient records, related to the exchange of goods in barter transactions, make

fascinating reading. In a contract dated to Year 15 of Ramesses II, a nobleman
named Erenofre offered textiles, bronze vessels, a pot of honey, ten shirts and
ten pieces of copper in exchange for a slave girl valued at 4 deben or 1 kite of
silver (for information on deben and kite values, see ‘Notes on Ancient Egyptian
Measurements’ at the end of this article). In another trade contract, an ox was
exchanged for 2 pots of fat, 5 shirts, 1 dress and 1 hide, equivalent to 120 deben,
the value of the ox. In the barter system there was no way to achieve a profit
through selling. Goods were acquired because a person or institution had a need
for them. Egypt’s ancient ‘economy’ was not a separate institution but entwined
with social obligation (Bleiberg, 1996).

The Wörterbuch1 offers four basic renderings of the word inw as ‘offering’,
‘tribute’, ‘gift’ and ‘product’. inw has also been associated with the idea of trade.
Andrew Gordon (1983) rejects the translation of inw as ‘goods’ adhering to the
view of inw as tribute, offerings, revenues or gifts according to the context in
which the term is used. Further, Gordon understands inw as possessing ‘an
intrinsically high value for the giver and the receiver’ (1983, pp.387-388).

Though a word can be used in different contexts, inw does not correspond neatly
to any one modern concept of commodity exchange. Although current historians
still struggle with what Antony Spalinger refers to as the ‘vexacious’ question
behind the precise meaning of the term inw, Bleiberg believes that ‘distinctions
made by the Egyptians in different rubrics to describe economic transactions are
meaningful and consistent’ (Spalinger 1993, Bleiberg,1996).

Inw in Early Egypt and the Old Kingdom

Inw transactions are recognisable in the archaeological and textual records as

early as the First Dynasty. Items marked as Inw are attested from Dynasty 1
when the word inw written as the bulti-fish (in) and the nw-pots appears on
products redistributed to members of the royal family, to bureaucrats who directly
served the king and to ‘even lower’ officials ( Bleiberg, 1996, p.28). Queens Her-
Neith and Meret-Neith both received inw from King Den of the First Dynasty. Ten

1
Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, a multi-volumed dictionary initiated in 1897 which
documents how ancient Egyptian words were used.
ivory labels, originally believed to have been attached to containers, along with
seals and ink inscriptions inscribed on to jars were found in mastabas at Naqada,
Abydos and Saqqara inscribed as inw.

The donors of inw are not always named on examples dated to the First Dynasty
from royal tombs. Nor, in the case of labels or seals recovered from non royal
contexts, are individuals, provinces or countries named. Only the king’s name
appears in the earliest examples of inw with minimal information on whether the
inw went to, or originated from the royal court. It appears that inw transactions
were well established by the commencement of Dynastic Egypt which suggests
that the practice may have started significantly earlier in the Predynastic Period.
The practice of tightly controlled redistribution of inw commodities may have
been one of many ancient customs that survived into and continued to develop
throughout the Dynastic era (Bleiberg, 1996, p.35).

By the Second Dynasty, inw is attested from jar labels and on seals associated
with the names of foreign countries, along with the titles of Egyptian nobles who
dealt with these transactions on behalf of the king. The term inw, now written with
the nw-jar combined with walking legs iw, appears on seal impressions from the
Abydos tomb of King Peribsen. Another phrase incorporating this word appears
on Peribsen’s seals. On these items the phrase inw St.t was initially
mistranslated by Egyptologists, including William Ward (1961), as an epithet
describing Peribsen as ‘conqueror of Asia’. This initial rendering of inw St.t is
now understood by Ward, in his later exploration of the phrase, as ‘a fanciful
treatment’ of the term, now translated as ‘that which is brought’ (Ward, 1991).
inw St.t is no longer seen as having anything to do with foreign conquests, but
rather as the record of an agricultural quota sent as inw to Peribsen. This inw
St.t was tribute sent to the king from an Egyptian town; probably from Sehel at
the First Cataract (Ward, 1991).
From the 3rd Dynasty inw is distributed by the king to his family, high officials and
to elite nobles. inw of this type often originate from offerings redistributed via the
royal mortuary temple. These inw contributions indicate a particular relationship
between the living (or deceased) king and a favoured few (Bleiberg, 1996, p.53).

inw was also sent to and received from foreign sources, with the practice growing
in frequency throughout the Old Kingdom era. Donald Redford (1986) interprets
this form of Old Kingdom inw as ‘tribute’, not specifically gained through conquest
but rather representing the ‘benevolence’ of a region, person or state; here inw is
a tribute of respect rather than war-booty. However, Redford believes that inw, in
this era, should also be understood as an ‘enforced gift’.

The products of Palestine were highly valued in this period and were acquired in
four ways:
• by trade;
• by coercion;
• through the reciprocal exchange of presents, or
• as ‘enforced gifts’.

Preferring the term ‘benevolence’ for inw, Redford notes that distinctions
between these acquisitions are ‘blurred’ (1986, p.140). It was more practical,
and no doubt cheaper, to rely on the Palestinians to voluntarily bring their natural
resources as tribute or ‘benevolences’ to Egypt as ‘gifts’. Establishing a fear of
Egypt’s Horus (the king) in foreign lands guaranteed a flow of inw from Palestine
and from other vassal states in the form of ‘spontaneous tribute’ (Redford, 1986,
p.141).

Foreigners were probably expected to produce inw on special occasions. In

support of this, Redford cites an Old Kingdom event known as ‘pA hrw n mst pA
inw’ or ‘the day of bringing the benevolence’, as evidence of such a
‘spontaneous’ process. It is assumed that vassal states received advance notice
of when an instance of pA hrw n mst pA inw was ‘expected’ (Redford, 1986).

Jar labels marked as inw from the Step Pyramid complex specifically mention the
sed festival of Djoser. Although connection between inw and the sed festival
cannot be firmly established, the only examples of jar labels inscribed with the
inw rubric from the New Kingdom, have been dated to the various sed festivals of
Amenhotep III (Bleiberg, 1996, p.42).

In the Old Kingdom inw can also be understood as free-will gifts from foreign
rulers who were not under Egypt’s sphere of influence. It is believed that such
gifts were usually reciprocated. Luxury, inw-inscribed prestige items from Egypt
have been found at Ebla on the Ionian coast and at Ai, in ancient Canaan.
Elsewhere, prestige goods exchanged between Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush
may have permitted Kushite Kings to enhance their own status as receivers of
Egyptian largesse. Items sent as inw to Kushite rulers have been recovered from
both residential and funerary archaeological settings (Burstein, 2001). In early
Dynastic and Old Kingdom Egypt, trade between Egypt and Kush was organised
primarily as a royal monopoly in which Kushite kings provided exotic goods to
their Egyptian counterparts. By way of ‘return’, texts referring to inw received
from the Egyptian king are often referred to as ‘the breath of life’. This apparently
ephemeral reward most likely took the form of prestige items which the Kushite
ruler distributed to his elite supporters; his status in the inw transaction, securely
enhanced (Burstein, 2001).

inw was both received and bestowed throughout the Old Kingdom, usually
presented by the Egyptian monarch to other powerful potentates, or received by
him in reciprocal exchange. inw Items found at Byblos bear the seals of pharaohs
from Khasekhemwy in the Second Dynasty right through to to Pepy II in the Sixth
Dynasty with ‘with few gaps’ indicating that most, if not all of Egypt’s Old
Kingdom rulers routinely presented inw to foreign kings (Redford, 1986, p.141).
inw, in these instances, often took the form of bequests to significant cults within
foreign territories. inw appears to have been governed by social relations rather
than by economic considerations (Bleiberg, 1996).

Despite his count of multiple words for the term inw in modern languages,
Bleiberg sees consistency, at least in its early configuration, in the concept of inw
as a transaction which almost always involved the Egyptian king as either the
donor or receiver of inw commodities. The earliest exception to this, so far as
records show, occurs during the First Intermediate Period. Inw, for the most part,
expressed a socio-economic relationship between the king and others during the
early phases of Egyptian history. During the First Intermediate era however, with
normal functioning of the central government greatly lessened. Provincial rulers,
or nomarchs, are known to have received and donated inw with provincial rulers
attested as both donors and receivers of inw. This situation may have lasted into
the early Middle Kingdom (Bleiberg, 1996).

Inw in the Middle Kingdom

In the early Middle Kingdom instances of inw continue to be received by the king
from local and foreign regions and from significant rulers and individuals. On the
stele of Tjetji, dated to the early Middle Kingdom, inw is listed as commodities
sourced from Upper and Lower Egypt and, in the same inscription, goods from
Punt are described as inw sent to Intef II or III:

‘the inw of this entire land was brought to his majesty, lord of Upper and Lower
Egypt, because of the fear of him throughout the land. That which was brought to
The Majesty of my lord by the hand of the chieftains who rule over the Red Land
because of the fear of him throughout the foreign countries’.

(Stele of Tjetji, 11th Dynasty).

This and other Middle Kingdom examples indicate a reemergence of the Old
Kingdom view of inw as a royal prerogative. However, despite this concept of
inw as the prerogative of the king, inscriptions from 12th Dynasty nomarchal
tombs at Beni Hasan attest to instances where provincial rulers claim the right to
offer inw to deceased family members. At around the same period, the nomarch
Khnumhotep II refers to prestige offerings as the ‘inw received from the palace’.
It is possible that this and similar scenes reflect Khnumhotep’s participation in
royal ceremony with inw continuing to reflect the older interpretation of inw as
exclusively the prerogative of kingship (Bleiberg, 1996, pp.71-73).

Paul Smithers (1941) in his examination of inw in A Tax-Assessor’s Journal of

the Middle Kingdom examines a document written during the reign of Senwosret
III ca. 1878–1840 BC, originating from ‘The office of the Land of the Northern
District’. The document records inw collected by an ‘overseer of land’ named
Redynyptch; an official responsible for collections of inw from a particular area.
Administrators, at this time, charged with the collection of inw were required to
keep records of how they had spent their time while on official business.
Accompanying Redynyptch were two minor officials named as the ‘stretcher of
the cord’ and the ‘holder of the cord’. These titles suggest that part of the official’s
duties involved the measuring of cornfields for taxation. This is one of the few
instances where inw may be referred to as a form of tax, although most scholars
refute that inw involved taxation in any form. Whether the example in this
papyrus implied a regular tax collected by Redynyptch or was an irregular tribute
involving the assessment of certain fields and of the crops produced there,
remains unclear.

As noted at the beginning of this article, it is impossible to explore inw without

frequently encountering the related term bAkw. bAkw does not, at any time
appear to involve a royal donor or recipient. In the Middle Kingdom sources,
however, bAkw also indicated ‘tribute’, though more frequently, bAkw appears as
a form of tax. These terms occur in close association in texts dealing with
international relations or in accounting records related to the Egyptian king and
his subjects.

One possible distinction between bAkw and inw is in the ultimate destination of
the goods involved; bAkw commodities received in Middle Kingdom accounts
appear to become part of the redistribution system. inw commodities appear to
be destined exclusively for the king’s privy purse, or are redistributed to elite
individuals honoured as recipients of His Majesty’s inw (Janssen 1993, Bleiberg,
1996). Conceptually, inw might be regarded as free gifts, irregularly delivered or
received and warranting a ‘countergift’, even if, as in the Kushite example above,
this return of inw was described immaterially as ‘the breath of life’. BAkw does
not appear to have warranted reciprocity or compensation (Janssen, 1993).

However, Janssen points out frequent anomalies in the distinctions between

bAkw and inw in Middle Kingdom accounts. bAkw is often listed as commodities
destined for temples, from where the goods were then redistributed. If one
distinction between the terms indicates that inw was not intended to become part
of the movement of commodities redistributed from temple storerooms, it is
apparent in some Middle Kingdom records that the king himself frequently
presented inw to temples where presumably these goods may indeed have
become part of the wider redistribution system. This poses an interesting
conundrum as to how consistently ancient scribes recorded received temple
goods as either inw or bAkw; while also posing the question of whether inw did or
did not become part of the general redistributive system at this time.

The idea of inw as an exchange between the king and his sociopolitical inferiors,
was revived by the Theban kings of the Middle Kingdom. However, the murky
issue of distinctions is not particularly clarified by Hoffmeier (2001) who suggests
that bAkw and inw may be regionally specific with the term bAkw used to denote
tribute from Egypt’s contiguous or vassal states including Kush, (Upper Nubia),
Wawat, (Lower Nubia) and areas of ancient Lebanon. These lands fell under
Egyptian centralised control in the Middle Kingdom, whereas inw is more often
applied to commodities supplied by rulers of powerful, independent states,
including Hatti, Mittani and Babylonia.

Another feature of inw during the Middle Kingdom phase is outlined in the royal
annals of Amenemhet II of the 12th Dynasty where the king is described as
gathering inw from nature, suggesting a ritualistic function of the term. King
Amenemhet is said to have ‘caught’ inw consisting of twelve nets of fish and
many hundreds of water birds in his ritual role as ‘Fisher and Fowler of the Two
Ladies’. This is an obscure title, a rare epithet which perhaps functioned as a
means of emphasising a ruler’s physical prowess (Bleiberg, 1996, p.58). Related
accounts list the actual numbers of fish and fowl caught on this occasion,
suggesting that the ritual produced inw commodities, perhaps destined for use at
the royal residence. Could this inw have been subject to limited redistribution?
There must have been a certain cachet in being the recipient of game or fish
captured by the king of Egypt. Or, might this inw have functioned as ritual
offerings; a symbolic rendering of gifts to the gods produced from the control of
chaos by the king?

inw is presented to the deceased king via his mortuary temple and presented to
the living king in his palace. Entries in the Illahun archives indicate that items
received at the mortuary temple of Senwosret II were considered possessions of
the dead king and are itemised as ‘inw.f.’ or ‘his inw’. Later archives from the
mortuary temple of Senwosret III list deliveries of inw from the temple to the royal
palace. This list includes cattle, various forms of bread and architectural
elements including stone columns. In a related account the entire inw received
that day includes items as diverse as pigeons, incense and white bread
presented to the deceased king via his mortuary temple by the vizier Ankhu.

Although the evidence suggests that inw was not usually subject to ‘normal’
temple redistribution in the Old and Middle Kingdoms, being the exclusive
property of the king; in the case of the inw of a deceased ruler, Bleiberg suggests
the complex structure of the term may have meant that ‘disbursement was no
longer governed by the same restrictions found in regard to inw under the control
of a living individual’ (Bleiberg, 1996, p.82). Whether these distinctions existed
remains unclear, although the fact that inw was supplied or received irregularly;
involved the king as donor or recipient and was not ‘at any period’ offered as
payment of taxes during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, does seem conclusive
(Spalinger, 1996, p.362, Bleiberg 1996).

Inw in the New Kingdom

In any exploration of the existing literature on New Kingdom inw (or perhaps in all
instances of the term’s occurrence) a consideration of both the context and the
ideology of the instances in which inw transactions occur, is vital. Mario Liverani
(2002) focuses on the example of Hatshepsut’s trade mission to Punt, scenes of
which appear within the second columned hall of her mortuary temple at Deir el
Bahri. Hatshepsut’s intent was to supply her temple with incense and particularly
myrrh, a gum-resin used heavily in religious ritual. Extracted from a small, thorny
shrub, Commiphora Myrrha, the supply of myrrh involved a long, complex
journey; the plant was not native to Egypt. Hatshepsut is believed to have
established a direct route to Punt, Egypt’s primary source of myrrh, through the
Red Sea, bypassing countless middle-men.

There were huge ideological advantages to Hatshepsut’s expedition. In related

imagery in scenes from her mortuary temple inw commodities are shown as gifts
exchanged between the Egyptians and the nobility of Punt. Hatshepsut’s
representatives present foodstuffs, cloth, necklaces and some weapons to a man
identified as the ruler of Punt. In return, the Egyptians receive a range of highly
desired exotic items, including the myrrh trees. There was no common medium
of exchange operating here. Each partner in this particular inw exchange placed
a very different value on his own products. The ruler of Punt was making an
extraordinary profit from a naturally abundant commodity in exchange for
prestige Egyptian items which would have bolstered his official and personal
status. Indeed each partner in this exchange received increased personal
prestige, even if the circumstances in a socio-economic context are on very
different scales of magnitude (Liverani, 1990, p.167).

Intriguingly, related
inscriptions refer to
Hatshepsut’s gifts
to the king of Punt
as exclusively
foodstuffs, ‘every
good thing from the
court … bread,
beer, wine, meat
and fruit’ although
temple scenes show other valuable items presented in this exchange, including
Egyptian cloth, jewellry and weapons. Significantly, the elite courtiers of Punt are
portrayed obsequiously as they deliver their gifts with heads bowed. They are
described as moving towards Hatshepsut’s representatives as the latter stand
still, observing the approaching courtiers who bear the inw of Punt. In the
Egyptian artistic canon, motion on one side and passive observation on the other
act as subtle but important signals of superiority. While the goods from Punt are
described as inw for Hatshepsut, the goods given in reciprocation are labelled as
inw ‘for Hathor, mistress of Punt’ making an Egyptian goddess the chief recipient
of Hatshepsut’s largesse: ‘by this means, gifts brought by Hatshepsut’s
representatives have not really left the Egyptian orbit: they are offered to an
Egyptian goddess who is in control, even of these faraway lands’ (Liverani, 1990,
p.168). Image: Inw from Punt, Temple of Hatshepsut
In the annals of Hatshepsut’s successor, Thutmosis III, inw from Asia is listed
separately from harvest accounts and from accounts related to war booty.
Commodities demanded from and supplied by Egypt’s southern provinces Kush
and Wawat (Upper and Lower Nubia respectively) are listed as bAkw; inw never
appears in this context (Spalinger, 1996). Tribute received by the king from the
great powers of Western Asia (independent, powerful states including Hatti and
Assyria) with which Egypt maintained commercial trade relationships instigated
through political means, are listed in the royal accounts as inw. It appears that in
countries where Egypt had complete control, the expected annual contribution is
always referred to as bAkw in the New Kingdom era. This supports the view that
inw took the form (usually) of irregular offerings of tribute, benevolence, or simply
put, gifts to the Egyptian king (Spalinger, 1996). However, Spalinger disagrees
with Bleiberg’s view that received inw was only destined for the privy purse of the
king, while bAkw commodities were intended for the redistributive system, citing
insufficient evidence. ‘It is unlikely that there was a system of such ‘rational’
bookkeeping in which the king’s personal income was separate from the state or
his people’ (Spalinger, 1996, p.365, Bleiberg, 1996).

In the New Kingdom phase, and perhaps earlier, bAkw contributions appear to
have been obligatory; a source of regular income with the term used particularly
for goods received from foreign countries proximate to the Nile Valley and under
Egypt’s direct control. Inw, at this time, appears as tribute received on an
irregular basis from independent states; some of which were led by their own
powerful kings including Hatti, Cyprus, Babylon and Mitanni. This is not a
universally held definition in understanding the concept of inw in the New
Kingdom. Image: The sons of Ramesses II bearing offerings, Luxor Temple

Jac Janssen (1991) suggests that we deal with inw as presents or gifts,
preferring a literal translation of the term without elaboration as to the king’s role,
if any, in the presentation or receipt of inw; ‘the Egyptians did not use such words
as inw in a well circumscribed, technical sense, with sharply defined meanings.
They always kept in mind their original value, in this case 'that what is brought',
without any implication of why or under what conditions the goods were brought.’
(Janssen, 1991, p. 84).

In the Twentieth Dynasty, instances of inw occur in the document known as

Papyrus BM 10401, recording the inw collected from priests and temples
between Elephantine and Esna by an official entitled the aA-n-St or Chief Taxing
Master. Here, the inw includes fans, date flour, fruits, palm leaves, red stone,
beans, woven mats, a dappled cow and gold. Whether any of these items were
intended for Pharaoh or his court is unknown. In this Ramesside period, there
appears to be an implication that the inw was something exacted, or that inw was
made up from goods physically removed or collected by the aA-n-St. These
goods may have come from temple storerooms. Men described as priests are
listed as administrators in the inw collection process. As for the reasons why the
items were being removed from the temples at Elephantine, Kom Ombo, Edfu,
Hierakopolis, el Kab and Esna in BM 10401, Janssen explains ‘the state could
freely dispose of wealth deposited in their storerooms’ although where the goods
went to is frustratingly, unrecorded (Janssen, 1991, p.81, p.93). By this late 20th
Dynasty date, the king resided in the North and it is therefore likely that the inw
was destined for the Temple of Amun at Karnak, then under the direct control of
the Priests of Amun. In the case of the inw recorded in Papyrus BM 10401,
Janssen does not see this as a form of tax, but rather as delivery of items taken
from Upper Egyptian sanctuaries for use there, or for redistribution at Karnak
Temple.

By the New Kingdom bAkw can be understood as commodities centered on work

and the products of work so that harvest goods, cereals, wine, oil, incense, gold,
ivory and ebony and wood from Lebanon all count as bAkw. bAkw could also
include cattle, other live animals and slaves. The connotations for inw appear to
be considerably wider, although many of the items classified as bAkw are also
found in inw lists including precious metals, precious stone, slaves, live animals
and some agricultural and pastoral commodities. In the accounts of Thutmosis
III, a foreign princess sent for diplomatic marriage and named as ‘the daughter
of the Prince of Retenu’ is listed at the top of an inw account dating from
Thutmosis’ Year 40. It is probably that other foreign brides were sent to Egyptian
kings as inw.

The following circumstances may differentiate between bAkw and inw:

• regularity of supply more often occurs in commodities considered as

bAkw;
• the supply of goods labelled inw is usually infrequent;
• inw is often specially commissioned, sent or received;
• the source of the supply of either bAkw or inw is significant with bAkw
often sent by and received within state institutions;
• the ultimate destination may differ, with bAkw commodities entering the
redistribution system, while inw goods are usually distributed via the king’s
privy-purse, at his behest and usually only issued to elite individuals;
• inw usually involves the Egyptian king, or another powerful individual, as
donor or recipient; and
• the supply of bAkw is stipulated and subject to redistribution whereas inw
is not usually stipulated or widely redistributed
Clearly any attempt to fit either term into a modern translation such as ‘gift’ or
‘tribute’ is, as Antony Spalinger notes, ‘vexacious’. The specific aspect of inw
which once distinguished it from bAkw, its irregularity of presentation, has
apparently broadened during the course of the New Kingdom as inw
commodities are sometimes presented to the king on an apparently regular, pre-
determined basis. The nuances between the terms bAkw and inw are less clear.
It appears that both terms can be described as conceptually fuzzy by the end of
the New Kingdom, at least from an etic perspective. To reiterate Bleiberg’s point
‘The Egyptians could not have been as vague […] (t)hey must have seen an
underlying unity in transactions called inw’ (1996, p.27).

An example of this conceptual change occurs specifically in the depiction of an

inw event first attested from the Old Kingdom. The event known as ‘pA hrw n
mst pA inw’ or ‘the day of bringing the benevolence’ was considered as an
irregularly celebrated, ‘special’ occasion during the Old Kingdom. During the
New Kingdom however, images of this event are portrayed in a range of
Eighteenth Dynasty tombs including those of Nebamun, Huy, Senenmut and in
the tomb of Rekhmire. These men were all high ranking officials, working under
the auspices of a range of New Kingdom monarchs. In all instances, the
deceased tomb owner claims that he had the honour of being present as the inw
from local and foreign dignitaries were presented to the king. It appears that by
the New Kingdom ‘the day of bringing the benevolence’ may have evolved into
an annual calendared event (Redford 1967; Bleiberg, 1996).

The following range of inw presentations indicate events throughout the New
Kingdom, some of which may have been infrequent ‘special events’ with others
believed to have occurred regularly, perhaps annually:

‘All the foreign countries being gathered together bearing their inw for the Good
God of the first occasion, Aakhperkare, living forever’. Context: royal Inscription at
Tombos, Reign of Thutmosis I.
‘Viewing the inw of the Delta consisting of inw and everything without limit’.
Context: tomb of Yamunedjeh, Reign of Thutmosis III.

‘Then this enemy and the Princes who were with him caused that their children
be brought forth with them bearing great amounts of inw consisting of gold and
silver’. Context: annals of Thutmosis III, Karnak Temple.

‘Viewing the inw of the treasury by the Overseer of Works and Child of the Harim,
Pahekamun, justified’. Context: tomb of Pahekamen, 18th Dynasty. The deceased
observes the delivery, weighing and recording of gold rings.

‘Receiving the inw that was brought to the powers of His Majesty consisting of
annual revenues by the Chiefs of Retenu caused to go upstream by boat to
Egypt by the Overseer of the Door of the Northern Foreign Country and Royal
Scribe, Djeheuty’. Context: an inscription on a statue of Djeheuty, Reign of Thutmosis
III

‘Receiving the inw of the Chief of Punt by the Royal Messenger’. Context: caption
in the Punt Reliefs in the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut.

‘Receiving the inw of Kush’. Context: caption in the tomb of Senenmut, Reign of
Hatshepsut.

‘Controlling the long-horned cattle and the ht-aA geese without limit and great
amounts of the best inw’. Context: tomb biography of Duaherneheh, Reign of
Hatshepsut.

‘The Princes of Mitanni come to him with their inw on their backs in order to
request the peace of His Majesty and that his sweet breath of life be sent’.
Context: inscription dated to Amenhotep II, Karnak Temple.
‘Every land and every country bears its inw. They conduct (it) to the Strong Bull,
Horus Who-Appears-in-Truth, Nebmaatre’. Context: architrave inscription dated to
Amenhotep III, Luxor Temple.

‘Presenting the inw of all foreign lands and the produce of the chiefs of every
land by the king….’. Context: scene from Medinet Habu, Temple of Ramesses II.

‘Presenting inw by the Good God to his father Amun-Re … consisting of silver,
gold, lapis lazuli, turquoise … and all precious stones’. Context: inscription at the
Ramesses II Temple at Abu Simbel.

Conclusion

Edward Bleiberg, who has perhaps spent more time than most wrestling with
how inw can be best understood, has written ‘The greatest problem for a modern
observer of an ancient economic transaction is the assumption that it can be
equated with some transaction familiar from modern life.’ (1984, p.155). It is
perhaps no longer surprising that thirty eight different words in at least three
modern languages have been used to interpret inw, considering the undoubted
complexities of the term and how its meaning seems to have evolved over time.

It appears that instances of inw in inscriptions or accounts should always be

viewed in context, considered alongside the ideological principles of location,
recipient, donor and intended readership; ‘The word cannot be taken at face
value but rather as part of a complex vocabulary of political, strategic and
socioeconomic language through which Egypt communicated with domestic and
foreign territories close to and far from her boundaries’ (Spalinger, 1996, p.368).
Bibliography and Further Reading

Bleiberg, E., 1984, ‘The King's Privy Purse During the New Kingdom: An
Examination of INW’ Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 21
pp. 155-167.

Bleiberg, E., 1996, ‘The Official Gift in Ancient Egypt’, University of Oklahoma
Press.

Burstein, S., 2001, ‘State Formation in Ancient Northeast Africa and the Indian
Ocean Trade’
http://www.historycooperative.org/proceedings/interactions/burstein.html

Gordon, A., 1983, ‘The Context and Meaning of the Egyptian word inw from the
Proto-Dynastic Period to the end of the New Kingdom’, Ph.D Thesis, University
of California, Berkeley.

Haring, B.J.J., 1997, ‘Divine Households, Administrative and Economic Aspects

of the New Kingdom Royal Memorial Temples in Western Thebes’, Nederlands
Instituut, Leiden.

Hoffmeier, J., 2001, ‘Aspects of Egyptian Foreign Policy in the 18th Dynasty in
Western Asia and Nubia’, Penn State University.

Hovestreydt, W., 1997, ‘Secret Doors and Hidden Treasure’, in ‘Essays in

Honour of Herman Te Velde’, ed. Jacobus van Dijk, Styx Publications,
Netherlands.

Janssen, J., 1991, ‘Requisitions from Upper Egyptian Temples’ (P. BM 10401),
The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 77 (1991), pp. 79-94, EES.
Janssen, J., 1993, ‘Bkw: From Work to Product’, Studien zur Altägyptischen
Kultur, Bd. 20 (1993), pp. 81-94, Helmut Buske Verlag GmbH.

Liverani, M., 2002, ‘Hatshepsut and Punt, Trade or Tribute’ in ‘International

Relations in the Ancient Near East 1600-1100 BC’, pp.166-170, Palgrave-
Macmillan.

Redford, D., 1986, ‘Egypt and Western Asia in the Old Kingdom’, Journal of the
American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 23 (1986), pp. 125-143, American
Research Center in Egypt.

Serpico M., 2000, ‘Resins, amber and bitumen’ in P. Nicholson and I. Shaw,
eds., ‘Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology’, Cambridge University Press.

Smithers, P., 1941, ‘A Tax-Assessor's Journal of the Middle Kingdom’, The

Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 27 (Dec., 1941), pp. 74-76, EES.

Spalinger, A., 1996, ‘From Local to Global: The Extension of an Egyptian

Bureaucratic Term to the Empire’, Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur, Bd. 23, pp.
353-376

Ward, W., 1963, ‘Egypt and the East Mediterranean from Predynastic Times to
the End of the Old Kingdom’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the
Orient, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1-57, Brill.

Ward, W., 1991, ‘Early Contacts between Egypt, Canaan, and Sinai: Remarks on
the Paper by Amnon Ben-Tor’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental
Research, No. 281, Egypt and Canaan in the Bronze Age, pp. 11-26, The
American Schools of Oriental Research.
Notes on ancient Egyptian Measurement:
‘Old and Middle Kingdom (about 2025-1700 BC) inscribed weights attest to units
of around 12-14 grams, and 27 grams. These units seem to have been called
dbn (vocalised in Egyptology as ‘deben’) meaning ‘ring’: this is the main name for
the standard unit of weight in any period. It seems likely that 1 gold deben = 12-
14 grams, 1 copper deben = 27 grams. In the New Kingdom (about 1550-1069
BC) the system changes, with 1 deben of 91 grams divided into 10 qdt (vocalised
in Egyptology as qedet or kite) – each qedet is then around 9 grams. The deben-
qedet system continued in use to the Late Period’.

From: http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/weights/weight.html