Deir El-Medina Strikes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_el-Medina_strikes

by mooreds • 15 days ago

84 19 15 days ago

en.wikipedia.org

mooreds• 15 days ago

Earliest known labor strikes.

the-smug-one• 10 days ago

The "Past Lives" podcast just had an episode on the workers of Deir El-Medina.

nivertech2• 10 days ago

In ancient Egypt, there were various trade unions, usually organized by profession

One of the most interesting was the thieves' union

Suppose someone stole yr carpet at night, and in the morning you'd go to the office of the head of the thieves' union, pay 25% of the carpet's value, and get it back. Much better than modern insurance!

n4r9• 10 days ago

Sounds a little like the Thieves' Guild in Discworld.

The Thieves' Guild was established early in Lord Havelock Vetinari's rule of Ankh-Morpork. Lord Vetinari realised that what people crave is stability, and that, while it is impossible to stamp out crime altogether, it is possible to regulate it. The major gang leaders of the city were therefore called to the Patrician's Palace, where they agreed to be held responsible for ensuring a socially acceptable number of thefts.
While initially the main money-making venture of Thieves' Guild members remained theft, albeit under strict guidelines and leaving a receipt, more recent books show a system of "insurance", whereby people may pay a fee directly to the Guild and therefore become immune to robbery for a specified period.

toyg• 10 days ago

Even without reaching for fantasy, the real world has plenty of examples of "regulated crime" with various degrees of officialdom. From the Japanese Yakuza of the Showa era, to the mafia of postwar Italy, governments will often prefer to deal with organised crime by striking deals and agreeing to shared rules of engagement.

ErroneousBosh2• 10 days ago

And my favourite:

"There must be a hundred dollars in there", he moaned, "I mean that's not my league, I can't steal that much! You've got to be in the Guild of Lawyers to steal that much!"

thesmtsolver2• 10 days ago

system of "insurance", whereby people may pay a fee directly to the Guild and therefore become immune to robbery for a specified period.

We call that taxes

VorpalWay2• 10 days ago

Much better than modern insurance!

Sort of, unless you lost it to a fire or flooding, which the thieves guild presumably wouldn't cover.

Also, is this really true or an urban myth? I'm not finding sources googling this, at most I can find mentions that there were during some norr unstable periods maffia-like structures with large unofficial power.

nivertech2• 10 days ago

To protect their homes from floods and fires, the ancient Egyptians made sacrifices and offerings to deities like Hapi (god of the Nile)[1] and Bastet[2]

But this naive actuarial model with a 100% deductible is obviously far less sophisticated than modern insurance ;)

—-

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapi_(Nile_god)

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastet

IncreasePosts• 10 days ago

This sounds like something out of a historical fantasy novel or a video game. Why wouldn't the robbery victim just get a bunch of dudes to go down and take the rug and kill everyone? I mean, it really tied the room together

There are papyri of tomb robber confessions, but those were more along the line of the thieves needing to fence their goods and bribing various officials. Not explicitly selling stolen goods back to the victim

dyauspitr• 10 days ago

This seems ridiculous. People wouldn’t tolerate getting “taxed” like this unless the thieves union also had a lot of muscle like a modern extorting criminal organization.

cucumber3732842• 10 days ago

One of the most interesting was the thieves' union
Suppose someone stole yr carpet at night, and in the morning you'd go to the office of the head of the thieves' union, pay 25% of the carpet's value, and get it back. Much better than modern insurance!

https://traaonline.com/

warshinder• 10 days ago

Apropos systems collapse, a recent theme here on HN it seems, perhaps being meme’d a bit to highlight the dangers, in systems thinking terms, of hyper-interconnected globalized system of trade. Or to explain Theil’s move to Argentina. Maybe Tech oligarchs are the new ship peoples?

matttttttttttt• 10 days ago

In 1156 BC, the workers' pay was late and a representative, Amennakht (or Amen-nakhte), a scribe, went to the mortuary temple of Horemheb and negotiated with officials to dispense 46 sacks of corn to restore peace.[10][12] However this was only a portion of the rations the workers had been promised.

Is that a mistranslation? I don't think Egypt had corn for a few more thousand years.

SequoiaHope• 10 days ago

I had to look it up. Apparently maize did not get to Egypt till around the year 1600 but in British English the word “corn” refers to any local grain. Eg these “Corn laws” refer to wheat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Laws

wvbdmp• 10 days ago

Before the American meaning became ubiquitous, corn used to mean (and still does sometimes) just any grain. In fact it also survives in other languages like German, where “Korn” is a singular kernel, or an uncountable amount of grain, as well as the figurative meaning in “film grain”.

VorpalWay2• 10 days ago

In Swedish "korn" is a specific species of grain (called barley in English). For grains in general we use the term "sädesslag".

Deir El-Medina Strikes

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