Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

The household was the basic unit of the Egyptian social organization, but its composition varies depending on administrative or sociological considerations: administrative records focus on nuclear families while private sources stress the importance of the extended family. Households included people linked by family ties but also serfs, clients, dependants and “friends”, sometimes encompassing hundreds of persons. As for their sources of wealth, they consisted of patrimonial and institutional goods, and household strategies tried to keep and enlarge them within the family. Nevertheless, menaces like debts, shortages or disputes over inheritances could lead them to their disappearance. Hence the importance of ideological values which tied together their members while celebrating their cohesion, autonomy and genealogical pride.