88. River
commerce;
the market
place; traffic
in goods; cir- culation of
precious
metal |
were still living in the lake-villages and other towns of Europe (Fig.
14) at the very time these tomb-chapels were built.
It is easy to picture the bright, sunny river in those ancient days,
alive with boats and barges (often depicted on these walls) moving hither
and thither, bearing products of all these industries, to be carried to
the treasury of the Pharaoh as taxes or to the market of the town to be
bartered for other goods. Here on the wall is the market place itself.
We can watch the cobbler offering the baker a pair of sandals as payment
for a cake, or
 |
| FIG.
50. CABINETMAKERS IN THE PYRAMID AGE
At the left a man is cutting with a chisel which he taps
with a mallet; next, a man “rips a board with a copper saw; next, two men
are finishing off a couch, and at the right a man is drilling a hole with
a bow-drill. Scene from the chapel of a noble’s tomb (Fig
42). Compare a finished chair belonging to a wealthy noble of the
Empire which was placed in his tomb and thus preserved
(Fig. 73)
|
the carpenter’s wife giving the fisherman a little wooden box to pay for
a fish; while the potter’s wife proffers the apothecary two bowls fresh
from the potter’s furnace in exchange for a jar of fragrant ointment. We
see, therefore, that the people have no coined money to use, and that in
the market place trade is actual exchange of goods. Such is the business
of the common people. If we could see the large transactions in the palace,
we would find there heavy rings of gold of a standard weight, which circulated
like money. Rings of copper also served the same purpose. Such rings were
the fore- runners of coin (§ 458). |