Regular and Occasional Payments in Later Egypt (On the Interpreta-tion of the Aramaic Term mnt')
Temerev А. N.
The author undertakes a comparative analysis of various kinds of payments received by men on service in Egypt in the Saitic and Achaemenian periods. The payments consisted of regular allowances in kind, of occasional grants and of land allotments and tax relief, the two latter after the retirement from the service. Their amount and components were comparable in different pe-riods, but the terms denoting them could vary. Economic accounts from the Achaemenian peri-od use Aramaic terms analogous to some of those found in Biblical texts. One of the most im-portant of them is mnt' (Akkad. minutu(m)), used in offisial correspondence for denoting a part or a share of something. Thus, in one case it implies various food supplies issued to the service class families deprived of their bread-winners. In another one it means produce of husbandry and craftsmen's goods collected monthly from the population as a supplementary tribute to the satrap's reserve fund.