What is the Egyptian word for farm?

Answer 1

That's not as simple as it seems. The modern idea of a farmer is a man who owns his land (or at least leases it from someone else), someone who owns the livestock and buildings, someone who benefits from the produce of his labour.

In ancient Egypt, there were no people like that because the land belonged to temples or to wealthy nobles who ran large estates and used peasant labourers to do the work for practically no reward - in that sense there is no ancient Egyptian equivalent to the modern "farmer".

The word for "peasant" was written out as wdi, accompanied by the "crossed sticks" sign used in words relating to work, breaking things and keeping control of things. Peasants did the work, broke up the soil and had to be controlled and regulated; they were farm labourers, but not farmers. The term for an agricultural worker is spelled out ahwty.

On the walls of their tombs, noblemen often portrayed themselves doing field work or manual labour - something they never did in real life.

Answer 2

3izba