49 2 Painted wooden figurine of a woman grinding grain, Egypt, Middle Kingdom (c. 2100–1800 BCE), Egyptian Museum of the University of Bonn, inv. BoSAe 2125 and 2128, height 7.0 centimetres. Small statues depicting people grinding grain, baking bread or brewing beer are often found as grave goods in Egyptian tombs. Their hard work in food production symbolically shows that the deceased would be provided with all necessary goods in the afterlife. rows of slave cells, as well as various production and storage facilities (see p. 57). In the medieval Islamicate eastern Mediterranean, grain production lay in the hands of personally free, autonomous peasants. However, there were constant conflicts due to their dependency on the state, which owned the land, levied taxes and controlled the grain storage depots (see p. 85). In Russia, a form of dependency known as serfdom developed, under which unfree peasants had to pay taxes to their lord and were also subject to his jurisdiction (see p. 97). There are not very many depictions of grain production, and the few that exist show more or less idealizing scenes in which the workers’ social status is indicated by their activities, their tasks and their clothes, although their legal status cannot be clearly identified. Occasionally, however, the peasants’ unrelenting toil is shown by their bent postures (p. 59, fig.1). This should not be taken as social criticism, however, but instead either as an expression of pride in the hard work, or as a visual means of emphasizing the power of those who commissioned such paintings: usually landowners or officials responsible for collecting rents or taxes.
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