The social organization of Egypt was distinguished by a surprising degree of fluidity1. No inflexible caste2 system ever developed. All men were equal in the sight of the law. Although degrees of economic inequality naturally existed, no man's status was unalterably fixed, unless he was a member of the royal family. Even serfs appear to have been capable of rising above their humble condition. Freemen quite regularly made the transition from one social order to another. Such a structure of society differed in marked degree from the stratified3 social regimes in other parts of the Orient-in India and Mesopotamia, for example.
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