Anthony,

I am aware of the inscriptions that state workmen received pay and that they were grateful for it, see also, e.g., statue inscription of Meni in Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, no. 182, “with regard to any man that made this for me, he is never angry. With regard to a craftsman or quarryman, I have satisfied him.” This sort of statement is related (at least in my mind) to the later BoD chapter 125 (“negative confession”) in which the deceased squares up his accounts by enumerating those sins he has not committed. So it isn’t the fact of mentioning a payment to workmen that puts me off: it’s the alleged specificity of the inscription -- “how much was spent on radishes, onions and leeks” and “1600 talents of silver” that puts me off. The footnote at this point to the Sélincourt translation states: “the ‘1600’ talents is evidence enough, since the Egyptians did not have a money economy.” The mention of talents of silver indicates – in any event – that the translator cannot have been supplying Herodotus with a literal translation.

As for the items themselves, onions (HD.w) are mentioned in offering formulae dating back to the Ok (e.g., burial complex of Meresanch III (G 7530-7540) and are mentioned in the PTs. WB, by the way, translates HD.w as applying to both onions (Ger: Zwiebel) and garlic (Knoblauch), and has no separate entry under garlic except as a (late) Semitic loanword. There is no entry under “radish” at all. A word (jAq.t) translated “leek, vegetables in general” also goes back to the OK in offering formulae: see e.g./i], Giza grave of Chui-wi-wer, offering chamber. Note: I am not suggesting that the AE of Khufu’s time were unfamiliar with any of the vegetables allegedly named (though I would like to find a good article on what foods are actually attested). My point is that that inscriptions that mention payment to workmen and/or particular vegetables or foods are more likely to turn up in offering formulae and formulae of self-justification (“of course they got paid”) than as major royal inscriptions on the king’s pyramid.

Lee