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3. SOCIAL CONDITIONS
Common Pattern
The region enjoyed peace and prosperity in the earliest period till circa 2000 B. C. In Egypt we find one storeyed and two storyed houses till VI dynasty. The houses in villages and towns do not exhibit remarkable economic differences. They are of simple pattern. The division of Egyptian society into priests. soldiers, herdsmen, husbandmen and artificers is a later growth. In the earliest period, the society was divided only into priests, husbandmen and artificers. Though the priests enjoyed certain privileges voluntarily granted by the people, their general living was marked by simplicity.' The people lived in self-sufficient villages and were wonderfully organised. Villages and towns were well-planned, houses well-ventilated and the public streets well-carved out. In ancient Sumer, each group of the first colonists considered themselves 'The peoples', the servants or perhaps the children of a god and lived in simple tenements erected in his temple. The villages and towns were owned by the god, viz, the community. No sharp differences between different professions of society existed and people lived in simple ordinary houses. The Bhāratīyan villages were well-organised and self-sufficient on whom was rooted the Indus riverine civilization. The houses of the common people do not display much diversities and great differences of wealth. There are workmens' quarters but the general lay-out of the principal Indus cities of Mohenjodaro and Harappa reveal the existence of middle class houses in general." It seems that the thriving and prosperous agriculture and industry had thrown a vast and numerous middle-class.
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