Ancient Egyptian Roots of Trademarks

DOI10.1177/0003603X18780556
Date01 September 2018
Published date01 September 2018
Article
Ancient Egyptian Roots
of Trademarks
Russ VerSteeg*
Abstract
This article examines such names and symbols that appear on a variety of ancient objects and attempts
to draw conclusions about their nature. More specifically, this article offers suggestions about the
purposes of such marks and considers how the nature of commerce in ancient Egypt may have
influenced the development—or lack thereof—of trademarks there. And although there is a decided
paucity of what we today might consider true trademarks, we can be certain that both the legal
principles and the well-developed use of symbolic communication of the ancient Egyptians planted the
seeds for the later growth of modern trademarks and trademark law.
Keywords
Trademark, history, ancient egypt
Introduction
Trademarks serve important functions in marketplace competition. Words, names, and symbols used
as trademarks have the potential to benefit both sellers and buyers. Once buyers become familiar with a
producer’s trademark, they are able to use that familiarity to reduce search costs.
1
In a parallel fashion,
sellers also benefit because they can sell more products more quickly once buyers who have liked their
products in the past learn to rely on trademarks as a shorthand method of identifying those products.
2
And these phenomena produce positive consequences because “the benefits of trademarks in reducing
consumer search costs require that the producer of a trademarked good maintain a consistent quality
*New England Law Boston, Boston, MA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Russ VerSteeg, New England Law Boston, Stuart St., Boston, MA 02116, USA.
Email: rversteeg@nesl.edu
1. See William M. Landes & Richard Posner, Trademark Law: An Economic Perspective, 30 J.L. & ECON. 265, 269 (1987) (“In
short, a trademark conveys information that allows the consumer to say to himself, ‘I need not investigate the attributes of the
brand I am about to purchase because the trademark is a shorthand way of telling me that the attributes are the same as that of
the brand I enjoyed earlier.’”) (footnote omitted); id. at 275 (“Trademarks enable the consumer to economize on a real cost
because he spends less time searching to get the quality he wants.”).
2. See id. at 270 (“Once the reputation is created, the firm will obtain greater profits because repeat purchases and word-of-
mouth references will generate higher sales and because consumers will be willing to pay higher prices for lower search costs
and greater assurance of consistent quality.”).
The Antitrust Bulletin
2018, Vol. 63(3) 283-304
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0003603X18780556
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over time and across consumers. Hence trademark protection encourages expenditures on quality.”
3
As
Landes and Posner concluded thirty years ago, “trademark law...can best be explained on the
hypothesis that the law is trying to promote economic efficiency.”
4
Many who have written about the history of trade marks have pointed to the branding of cattle
depicted on ancient Egyptian wall paintings.
5
But this type of casual reference in the literature has
the potential to be misleading. Certainly cattle brands could function as source-identifiers for
purposes of sale, but it is far more likely that the branding of cattle in ancient Egypt functioned
as an indicium of ownership rather than as a marketplace identifier. And if cattle brands did not
actually function as trademarks, one might well ask whether there are other ancient Egyptian
examples of trademarks. That is the question that this article addresses. The answer appears to be
a qualified “possibly.”
Although archaeology has pr ovided many examples of names and s ymbols that ancient Egyptians
appliedtoavarietyofobjects,thereappeartobe precious few that we might be willing to char-
acterize as true trademarks in the modern sense of the word. The founding father of Egyptian
archaeology, Sir Flinders Petrie, posits that trademarks were present in ancient Egypt under Roman
rule (i.e., after the battle of Actium in 31 BC
6
). Describing blown glass in Roman Egypt and then
later, Petrie writes, “Ornamental stamps were pressed on soft lumps put on the sides of vases. Such
stamps became used for official marks, and early in Arab times they registered the substance for
which the glass measure was intended, also the amount of the capacity, and the maker’s name in
many cases.”
7
Scholars who have written about pottery marks from other ancient civilizations have acknowledged
similar difficulties regarding the precise purposes of various marks. For example, in his book, Trade-
marks on Greek Vases, A.W. Johnson acknowledges, “The exact significance of such marks is hard to
establish; indeed there may have been more than one purpose in inscribing them.”
8
Johnson also notes
that, although many marks “have commercial significance,” it is clear that the majority of marks that
he includes in his study indicate ownership or provide information about the capacity or contents of the
vases rather than functioning as true trademarks.
9
And he surmises that, “Most no doubt indicate
3. Id. at 269. See also id. at 275 (“The implicit economic model of trademarks that is used in that law is our model, in which
trademarks lower search costs and foster quality control rather than create social waste and consumer deception.”); id. at 280
(“Trademark protection facilitates the production of higher-quality products.”).
4. Id. at 265–66.
5. See,e.g., Sidney A. Diamond, The Historical Development of Trademarks,65TRADEMARK REP. 265, 270 (1975).
6. See,e.g.,H
ENRY C. BOREN,ROMAN SOCIETY:ASOCIAL,ECONOMIC,AND CULTURAL HISTORY 125–26 (1977).
7. W.M. FLINDERS PETRIE,THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT 123 (1910) (italics added).
8. A.W. JOHNSON,TRADEMARKS ON GREEK VASES 1 (1979) (noting that, as regards the earliest marks on Greek vases, “The exact
significance of such marks is hard to establish; indeed there may have been more than one purpose in inscribing them.”).
See also id. at 5 (“Red dipiniti [i.e., painted inscriptions] are also often found on wine amphorae and other containers; the
neck or shoulder of the va se is normally used. Some of these may have been owner’s marks, but most no dou bt had some
commercial significance.”). See also Claudia Glatz, Bearing Marks of Control? Reassessing Pot Marks in Late Bronze Age
Anatolia,116A
M.J.ARCHAEOLOGY 5, 5 (2012) (“Conventionally, Late Bronze Age Anatolian prefiring pot marks have
been identified as signs of the Luwian hieroglyphic script and have been thought to convey information related to the
volume or origin of the vessel, the quality of the vessel or its contents, the storage location of the vessel, or the
sociopolitical context of its use.”); see also id. (“A more recent hypothesis proposes that these marks, rather than
conveying specific messages beyond the production process, served as devices to record individual effort in a
centralized economic system as part of a Hittite strategy of imperial integration.”); Nicolle Hirschfeld, How and Why
Potmarks Matter,71N
EAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY120, 120 (2008) (“The term potmark is intentionally neutral. A potmark
might be a sign borrowed from the formal script of written texts, or it might be a numeral, an abbreviation, an ideogram, or
monogram.”).
9. See JOHNSON,supra note 8, at 1 (“A good number of Mycenaean vases, found largely in Cyprus and the Near East, have
painted marks under the foot, and there can be little doubt that they have commercial significance.”) (footnote omitted); id. at
1 (recognition of “owner’s marks” on Greek pottery in the eighth century BC).
284 The Antitrust Bulletin 63(3)

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