Slavery is known to have existed as early as the Shang dynasty (18th–12th century BC) in China. It has been studied thoroughly in ancient Han China (206 BC–AD 25), where perhaps 5 percent of the population was enslaved. Slavery continued to be a feature of Chinese society down to the 20th century. For most of that period it appears that slaves were generated in the same ways they were elsewhere, including capture in war, slave raiding, and the sale of insolvent debtors. In addition, the Chinese practiced self-sale into slavery, the sale of women and children (to satisfy debts or because the seller could not feed them), and the sale of the relatives of executed criminals. Finally, kidnapping seems to have produced a regular flow of slaves at some times. The go-between or middleman was an important figure in the sale of local people into slavery; he provided the distance that made such slaves into outsiders, for the purchasers did not know their origins. Chinese family boundaries were relatively permeable, and some owners established kinlike relations with their slaves; male slaves were appointed as heirs when no natural offspring existed. As was also the case in other slave-owning societies, slaves in China were often luxury consumption items who constituted a drain on the economy. Th

Contrary to popular belief, Slavery in Egypt seems to have been fairly rare prior to the New Kingdom with the enslavement of the Hebrews, progressing over time. Slavery was not a dominant fixture - it was a luxury and privilege for the ruling elite only