Download Kingly control of Egypt Old Kingdom

2/21/2012
L10. The Pyramids in Stone Texts:
Old Kingdom Egypt
HIST 213
Spring 2012
Old Kingdom
3rd – 8th Dynasties (2647-2124 BCE)
500 year period of internal stability
• establishment of religious pantheon
• centralized bureaucracy in Memphis
• improved
– irrigation
– copper mines
– stone quarries
• technological improvements:
– boats and transportation
– artisan crafts
– trade to Levant and Nubia
Kingly control of Egypt
Old Kingdom
• first capital Memphis
– just south of Delta
• Historians calculate rule based on dynasties
• administration divided into nomes
– nomarch
• constant struggle between kingly and local
authority
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Capital at Memphis
• capital of the first province (nome) of Lower Egypt
• became the kingdom's capital
• strategically situated as it was at the junction of the
Nile Valley and the Delta.
• remained a major administrative center
– original Egyptian name was Ineb Hedj (The White Walls)
– Memphis' was a Greek deformation of the Egyptian
name of Pepi I's (Six Dynasty) pyramid, Men-nefer
The Stepped Pyramid
of King Djoser (Zoser),
ca. 2650-2625 BCE,
Saqqara
Master builder
Imhotep
6 old style mastaba
tombs
(the 62 m. high stone
stepped Pyramid of Zoser)
Cross-section of the step pyramid
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Pyramid complex at Saqqara
The Great Pyramids at Giza, 2650-2475 BCE
(3rd Dynasty)
Kingly ability to organize population
• little is known about Egyptian society in the
Old Kingdom
• King had ability to organize teams of workers
– each had a totem animal and competed
– mirrored military structure
• wealthy had control of luxury goods
• pyramid allegorical to Egyptian society
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Purpose of Saqqara Pyramids
Number of interpretations for the shape of the Step
Pyramid:
1. learning curve (how to di it correctly)
2. mound-like shape represents the primeval mound of
creation
3. pyramid represents a monumental staircase to the
sky for the deceased king to ascend to heaven.
• The latter view is supported by the following spell
from a pyramid text:
“... A stairway to the sky is set up for me that I may ascend
on it to the sky, and I ascend on the smoke of the great
censing.”
Heb-sed Festival
•
During the reign of the (living) king a heb-sed
festival was a sort of re-coronation ceremony
• to be held (originally) every 30 years while the
king was a ruler.
• The heb-sed race was actually run by the king to
prove his vitality.
– The purpose of the festival was to reassert the king’s
position as a ruler and to renew his royal power.
Raising the Djed-Pillar
Many monuments (including the
step pyramid complex) depict the
pharaoh running his heb-sed race.
The scene usually includes the socalled djed-pillar (reed column),
which in the New Kingdom was
interpreted as Osiris’ backbone, a
symbol of stability.
The Raising of the Djed Pillar
Ceremony frequently depicted on
the walls at the festival courts
reenacts the resurrection of Osiris
to life.
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Colonnade near the entrance, the columns
are carved to resemble bundles of reeds
The 4th Dynasty (2613-2498 BCE)
The affluence of Egypt in the 4th Dynasty (and
the 5th) exceeded the prosperity in the 3rd
Dynasty.
The obvious evidence for this is the Great
Pyramid Complexes of the 4th Dynasty rulers:
• Khufu (Cheops in Greek)
• Khafre (Chephren)
• Menkaure (Mycernius).
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• Theories on construction
• celestial layout
Remote Pyramid
sensing
• In 2006 scientist sent a
little remote controlled
robot to investigate tiny
passageways
throughout the Great
Pyramid.
• It discovered a “mystery
chamber”
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Khafre (Gizeh), c. 2575-2525 BCE, diorite
permanence of material/ intertwined
lotus and papyrus/ Old Kingdom kilt/
canon of ideal proportions/ “block-like”
characteristics/ subtractive method of
carving
Menkaure and Khamerernebty (Giza),
ca. 2490-2472 BCE, slate
(4th Dynasty)
Kingly ability to organize population
• little is known about Egyptian society in the
Old Kingdom
• King had ability to organize teams of workers
– each had a totem animal and competed
– mirrored military structure
• wealthy had control of luxury goods
• pyramid allegorical to Egyptian society
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From the step-pyramid
to the smooth-sided pyramid
The passage from the step pyramid (magical staircase) to a
smooth sided pyramid was probably due to benben
– a smooth conical shaped stone, a sacred cult object of Re in Heliopolis.
According to a spell in the Pyramid Texts:
“I have laid down for myself this sunshine of yours as a stairway [ramp]
under my feet on which I will ascend to that mother of mine ..”
This suggests that the deceased king would ascend to heaven by
traveling with the sun’s rays along the shining surface of the
pyramid used as a ramp.
– Note that the consonants in the word benben (wbn) mean shine or
rise. Thus the benben stone can be interpreted as the symbol of
renewal (of life) and sunrise.
The benben stone
and the obelisk.
Pyramid Texts
The growth of local power centers are proved
by the appearance of pyramid texts in private
burials.
4th Dynasty nobles clustered their mastabas
around the king’s pyramid
5th Dynasty nobles choose to have their burial
sites where they were located during their
lives.
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Social Strife in late Old Kingdom
The palace intrigues show that the king no longer
enjoyed a god-like status in the late Old Kingdom
• decrease of royal dominance was partially due to and
simultaneous with the emergence of powerful local
elite in the regional centers
• A 6th Dynasty attempt to curb the nomarchs’ power in
the south with the office of ‘overseer of Upper Egypt’
• There were military difficulties at the borders of Egypt
– Stela of the Soldier Qedes from Gebelein that made an
explicit mention of Nubian mercenary fighters against the
state
Nile flood levels diminish
The flood level of the Nile has been steadily
declining during the Old Kingdom
• led to the reduction of agricultural production
and eventually famine set in
• prolonged famine set in
• people began to doubt whether the pharaoh
was able to maintain the world order, the
Ma’at
– Several steles commemorate the difficulties.
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The Stele of the Treasurer Ihy of Imyotru
“I was a great pillar in the Theban nome, a man of
standing in the Southland. I nourished Imyotru
in years of misery. Though for hundred men
were in straits through it, I did not seize a man’s
daughter, nor did I seize his field”. .. “I gave
Upper Egyptian barley to Iuni, to Hefat, after
Imyotru had been supplied.”
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