Download 8. Pyramid Power

8. Pyramid Power
Death and statistics combine to make ancient Egypt especially fascinating. Death first, because
no matter how much the Egyptians themselves may have loved life and good times—so much, in
fact, that they decided they could take it all with them—their mummies and their tombs have made
the greatest impression on posterity. It’s one thing to read about a long-dead king on a crumbling
clay tablet, but quite another to gaze, with a twinge in the stomach and a macabre fixation, upon the
actual corpse of Tutankhamon, or Thutmose III, or Ramses II. Statistics second, because Egyptian
history has been divided neatly into 31 dynasties, or ruling families, and into three kingdoms: The
Old Kingdom (2755-2255 BC), The Middle Kingdom (1991-1786 BC), and The New Kingdom or
Empire (1570-1070 BC). Thus museums always label their Egyptian antiquities as “alabaster unguent vase, early Empire” or tag a pharaoh like Sesostris I as “second pharaoh of the 12th dynasty.”
This eventually becomes hypnotic, like memorizing batting averages, and an historian can feel a sense
of guilt if he talks about the third pharaoh of the 19th dynasty without having explained first who
the second pharaoh was.
The numbers are the fault of an Egyptian priest named Manetho, who lived during the reign
of the first two Ptolemies (323-245 BC), the Greek dynasty that took over Egypt after the death of
Alexander the Great. Manetho wrote a now lost chronicle of the kings of Egypt, fragments of which
have been preserved by the Jewish historian Josephus (1st century AD—he wrote in Greek) and
by the Christian writers Sextus Julius Africanus (3rd century AD) and Eusebius (4th century AD).
Manetho organized his book into 31 dynasties, and even though his king list is full of errors and
mythological absurdities, from his day to ours it has formed the framework for describing Egyptian
history. Historians can be as conservative as anyone else.1
Numbers fascinated the Egyptians too. In the 5th century BC they told the Greek historian
Herodotus—a gullible tourist if there ever was one—that their kings had ruled in Egypt for 341 generations, which Herodotus figures by his day would have amounted to 11,340 years of Egyptian history.2 That’s about 4 times too much, but like much in Herodotus it makes a good story. The Egyptian priests also invented our calendar back before there were any pharaohs. They discovered the year
of 365 days and began their count-down on the day when the constellation Sirius was first visible
over the horizon just before sunrise—our July 19, which they called “the going up of Suthis”—in the
year we call 2776 BC. It was this calendar that Julius Caesar later introduced to Rome just before his
assassination, and which has come from Rome down to us. We have made some improvements, of
course, for it took the Egyptians a while to realize that the year is more like days. As a result, their
1 Alan Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs (London: Oxford University Press, 1964) pp. 46-47; Manetho with an
English Translation by W.G. Waddell (London: Heinemann, 1970).
2 Herodotus book 2 chapter 142.
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calendar gained a full day every 4 years, gradually falling out of sync with the solar year until it made
a complete revolution every 1,460 years! The result, as one priest put it, was that “winter is come in
summer, the months are reversed, the hours in confusion.”3
The whole of Egypt is divided into two parts. This can be confusing, because the northern part,
the hundred-mile long delta of the Nile, is called Lower Egypt, while the southern part, the 600 mile
long valley of the Nile from the first cataract to the delta, is called Upper Egypt. That’s because in
Egypt south is upstream on the Nile, which flows north into the Mediterranean Sea. We’ve already
explained how the regular October flooding of the Nile made irrigation and farming possible.
Dead Sea
On
Sakkara Gizeh
Memphis
Khmun
Akhetaton
R ed
Sea
Thinis
Abydos
Thebes
Karnak
Nekhen
First Cataract
100
Most archeological remains come from the dry climate of Upper Egypt. Lower Egypt specializes
in dark black, fertile mud. It’s also more open than the South to invasion by the barbarous tribes
to the West, and so was always a source of Libyan influence on Egyptian culture. In the early days
of its history, Upper and Lower Egypt, themselves made up of many warring little kingdoms, were
politically separate. Lower Egypt had a papyrus plant as its emblem, the serpent goddess Wadjet as its
patron, and a red crown for its king. Upper Egypt in the south suffered from less foreign influence.
Its symbol was the lily plant, and it had the vulture goddess Nekhbet as its patroness, and a white
3 See Gardiner p. 64; James Breasted, A History of Egypt (New York: Scribners, 1909) pp. 32-33; Hallo and
Simpson p. 25. This trouble with the calendar is obviously the origin of another seemingly tall tale told to Herodotus by
the priests: “The sun, however, had within this period of time, on four several occasions, moved from his wanted course,
twice rising where he now sets, and twice setting where he now rises (II. 142).” Ancient sources give 3 instances of the
helical rising of Sirius actually corresponding with the first day of the calendar, and these three dates, which can of course
be astronomically pinpointed, have been used as lynch pins for figuring the dates in Egyptian history (see Gardiner pp.
65-66).
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crown for its king.4 On the famous gold funeral mask of King Tut the vulture and cobra can both be
seen arching protectively over his forehead, symbolizing the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.
That unification couldn’t have occurred before 4000 BC and is ascribed by both Manetho and
Herodotus5 to the Pharaoh Menes, who nowadays (rather in the manner of the Bruckner symphonies) is put into dynasty “0.” Although it’s certainly an exaggeration to give Menes sole credit for
unifying Egypt, for the process must have continued throughout the first two dynasties, engravings
of his name pop up too frequently for a myth. Manetho says he came from Thinis in Upper Egypt,
near the city of Abydos. Further south at Nekhen (which the Greeks called Hieraconpolis) I.E.
Quibell discovered in 1898 the most famous artifact to be associated with this first pharaoh—a slate
palette for grinding eye make-up and bearing the inscription Narmer. You’ll find the pharaoh’s name
at the top of each side: first the cuttlefish nar ? and below it a chisel, mer. ¯ 6
Traditionally, however, pharaohs had five names, the first of which, called the Horus name, was
inserted in a modified palace façade, as is the name Narmer on the slate. There was also a “golden
Horus” name and a “two ladies” s name, associated with the goddesses Wadjet and Nekhbet. Most
important was the religious name assumed upon succession. It was surrounded by a cartouche and
labeled with the sedge plant and the bee, · two more symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt. This was
followed by the “son of Re” Kd name, also in a cartouche and roughly equivalent to the pharaoh’s
family name. Thus the great pharaoh whom we conveniently call Thutmose III was actually7
Horus “Strong Bull Arising in Thebes”
T
} ⁄ zÎN
t y d m S
z
R-L ¬
• dø 8
·l
Two Ladies “Enduring of Kingship Like Re
in Heaven”
Golden Horus “Powerful of Strength, Holy
of Diadems”
King of Upper and Lower Egypt “The Deity
of Re is Established (Menkheperre)”
4 Breasted pp. 31-34.
5 II. 9, where he’s called “Min.” For Manetho see Waddell’s edition pp. 26-28 (fragment 6).
6 Barbara Watterson, Introducing Egyptian Hieroglyphics (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1981) p. 36.
7 Joyce Tyldesley, Hatchehpsut The Female Pharaoh (London: Viking, 1996) p. 117; Kuhrt pp. 125-127; Watterson p. 88.
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Son of Re “Beautiful of Forms (Tuthmosis)”
d
k ©T S
t[
It is therefore quite possible that the pharaoh Narmer on the slate was actually Narmer Menes
himself. The beautiful engravings on the palette certainly imply that: on the front there’s a pharaoh
wearing the crown of Upper Egypt getting ready to brain a captive cowering at his feet. Above the
captive is a hawk (the symbol of the god Horus) holding by a nose leash a man’s head which protrudes from a plot of papyrus plants—the symbols of Lower Egypt. Since these first dynasty pharaohs from Thinis were especially close to the god Horus, this clearly implies that this King of Upper
Egypt has captured the North. On the back side we see the same king wearing the red crown of
Lower Egypt—the first time that happened—standing before a neat pile of headless bodies. Below is
an illustration of two animals with interweaving necks, each restrained by a man with a leash. This
seems to represent the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.8
Although predynastic tombs were merely holes in the ground in which the corpses, laid out in
the fetal position, with perhaps a slate palette in their hand, were surrounded by jars of food-stuffs
and personal ornaments, by the First Dynasty the mastaba tomb had developed. It was roofed over
with wood and brick; instead of clay pots it contained outer chambers for belongings. Two groups
of tombs have been found from this early dynastic period, one at Abydos, which ties in well with
Manetho’s statement that the pharaohs of the first two dynasties were from Thinis, and another
group at Sakkara, just south of Memphis, which latter city, interestingly enough, Herodotus tells us
(II. 99) was founded by Menes himself. At both sites there’s evidence of human sacrifice, and at Abydos as many as a hundred tombs of courtiers surrounded the tomb of their pharaoh. No mummies
have been found, for the grave robbers, even at this early age, were good at their work. One interesting slip-up was discovered at Abydos, however, in the probable tomb of Zer, a first dynasty pharaoh.
The arm of his wife’s mummy, apparently yanked off by some ghoul in a rush, was found, its bracelet
still on the wrist, stashed away in a wall.9
The Pharaoh Zoser, who came to the throne about 2700 BC,10 began the Third Dynasty, which
is reckoned as the start of the Old Kingdom. Zoser’s prime minister Imhotep designed and built
for him the first stone pyramid, and consequently the first stone building we know about. Since it
started out as one of the rectangular mastaba tombs and was then added onto by five more tiers, each
smaller than the last, it’s usually called the Step Pyramid. Zoser had it built at Sakkara overlooking
the city of Memphis. Since later pharaohs also tended to build their pyramids there, it eventually
became the capitol of the Old Kingdom.
The famous pyramids at Gizeh, near modern Cairo, were built by three pharaohs of the 4th
8 See Breasted pp. 34-37. For a description of the Narmer palette, Ibid. p. 40 note 2, but especially Gardiner pp.
402-404 and Nicholas Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) pp. 37-39, 47-49.
9 Breasted pp. 37-42, 49-50; Gardiner pp. 408-414; Hallo and Simpson p. 204.
10 I usually take dates from the king lists in Dynasties of the World by John E. Morby (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1989). Egyptian names are a real problem, however. Amenhotep, e.g., can also be found as Amenhotpe or Amenophis, while the scientific transliteration is ˆmn-˙tp. Of course, if we really want to get pedantic, the proper spelling is
ø
Iwe
in
! Generally speaking, if a familiar and easily pronounceable English version of an Egyptian name exists, I have
used it. Thus you’ll find Zoser instead of Djosér, Amenhotep for Amenhotpe, and Ramses for Ramessês.
Chapter 85
dynasty. They represent Egypt as much as the Eiffel tower symbolizes Paris, and their photographs
are so well known that it takes an effort of will to recognize that there are many other pyramids from
the 3rd to the 6th dynasties (indeed, the 4th dynasty pharaoh Snofru built himself two or three!),
and that the pyramids in their heyday looked nothing as they do now. The remains of about 80 royal
pyramids survive, stretching in a 60 mile line from Gizeh in the north to Maidum in the south. The
three at Gizeh were covered with finished stone, and like most pyramids they had a valley chapel at
the edge of the flood waters of the Nile and an enclosed causeway leading perhaps mile to the east
side of the pyramid where there was a funeral temple for the pharaoh’s rights. The east side of the
pyramid was even equipped with a false door so that pharaoh could come out and join the festivities. Smaller pyramids of the king’s wives could be nearby, and also the rectangular mastabas of his
courtiers, laid out in neat rows. Inside, the pyramids were expensive variations of the mastabas. An
entrance to the interior corridors was cleverly hidden in the pyramid’s face, but not cleverly enough:
all the pyramids are empty, having been rifled by grave robbers centuries ago.11
As we’ll see in the next chapter, the futility of building pyramids finally sank in by the New Kingdom, and their construction virtually ceased. During the Middle Kingdom this same realization
inspired one of the most famous works of Egyptian literature, the “Song of the Harper,” which is one
of the world’s first preserved instances of the “eat, drink, and be merry” motif:
The gods who lived formerly rest in their pyramids,
The beatified dead also, buried in their pyramids.
And they who built houses—their places are not.
See what has been made of them!
I have heard the words of Ii-em-hotep and Hor-dedef,
With whose discourses men speak so much.
What are their places now?
Their walls are broken apart, and their places are not—
As though they had never been!
There is none who comes back from over there,
That he may tell their state,
That he may tell their needs,
That he may still our hearts,
Until we too may travel to the place where they have gone.12
The great pyramid was built by King Khufu, whom Herodotus called Cheops. No other building
has ever exceeded it for sheer bulk. It is 481 feel high; no other stone structure except the spire of
Ulm cathedral is higher. Herodotus says that it took 10 years just to construct the causeway to bring
in the stones for the pyramid, and another 20 years to build it. On its face was an inscription bragging that it had cost 1,600 talents of silver to buy radishes, onions, and garlic to feed the workers,
100,000 of whom worked constantly, being relieved every three months. Herodotus’s trustworthiness
concerning Egypt can be judged by his further report that Cheops, a cruel tyrant, was so greedy for
money to construct a pyramid that he forced his own daughter into prostitution. She herself, he says,
11 See Gardiner pp. 76-79; Hallo and Simpson p. 220; Giorgio Lise, How to Recognize Egyptian Art (New York:
Penguin Books, 1980) pp. 6-10; James Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986 [1912 rpt.]) pp. 74-75, 83; Grimal pp. 123-124, 128. Grimal supplies a “Table
of Major Pyramids of the Old and Middle Kingdoms” together with a map on pp. 111 and 116-119. In all he lists 44
pyramids.
12 ANET p. 467. For other versions, see Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought pp. 182-183 and (somewhat different) History p. 206; and William Kelly Simpson (ed.), The Literature of Ancient Egypt (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1972)pp. 306-307.
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constructed a huge pyramid by having each of her customers contribute one stone each.13
After the brief reign of Redjedef, who left behind an incomplete pyramid north of Gizeh, the
pharaoh Chephren built the second pyramid, which is actually only a little smaller than Cheops’
“Great Pyramid.” It’s famous for its well preserved Valley Chapel and the diorite statue of Chephren
found there, but especially for its associated Sphinx, which was probably carved out of a rock formation conveniently located near the causeway. The face on the lion figure is Chephren’s. Herodotus,
strangely enough, doesn’t even mention the Sphinx, so there are no stories about why it was built or
o n
how it was used.14 The Greek word sphinx was probably derived from Egyptian, p _œ˙ or sesep-ankh, which means “living image”—that is, of Aton. All that Herodotus says is that between the
reigns of Cheops and Chephren the Egyptian people suffered 106 years of slavery.
The last pyramid belongs to Chephren’s son Menkure, whom Herodotus calls Mycerinus. Even
though Herodotus says he was a good king who restored justice to his people, something obviously
went wrong during his reign. His pyramid is the smallest of the three. It was to have been covered
with red granite, but the plan was abandoned and the causeway was built of brick, suggesting that
the pharaoh died suddenly. The dynasty then collapsed, and Menkure’s successor Shepseskaf built his
tomb—not a pyramid—back at Sakkara. He seems to have been the last legitimate pharaoh of the
dynasty.15
As is obvious from their construction projects, these three pharaohs represented the height of the
Old Kingdom. In their day the pharaoh was too august to be referred to by name; he was simply “the
!„
one.” His government, and by the time of the New Kingdom, the king himself, were called
per-âa, “The Great House.” It’s through the Hebrew scriptures that this term has come down to us
as “pharaoh.” The pharaoh wasn’t soft in those days. He had seen military duty as crown prince; he
was literate and spent much of his time on legal matters and reports; and he lived simply with his
court near the pyramid he was building. The court, of course, was something else, and in its ceremonial complexity sounds like Constantinople or Versailles. One noble bragged on his tomb that he
was “overseer of the cosmetic box…doing in the matter of cosmetic art to the satisfaction of his lord;
overseer of the cosmetic pencil, sandal-bearer of the king, doing in the matter of the king’s sandals to
the satisfaction of his lord.”16
The more energetic nobles were appointed governors of the 42 states, or nomes, into which
Egypt was divided. The official title was “first under the king,” and the nome governors ran miniature states, complete with their own militias. The nomes were especially coördinated through the
central Treasury Office in the king’s palace, which supervised the collection of taxes in kind from all
the nomes. This basic administrative division of Egypt lasted until Roman times.17
Of all the king’s nobles, the most important was his prime minister, usually called his vizier.
That, however, is in origin a Turkish word, but it’s used by historians because the original Egyptian,
;Ò
t⁄ taty, doesn’t sound too impressive in English.
Besides being prime minister, he was also chief justice and “superintendent of all the works of the
13 Herodotus II. 124-126.
14 The most popular story of all is that one of Napoleon’s soldiers blew off the nose during target practice. It
seems, unfortunately, to be only a myth. See C. Herold, Bonaparte in Egypt (London: 1963) p. 160 note.
15 Herodotus II. 124-129; Gardiner pp. 79-84; Grimal pp. 69-75; Hallo and Simpson pp. 222-223.
16 Breasted History p. 75.
17 Ibid. pp. 79-80; Kuhrt p. 151; Hallo and Simpson pp. 227-228.
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king.” All the state records were kept in his hall. The rank was so powerful that in the 4th dynasty it
was held by the crown prince although later it became hereditary among the nobles of Egypt.18 The
vizier’s ideal relationship to the king is shown in the advice from Ptahhotep, who was vizier to King
Isesi of the 5th Dynasty:
Bend your back to your superior, your steward of the palace; so will your house endure because of its goods, and
your payment will be at the proper time. Wretched is he who is in opposition against a superior, for men live
only for the reason of his leniency…19
Such advice usually comes after the fact. By the 5th dynasty there are definite signs that this system was breaking down: under that same Pharaoh Isesi, inscriptions recording expeditions to Sinai
start to include the names of the nobles who led them. Before his time, such inscriptions would never have dared to mention anyone except the mighty pharaoh himself. Also the limestone pyramids of
the dynasty—built further south than Gizeh so as not to suffer by comparison—are only about the
size of the great pyramids, and they’re built so cheaply that most of them today have collapsed into
piles of rubble.20
It gets worse in the 6th dynasty, which was probably set up by a revolution of the nome governors, who though still dependent on the pharaohs for their appointments, start taking steps to
make their rule hereditary. They’re no longer “local governors,” but rather “great chiefs.” Particularly
significant is the fact that they no longer, as they had at Gizeh, build their own tombs around the
crumbling pyramids of the 6th dynasty pharaohs; cemeteries spring up in the nomes themselves
which vie with the pharaoh’s in splendor. Finally, after the incredible 90 year reign of Pepi II, the 6th
dynasty, and with it the Old Kingdom, collapses into chaos. A sure sign of trouble is the assumption
of the pharaoh’s title by a woman named Nitocris, whom Manetho calls “the noblest and loveliest of
the women of her time, of fair complexion, who raised the third pyramid.”21 We at least know that
Manetho lied about the pyramid.
The condition of Egypt after Nitocris’ reign is described in this papyrus fragment:
The bowman is ready. The wrongdoer is everywhere. There is no man of yesterday. A man goes out to plow with
his shield. A man smites his brother, his mother’s son. Men sit in the bushes until the benighted traveler comes,
in order to plunder his load.22
After 200 years of this, a Theban family headed by King Intef I moved in and took over. 143
years later its last member Mentuhotep IV was overturned by his own vizier, the great Amenemhet
I, who founded the 12th dynasty. He was eventually stabbed to death in his own bed by his guards.23
This happy period is called The Middle Kingdom.24
18 Ibid. pp. 82-83; Gardiner pp. 104-105; Grimal pp. 90-91.
19 Simpson p. 170. See also Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings: Volume 1: The Old
and Middle Kingdom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973) pp. 71-72.
20 Breasted History pp. 128-9 and Gardiner pp. 84-86 and 88-90; Hallo and Simpson pp. 216, 228.
21 See Waddell’s edition p. 55 (fragment 20); Gardiner p. 436. See also pp. 91-94 and 101-102; Breasted, History
pp. 131-132 and 143; Grimal pp. 89, 92-93; Hallo and Simpson p. 227.
22 Gardiner p. 109. The document from which this excerpt is taken is discussed in detail by James Breasted,
Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt pp. 203-215. It’s also printed as the “Admonitions of Ipu-War”
in ANET pp. 441-444. See especially p. 442b. Likewise in Lichtheim pp. 149-163, especially p. 154. But see Kuhrt’s
criticism of Gardiner’s use of this passage p. 160.
23 The opening of the famous “Story of Sinuhe” makes it clear that Amenemhet was assassinated: See Simpson pp.
58-59 and ANET pp. 18-19. The great king’s ghost makes this even clearer to us in “The Teaching of King Ammenemes
I to his son Sesostris,” Simpson pp. 194-195 and ANET pp. 418-419.
24 One of the more pleasant ways to learn about life in the Middle Kingdom is to read Agatha Christie’s murder
mystery Death Comes as the End (New York: Harper Paperbacks,1992), which is set on a large country estate near Thebes
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The nomarchs were never humbled, and their tombs from the period even display carvings showing them receiving foreign ambassadors. Still, even though their office was hereditary, they traced
its power to the approval of the tough kings of the 12th dynasty, under whom a stable feudal government emerged. Thus by the reign of Sesostris I, Amenemhet’s son, we find the nomarch Ameny
carving on his tomb:
I spent years as ruler in the Oryx nome, and all services to the king’s house were effected by me. I gave
staff-overseers to the farm buildings of the Oryx nome, three thousand oxen as their contingents, and was
praised on account of it in the king’s House in every census year. I delivered all their produce to the King’s
House, and there was no shortage against me in any bureau of his.25
By the reign of Sesostris III even the provincial tombs had disappeared, and his successor Amenemhet III was able to rule for 45 years. Finally, however, after 200 years of peace, civil war broke out
between Amenemhet IV and his sister Sebeknofru. Her victory put, for the second time, a woman
on the throne of Egypt. She is the last ruler of the 12th Dynasty and of the Middle Kingdom; the
inevitable chaos that followed the nomarchs’ scramble for power left Egypt weak and open to foreign
invasion.26
in the 11th dynasty.
25 Gardiner p. 129.
26 Ibid. pp. 140-141.