The world view of temple inscriptions and other ceremonial Ancient Egyptian texts focuses on the king, to such an extent that he appears to be the single human being in a world otherwise dominated by gods and goddesses. And even the king, a descendant of the deities, has divine qualities which enable him to communicate with his ancestors. Royal ideology thus presents a world virtually lacking in human subjects and assistants. A different perspective can be seen in the autobiographies in the tombs of the king’s relatives and officials, but still here the king and the tomb owner’s loyalty towards him are of central importance. Even from ceremonial texts, however, it is clear that the king is responsible for the well-being of his human subjects as well as for that of the gods. This is evident in a text represented in several New Kingdom temples (see Assmann 1970: 22):
Re has appointed King NN on the earth of the living for all eternity, to be the one judging the people and making offerings to the gods, who creates order and terminates chaos.
He makes offerings to the gods, and funerary offerings to the blessed (the deceased).
The king appears here to be endowed with the qualities of judge and priest. He was actually represented in both capacities by vast numbers of functionaries: administrative and legal tasks were performed by government officials under the authority of the vizier (see below), whereas sacred duties fell to the priests. The king is remote and invisible in texts about everyday administrative and judicial practice, though sometimes a reference is made to what is felt to be the ‘‘Law (or Rule) of Pharaoh’’ (P. Bulaq 10: see Allam 1973: 289-93), and at least one literary text from the Middle Kingdom expresses the ideal of the king as the ultimate source of justice. In the tale of the Eloquent Peasant (Tobin 2003), the oasis-dweller Khuenanup travels to town in order to trade his products (minerals, plants, animal fur) for grain. When he is waylaid by his greedy neighbor Nemtynahkt, an argument takes place during which one of Khuenanup’s donkeys eats some barley on Nemtynakht’s field. Khuenanup is given a beating, and his donkeys are seized by Nemtynakht. This is the beginning of a long story in which Khuenanup, while detained by a chief royal steward, makes repeated appeals to justice until his eloquent plea is submitted to the king himself. The king is pleased by the submission and orders his chief steward to pass judgment. Nemtynakht’s entire property is forfeited and assigned to Khuenanup. If this idealized picture of the king showing such interest in a commoner’s plea has any basis at all in reality, it shows that securing the king’s interest was a very long and cumbersome process.
In some ways the king may have been more of a ceremonial head of state than an actor on the political stage. It is true that he regularly appears as the instigator of political and legal measures, but only in royal inscriptions. He is credited with issuing decrees to secure protection for temple property (Goedicke 1967) or specific legal reforms (Kruchten 1981), but the formula ‘‘sealed in the presence of His Majesty’’ used in these decrees is not sufficient to justify the assumption that, in fact, he initiated them.
There does seem to have been an active royal involvement in politics regarding the appointment of government officials and priests. Administrative and priestly offices were held by prominent families and passed on from father to son. According to genealogical information and private funerary texts this practice was normal and desirable. But the king could break such a succession to office, and on occasions used his power to do so, especially with such prominent functionaries as viziers, treasury overseers or high priests of major temples.
The king also seems to have pursued an active role in his capacity as a military leader. Battle scenes and inscriptions on temple walls show the king in his chariot leading his army into battle and personally deciding on the course of his military campaigns. But some military action was undertaken without the king being there to lead, as when Akhenaten’s governor in Nubia, the King’s Son of Kush, as the king’s representative, stifled a local rebellion himself (Murnane 1995: 101-2). Another literary text of the Middle Kingdom (the Tale of Sinuhe) opens with the crown prince leading a military campaign in the Libyan Desert at the time of his father’s death (Simpson 2003).
While these indications suggest some kind of role of the king in political, juridical, and military affairs, we are still somewhat uncertain about his actual responsibilities and initiatives. There is no text giving a glimpse of political activity in the royal palace. The few remains of palace records from the Thirteenth Dynasty (P. Bulaq 18: Quirke 1990: 9-115) and the reign of Seti I (Kitchen 1993: 159-85) are accounts of food production and supplies, not the decisions of administrative councils. To the Ancient Egyptians, ‘‘king’’ and ‘‘palace’’ were virtually synonymous as designations for a closed unit whose internal workings remained obscure to the outside world. This may be why in the New Kingdom the Egyptian expression for ‘‘palace’’ (per-a’a, ‘‘Great House’’), words transmitted through Biblical Hebrew as ‘‘Pharaoh,’’ came to refer to the king, as if it were a personal name.
Although the king had palaces throughout Egypt, and so in this sense there was more than one residence at any time, the residence par excellence during much of Pharaonic history appears to have been in Memphis. Among the kings who built palaces were Thutmose I, from whose palace Tutankhamun issued his restoration decree, and Apries, the remains of whose palace have actually been identified (Kemp 1977c). At times kings would build palaces elsewhere, as an additional residence (e. g. that of Amenhotep III at Malkata), or even as an exclusive residence (that of Akhenaten at Akhetaten/el-Amarna, which involved building an entirely new city). Entire dynasties had their own ‘‘home’’ residences (Itj-tawy/el-Lisht for the Twelfth Dynasty, or Piramesse for the Ramessides). In the so-called Intermediate Periods political fragmentation between north and south, with at least two separate residences, made things more complicated. For the south it would always be in Thebes, but for the north there were various locations. The Hyksos kings of the Second Intermediate Period had their palace in Avaris in the Eastern Delta, but Manetho’s Aegyptiaka states that the main Hyksos dynasty (Fifteenth Dynasty) started with the foreigners conquering Memphis, and it goes on to say that the Libyan dynasties of the Third Intermediate Period are associated with Tanis, Bubastis, and Sais. However, this does not mean that Memphis had lost its role as a royal residence. It remained the capital of Egypt even when the land was ruled from Assur (at the end of the Third Intermediate Period) or Persepolis (during the periods of Persian occupation). It also retained much of its status in the Ptolemaic Period, when the capital moved to Alexandria.
The palace was not only the king’s residence but it was also the economic base on which royal power depended. From the text Duties of the Vizier (see below: The Vizier) we learn that the king’s treasury was in the palace, and from the legal text of Mose we learn that during the reign of Ramesses II the record-offices of the royal treasury and granary were in Piramesse (see below: Central Registration). There were also royal domains scattered throughout Egypt, and these, together with the palaces in various locations, could have provided the impetus for the king and his entourage to travel sporadically or at regular intervals. His attendance at important annual feasts that required the presence of the king as the country’s supreme religious authority would also have been a reason to travel.
World History
