The most important development of all in the Fifth Dynasty was the growth of the power of successful bureaucrats. Possibly as a deliberate royal policy to elevate the king above his subjects, even those of his own family, many administrative posts were now awarded to non-nobles. Their burials, once aligned alongside those of the kings’, were transferred to separate cemeteries. Many of these tombs were of great opulence and on a scale that would have been completely unacceptable in earlier times. Previously all achievement, whoever had effected it, had been credited to the king. Now the accomplishments of each official were proclaimed in an autobiography carved on the wall of the tomb, a justification of his right to enjoy offerings from others for eternity. The beautifully painted walls showed off the life of privilege that the owner hoped to enjoy, comfort and good food at home and a steady supply of crops and cattle from his estates. As the owners could no longer rely on their links with the kings for an afterlife, a new philosophy emerged that focused on the relationship of the deceased with the god Osiris. Osiris had originally been associated with agriculture and the reviving power of the annual flood and he now became linked to the continuing life of the deceased who, it was said on their tombs, were ‘honoured’ by Osiris as reward for their good behaviour on earth. The word for honour, imakhu, came to mean the sense of respect and protection that a man would feel for those inferior to him and thus an important ethical concept in Egyptian society. By the end of the Fifth Dynasty, many of the new bureaucratic families had consolidated their authority in the provinces and it was here that they now built their tombs. This, more than anything, marked the relaxing of supreme royal authority.
A number of factors may have coalesced to bring the end of the Old Kingdom in the next dynasty, the Sixth, about 2180 Bc. The accounts on the Palermo stone suggest that the Nile floods were consistently lower and there are reports of famine from this time. Yet scholars are now more sensitive to the way disaster was often magnified in texts by those who claimed to have confronted and then overcome it and the archaeological evidence for agricultural contraction is ambiguous. The failure of royal power is better attested. The long reign of Pepy II of the Sixth Dynasty, traditionally put at over ninety years but probably between fifty and seventy years, seems to have led to a gradual fossilization of political affairs. Provincial nobles established their posts on an hereditary basis and placed personal aggrandizement above loyalty to the throne. Dominance over Nubia had been assumed for centuries with powerful rulers such as Sneferu exploiting its resources of gold, ivory, and ebony. This now faltered, with expeditions there in search of gold meeting strong opposition from the local population. There are reports of raids from nomadic tribes on other borders of the kingdom. Signs of impoverishment can also be seen with the tombs of Pepy’s courtiers that are now built in mudbrick rather than in stone.
World History
