The portents of change were in the wind after the death of Menkauhor, but the nuances of the process escape us. A degree of standardization and rationalization pervaded royal building activities. Menkauhor’s successors did not build sun-temples, although the position of the sun-god Ra remained unaffected. The long reign of King Djedkara (Isesi, Horns Djedkhau, 2414-2375 BC) links the Abusir group of kings with those who followed. Some of his officials were buried in the Abusir necropolis, and so attest to continuity rather than a break, but the king’s pyramid is at southern Saqqara. Its modest measurements (side 78.5 sq. m., height 52.5 m.) were, with the exception of his immediate successor Unas, adopted by all the remaining major rulers of the Old Kingdom (Teti, Pepy I, Merenra, and Pepy II). The Maxims of Ptahhotep, a major literary work of the Old Kingdom, which summarizes the rules of conduct of a successfid official, is ascribed to the vizier of Djedkara.
The reign of King Unas (Homs Wadj-tawy, 2375-2345 bc) was also a long one. His pyramid is at the south-western corner of Djoser’s enclosure, but it is even smaller than that of his predecessor. Its long causeway, stretching for nearly 700 m., was originally decorated with remarkable scenes, now very fragmentary, which surpass the stereotyped means of expression of Egyptian kingship, or at least convey it in a novel way. They include records of events in Unas’s reign, such as transport of columns from the granite quarries at Aswan to the king’s pyramid complex. But the main innovation of Unas’s pyramid, and one that was to be characteristic of the remaining pyramids of the Old Kingdom (including some of the queens), was the first appearance of the Pyramid Texts inscribed on the walls of its burial chamber and other parts of its interior. The Pyramid Texts represent the earliest large religious composition known from ancient Egypt; some of their elements were created well before the reign of Unas and map out the development of Egyptian religious thought from Predynastic times. The deceased King Unas is identified with the god Osiris and referred to as Osiris Unas. The Osirian religious doctrine is by far the most important in the Pyramid Texts, but there are also ideas associated with the sun-god, as well as the remains of star-oriented concepts and some others, probably even older. However, the complexity of the Pyramid Texts makes interpretation of individual spells diffictilt, and understanding of their mutual relationship is especially hard. The reason for their inclusion inside the pyramid was to provide the Deceased king with texts that were regarded as essential for his survival and well-being in afterlife. Their mere presence was probably deemed sufficient to make them effective. While the distribution of the Pyramid Texts within the structure is not accidental, it is unlikely that they are connected with such a transient event as a funeral.
The belief that after death the deceased entered the kingdom of the god Osiris now became widespread. Osiris, originally a local deity in the Eastern Delta, was a chthonic (linked to the earth) local god associated with agriarlture and annually recurring events in nature. He was probably an ideal choice for the universal god of the dead, given that the myths concerning his resurrection mirrored the revitalization of Egyptian soil after the annual flood receded (which used to happen until the building of a dam at Aswan at the beginning of this century and the High Dam in the 1960s). The early stages of the development of the cult of Osiris are far from clear. He was an appropriate counterpart for the sun-god Ra and his rise to prominence may have been caused by corresponding considerations. Our written records are, however, inadequate to establish exactly when this happened. In their tombs, deceased persons are described as imakhu (‘honoured’) by Osiris: in other words, their needs in afterlife were satisfied because of their association with him. The concept of imakhu (which can also be translated as ‘being provided for’) was an expression of a remarkable moral dictum that ran through all levels of Egyptian society and that corrected the extreme cases of social inequality: it was the duty of a more influential and richer person to take care of the poor and socially disadvantaged in the same way as the head of a family was responsible for all of its members.
World History
