For a modem mind, especially one that no longer knows profound religious experience and deep faith, it is not easy to understand the reasons for such huge and seemingly wasteful projects as the building of pyramids. This lack of understanding is reflected in the large number of esoteric theories about their purpose and origin. The profusion of these views is helped by an almost complete reticence on the subject by Egyptian texts.
In ancient Egypt, the king enjoyed a special position as a mediator between the gods and people, an interface between divine and human, who was responsible to both. His Homs name identified him with the hawk-god (of whom he was a manifestation), and his nebty (‘two ladies’) name related him to the two tutelary goddesses of Egypt, Nekhbet and Wadjet. He shared the designation netjer vidth the gods, but it was usually qualified as netjer nefer, junior god (although this could also be understood as perfect god). Erom the reign of Khafra onwards, one of his names was introduced by the title ‘son of Ra’. The king had been chosen and approved by the gods and after his death he retired into their company. Contact with the gods, achieved through ritual, was his prerogative, although for practical purposes the more mundane elements were delegated to priests. For the people of Egypt, their king was a guarantor of the continued orderly mnning of their world: the regular change of the seasons, the return of the annual inundation of the Nile, and the predictable movements of the heavenly bodies, but also safety from the threatening forces of nature as well as enemies outside Egypt’s borders. The king’s efficacy in fulfilling these responsibilities was therefore of paramount importance for the wellbeing of every Egyptian. Internal dissent was minimal, and support for the system was genuine and widespread. Coercive state mechanisms, such as police, were conspicuous by their absence; people were tied to the land and control over every individual was exercised by local communities who were closed to newcomers.
The king’s role did not end with his death: for his contemporaries who were buried in the vicinity of his pyramid and for those involved in his funerary cult their relationship with the king continued for ever. It was, therefore, in everybody’s interests to safeguard the king’s position and status after his death as much as in his lifetime. At this period of
Egyptian history, monumentality was an important way of expressing such a concept. Given the degree of economic prosperity enjoyed by the country, the availability of labour-force resources, and the high standard of management, there is no need to doubt that the Egyptians were perfectly capable of successfully completing pyramid projects. To look for extraneous motives and forces behind them is futile and unnecessary.
The tombs of the members of the royal family, priests, and officials of the 3rd Dynasty were separated from the exclusive areas with the royal pyramids. Almost all of these tombs continued to be built in mud brick, although early examples of private mastaba-tomhs in stone may exist at Saqqara. However, in the 4th Dynasty such tombs, now stone-built, surrounded the pyramids, as if the tombs themselves were part of the complexes (and this, indeed, is how they may have been perceived). Because many of them were gifts from the king and made by royal craftsmen and artists, the volume of royal building activities was even larger than suggested by the pyramids alone. Extensive fields of mastaba-tomhs built according to an overall plan, separated by streets intersecting at right angles, are unique to the 4th Dynasty and are especially known from around the pyramid at Meidum, Sneferu’s northern pyramid at Dahshur, and Khufu’s pyramid at Giza. We must not forget that most of the evidence used in our reconstruction of the history of the Old Kingdom derives from funerary contexts and so carries a possibility of being biased; Old Kingdom settlements have rarely been preserved or excavated (the towns at Elephantine and Ayn Asil being unusual survivals). The state of technology can be deduced from the projects in which it was applied, but detailed information is lacking. So, for example, only post-Old Kingdom sources make it quite clear that the pyramid-builders did not use wheeled vehicles (although the wheel was known).
World History
