The Political History of the Third to Eighth DynastiesAt the end of the Thinite Period (the First and Second Dynasties),
which concluded the early history of Egypt, the country’s political and economic center was finally fixed in the Memphis area. The distinguishing outward mark of the Old Kingdom (Third to Sixth Dynasties) consists of the gigantic pyramid tombs of its kings, appearing to defy time and decay. With some justice, the Old Kingdom may be called the age of the pyramids. However, behind the monumental stature of the pyramids themselves, suggesting the idea of huge power apparently concentrated solely on the person of the king, stands the will of an elite surrounding him. The prevailing economic system of the Old Kingdom was expressed in these buildings and the necropolises and pyramid towns attached to them. The striving for continued existence in the afterlife made provision for all members of the state community in this life and the next a necessity, and the king was at the center of this system of provision. He had power over the country, its inhabitants and its produce. He delegated that power to his officials, who in their turn were responsible for the people and property entrusted
to their care. In the form of so-called “endowments to the dead,” the
powers thus delegated made provision in the immaterial world for the
deceased official, and material provision for those to whom his funerary cult was entrusted. At the same time, all subjects had a part in the provision made by the royal funerary cult. Step by step, and parallel to the growing number of institutionalized cults in the country, such provision, at first limited to the capital, came to include the inhabitants of distant provinces. Extensive economic and religious developments lie behind the volume of building and the changes in the planning and location of the pyramid complexes of the Old Kingdom.
The Person of the Pharaoh in the Old Kingdom
The few available written sources for the early Old Kingdom do not
enable us to draw any conclusions about the individual characteristics
of the various kings. Later tradition portrayed some rulers, like Snefru, as good and others, like Cheops, as bad and cruel. These attributions need be taken no more seriously than similar evaluations in our own time. The queens were initially members of the royal house them- selves; only in the later Old Kingdom were wives taken from the class of officials. Some of them assumed the responsibility for rule, since they ensured the succession.
The Development of Internal Policy in the Old Kingdom
The concentration of officials around the king was connected with the
extension of the royal funerary complex. Provincial chieftains were
replaced by civil servants sent out from the capital and controlled by
it. Royal domains set up in the provinces — small economic units such as craft workshops, farming settlements, and fishing villages — delivered their products directly to the capital. The administrative regions were systematically organized. At the end of the Third Dynasty, under Pharaoh Huni, and the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under Snefru, the construction throughout the country of small cult pyramids, not divided into chambers, was connected with these new royal domains: this is how the cult presence of the ruler was transferred to the provinces. The first provincial temples were dedicated under Mycerinus, and an increasing number of royal endowments was made available to the sacred complexes there.
During the Fourth Dynasty the army was commanded by royal princes. They led quarrying expeditions and supervised garrisons posted in the south (Elephantine) and the east (Heliopolis, Bubastis, the “Gate of Imhotep” where the trade route to Palestine began). Initially, the viziers who dispensed justice at this period were also drawn from their ranks. The kings of the Fifth Dynasty, descended from a family living north of Giza, concentrated on building temples to the sun, and the volume of complexes devoted to the cult of the dead at Abusir was considerably reduced. These building complexes were now economically supported by the sun temples. Decentralization of the administration increased; even the viziers no longer had to be of princely rank. With Pharaoh Unas (ca. 2360 BC), a new family, perhaps from the Delta, came to power in unknown circumstances. The building of sun temples abruptly ceased, and the pyramid complex of Abusir was abandoned in favor of Saqqara. Now that the new god of the dead, Osiris, guaranteed religious transfiguration and provision for humanity, it was possible for an official to be interred outside the capital, in the provinces. Provincial administrative centres flourished. Abydos, the main center of the cult of Osiris, became the seat of the governor of Upper Egypt; the royal temple of Osiris—Khontamenti was fortified by royal decree.
Crucial reforms were carried out during the extremely long reign of Pepi II. The seat of the governor of Upper Egypt changed several times. Coptos, with its temple of Min, gained importance, and Thebes became the administrative center of the south. However, internal power struggles and murder at court (briefly placing one Nitocris, sister of Pepi II, on the throne in 2218 BC) destroyed the infrastructure of the country and its supply network. The rulers who succeeded each other in Memphis in a series of brief reigns faced chaos in Upper Egypt: the region was splintering into several small, warring principalities. It was only with difficulty that the rulers in Memphis succeeded in restoring an administrative system that was generally acceptable to all parties. Nonetheless, the Memphite rulers were soon replaced by princes from Herakleopolis at the point of entrance to the Faiyum.
The Development of Foreign Policy in the Old Kingdom
Egypt had no external threats to fear during the Old Kingdom. However; n was well aware of the activities of the princes of the Nubian and south Palestinian regions, and kept a close watch on them. The annual festival rite in which the pharaoh repeated the ritual conquest of his enemies from all four quarters of the earth was a metaphorical way of asserting the superiority of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley. Potential enemies were magically destroyed by the ritual smashing of clay figurines. The purpose of foreign relations was to secure the trade routes and the necessary imports of raw materials. The increase in the building activities of the kings led to greater exploitation of sources of raw materials both at home and abroad, for instance the quarrying of calcite alabaster in Central Egypt, graywacke in the eastern desert at Wadi Hammamat, and basalt at Gebel Qatrani north of Lake Qarun in the Faiyum.
At the beginning of the Old Kingdom, probably under Djoser, copper mining was resumed in Wadi Maghara in the Sinai. The mining of its byproduct, turquoise, at Serabit el-Khadim must have begun not long after this time. Military control of the bedouin of the Sinai was a prerequisite of the industry.
Traditionally, timber for building was brought to Egypt from the harbors of the Levant, particularly Byblos. The construction of the necessary transport ships is repeatedly mentioned in the Egyptian annals. Numerous Egyptian items inscribed with royal names and donated to the temple of the Near Eastern goddess Baalat at Bvblos,
linked here with the Egyptian goddess Hathor, indicate peaceful trade
relations with that city. Egyptian objects have also been found at the
trading center of Ebla (Tell Mardikh). Representations of stags and
bears in royal mortuary temples of the Fifth Dynasty suggest gifts from foreign countries. A delivery of incense from Punt, somewhere in present-day Somalia or Eritrea, is mentioned for the first time in the reign of Sahura (ca. 2490 BC). Military actions were also frequently undertaken to secure trade interests.
Toward the end of the Fifth Dynasty, tomb decoration begins to
show scenes depicting the conquest of Asiatic cities, seagoing vessels
with Asiatic crews, and nomads of emaciated appearance. It is difficult to imagine that actual events such as battles in southern Palestine lay behind these subjects. Under Pepi I, however, at the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty, an attempt was made to extend Egyptian control to that area. Egyptian armies conducted several campaigns against bedouin “sand dwellers,” and went as far as a mountain they called “Nose of the Gazelle,” probably Mount Carmel in Palestine.
There was a campaign on a smaller scale against Libyan tribes in
the reign of Snefru (ca. 2620 BC), in which 1,100 prisoners were taken. The trade routes in the south and in the western oasis were again threatened by armed Libyan raiders around 400 years later. As a result, an Egyptian “controller of oases” was specially stationed in Dakhla.
Also in Snefru’s reign, at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, the
records mention Egyptian campaigns in the south. Some 20,000 soldiers invaded Lower Nubia, stealing cattle and allegedly taking 17,000 prisoners in one campaign, and 7,000 more in another; the captives were put to work as laborers or auxiliary police. However, the large number of soldiers deployed casts light on the Egyptian plan to keep soldiers permanently stationed in the south and to build new fortresses, for instance at Buhen. This policy meant that the trade routes, the stone quarries and gold supplies from Wadi Allaqi in the eastern desert, and the quarries of hard stone in the west, could all be supervised.
Under Pharaoh Izezi (ca. 2405—2367 BC) there is evidence for the
first time of an expedition going even farther south. Bartered trade products such as skins, ivory, and incense — and a dancing dwarf for the royal residence — probably came from the land of Yam in the Dongola basin. Caravan leaders from Elephantine ventured on this dangerous journey through the desert with the aid of native bedouin, interpreters, and soldiers. The route that could be traveled by donkey was known as the Oasis Road. By way of Bahriya, Dakhla and the small oases of Kurkur, Selima, and Dungul, it led to the region south of the third cataract.
The princes of Lower Nubia, themselves threatened by bedouin
raids, basically supported Egyptian policy, and even supplied contingents of men for the campaigns in Asia at the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty. The threat to the trade routes increased only toward the end of the Sixth Dynasty. Under Pepi II, there was further fighting against intruders in Lower Nubia, and three expeditions to Yam were undertaken. A series of reports gives a clear idea of these eventful journeys. One expedition leader had to bring home to Elephantine the body of his father, who had died in southern Egypt, and the bedouin killed another expedition leader who was building ships by the Red Sea. As a result, trade with the interior of Africa soon ceased entirely.
which concluded the early history of Egypt, the country’s political and economic center was finally fixed in the Memphis area. The distinguishing outward mark of the Old Kingdom (Third to Sixth Dynasties) consists of the gigantic pyramid tombs of its kings, appearing to defy time and decay. With some justice, the Old Kingdom may be called the age of the pyramids. However, behind the monumental stature of the pyramids themselves, suggesting the idea of huge power apparently concentrated solely on the person of the king, stands the will of an elite surrounding him. The prevailing economic system of the Old Kingdom was expressed in these buildings and the necropolises and pyramid towns attached to them. The striving for continued existence in the afterlife made provision for all members of the state community in this life and the next a necessity, and the king was at the center of this system of provision. He had power over the country, its inhabitants and its produce. He delegated that power to his officials, who in their turn were responsible for the people and property entrusted
to their care. In the form of so-called “endowments to the dead,” the
powers thus delegated made provision in the immaterial world for the
deceased official, and material provision for those to whom his funerary cult was entrusted. At the same time, all subjects had a part in the provision made by the royal funerary cult. Step by step, and parallel to the growing number of institutionalized cults in the country, such provision, at first limited to the capital, came to include the inhabitants of distant provinces. Extensive economic and religious developments lie behind the volume of building and the changes in the planning and location of the pyramid complexes of the Old Kingdom.
The Person of the Pharaoh in the Old Kingdom
The few available written sources for the early Old Kingdom do not
enable us to draw any conclusions about the individual characteristics
of the various kings. Later tradition portrayed some rulers, like Snefru, as good and others, like Cheops, as bad and cruel. These attributions need be taken no more seriously than similar evaluations in our own time. The queens were initially members of the royal house them- selves; only in the later Old Kingdom were wives taken from the class of officials. Some of them assumed the responsibility for rule, since they ensured the succession.
The Development of Internal Policy in the Old Kingdom
The concentration of officials around the king was connected with the
extension of the royal funerary complex. Provincial chieftains were
replaced by civil servants sent out from the capital and controlled by
it. Royal domains set up in the provinces — small economic units such as craft workshops, farming settlements, and fishing villages — delivered their products directly to the capital. The administrative regions were systematically organized. At the end of the Third Dynasty, under Pharaoh Huni, and the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under Snefru, the construction throughout the country of small cult pyramids, not divided into chambers, was connected with these new royal domains: this is how the cult presence of the ruler was transferred to the provinces. The first provincial temples were dedicated under Mycerinus, and an increasing number of royal endowments was made available to the sacred complexes there.
During the Fourth Dynasty the army was commanded by royal princes. They led quarrying expeditions and supervised garrisons posted in the south (Elephantine) and the east (Heliopolis, Bubastis, the “Gate of Imhotep” where the trade route to Palestine began). Initially, the viziers who dispensed justice at this period were also drawn from their ranks. The kings of the Fifth Dynasty, descended from a family living north of Giza, concentrated on building temples to the sun, and the volume of complexes devoted to the cult of the dead at Abusir was considerably reduced. These building complexes were now economically supported by the sun temples. Decentralization of the administration increased; even the viziers no longer had to be of princely rank. With Pharaoh Unas (ca. 2360 BC), a new family, perhaps from the Delta, came to power in unknown circumstances. The building of sun temples abruptly ceased, and the pyramid complex of Abusir was abandoned in favor of Saqqara. Now that the new god of the dead, Osiris, guaranteed religious transfiguration and provision for humanity, it was possible for an official to be interred outside the capital, in the provinces. Provincial administrative centres flourished. Abydos, the main center of the cult of Osiris, became the seat of the governor of Upper Egypt; the royal temple of Osiris—Khontamenti was fortified by royal decree.
Crucial reforms were carried out during the extremely long reign of Pepi II. The seat of the governor of Upper Egypt changed several times. Coptos, with its temple of Min, gained importance, and Thebes became the administrative center of the south. However, internal power struggles and murder at court (briefly placing one Nitocris, sister of Pepi II, on the throne in 2218 BC) destroyed the infrastructure of the country and its supply network. The rulers who succeeded each other in Memphis in a series of brief reigns faced chaos in Upper Egypt: the region was splintering into several small, warring principalities. It was only with difficulty that the rulers in Memphis succeeded in restoring an administrative system that was generally acceptable to all parties. Nonetheless, the Memphite rulers were soon replaced by princes from Herakleopolis at the point of entrance to the Faiyum.
The Development of Foreign Policy in the Old Kingdom
Egypt had no external threats to fear during the Old Kingdom. However; n was well aware of the activities of the princes of the Nubian and south Palestinian regions, and kept a close watch on them. The annual festival rite in which the pharaoh repeated the ritual conquest of his enemies from all four quarters of the earth was a metaphorical way of asserting the superiority of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley. Potential enemies were magically destroyed by the ritual smashing of clay figurines. The purpose of foreign relations was to secure the trade routes and the necessary imports of raw materials. The increase in the building activities of the kings led to greater exploitation of sources of raw materials both at home and abroad, for instance the quarrying of calcite alabaster in Central Egypt, graywacke in the eastern desert at Wadi Hammamat, and basalt at Gebel Qatrani north of Lake Qarun in the Faiyum.
At the beginning of the Old Kingdom, probably under Djoser, copper mining was resumed in Wadi Maghara in the Sinai. The mining of its byproduct, turquoise, at Serabit el-Khadim must have begun not long after this time. Military control of the bedouin of the Sinai was a prerequisite of the industry.
Traditionally, timber for building was brought to Egypt from the harbors of the Levant, particularly Byblos. The construction of the necessary transport ships is repeatedly mentioned in the Egyptian annals. Numerous Egyptian items inscribed with royal names and donated to the temple of the Near Eastern goddess Baalat at Bvblos,
linked here with the Egyptian goddess Hathor, indicate peaceful trade
relations with that city. Egyptian objects have also been found at the
trading center of Ebla (Tell Mardikh). Representations of stags and
bears in royal mortuary temples of the Fifth Dynasty suggest gifts from foreign countries. A delivery of incense from Punt, somewhere in present-day Somalia or Eritrea, is mentioned for the first time in the reign of Sahura (ca. 2490 BC). Military actions were also frequently undertaken to secure trade interests.
Toward the end of the Fifth Dynasty, tomb decoration begins to
show scenes depicting the conquest of Asiatic cities, seagoing vessels
with Asiatic crews, and nomads of emaciated appearance. It is difficult to imagine that actual events such as battles in southern Palestine lay behind these subjects. Under Pepi I, however, at the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty, an attempt was made to extend Egyptian control to that area. Egyptian armies conducted several campaigns against bedouin “sand dwellers,” and went as far as a mountain they called “Nose of the Gazelle,” probably Mount Carmel in Palestine.
There was a campaign on a smaller scale against Libyan tribes in
the reign of Snefru (ca. 2620 BC), in which 1,100 prisoners were taken. The trade routes in the south and in the western oasis were again threatened by armed Libyan raiders around 400 years later. As a result, an Egyptian “controller of oases” was specially stationed in Dakhla.
Also in Snefru’s reign, at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, the
records mention Egyptian campaigns in the south. Some 20,000 soldiers invaded Lower Nubia, stealing cattle and allegedly taking 17,000 prisoners in one campaign, and 7,000 more in another; the captives were put to work as laborers or auxiliary police. However, the large number of soldiers deployed casts light on the Egyptian plan to keep soldiers permanently stationed in the south and to build new fortresses, for instance at Buhen. This policy meant that the trade routes, the stone quarries and gold supplies from Wadi Allaqi in the eastern desert, and the quarries of hard stone in the west, could all be supervised.
Under Pharaoh Izezi (ca. 2405—2367 BC) there is evidence for the
first time of an expedition going even farther south. Bartered trade products such as skins, ivory, and incense — and a dancing dwarf for the royal residence — probably came from the land of Yam in the Dongola basin. Caravan leaders from Elephantine ventured on this dangerous journey through the desert with the aid of native bedouin, interpreters, and soldiers. The route that could be traveled by donkey was known as the Oasis Road. By way of Bahriya, Dakhla and the small oases of Kurkur, Selima, and Dungul, it led to the region south of the third cataract.
The princes of Lower Nubia, themselves threatened by bedouin
raids, basically supported Egyptian policy, and even supplied contingents of men for the campaigns in Asia at the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty. The threat to the trade routes increased only toward the end of the Sixth Dynasty. Under Pepi II, there was further fighting against intruders in Lower Nubia, and three expeditions to Yam were undertaken. A series of reports gives a clear idea of these eventful journeys. One expedition leader had to bring home to Elephantine the body of his father, who had died in southern Egypt, and the bedouin killed another expedition leader who was building ships by the Red Sea. As a result, trade with the interior of Africa soon ceased entirely.
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