The Culture of Ancient Egypt

John A. Wilson

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780226148229
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The story of Egypt is the story of history itself—the endless rise and fall, the life and death and life again of the eternal human effort to endure, enjoy, and understand the mystery of our universe. Emerging from the ancient mists of time, Egypt met the challenge of the mystery in a glorious evolution of religious, intellectual, and political institutions and for two millenniums flourished with all the vigor that the human heart can invest in a social and cultural order. Then Egypt began to crumble into the desert sands and the waters of the Nile, and her remarkable achievements in civilization became her lingering epitaph. John A. Wilson has written a rich and interpretive biography of one of the greatest cultural periods in human experience. He answers—as best the modern Egyptologist can—the questions inevitably asked concerning the dissolution of Egypt's glory. Here is scholarship in its finest form, concerned with the humanity that has preceded us, and finding in man's past grandeur and failure much meaning for men of today.

III

THE SEARCH FOR SECURITY AND ORDER

Dynasties 1–3 (about 3100–2700 B.C.)

What happened at the beginning of the First Dynasty? At a certain date we change from predynastic to dynastic, from prehistory to history, from the unrecorded prologue to a stage with the curtain up but the lights dimmed down to a minimum. Why did Egyptian historical tradition claim that a certain Menes united the Two Lands into a single nation and began the first of a series of dynasties? We can give certain answers based on our limited range of observations, but the essentials of the process must evade us. We can see much of what happened, but we cannot establish the driving forces which produced the nation.

To be sure, a single date for the beginning of a nation is always an arbitrary figure, selected from a number of different dates: that is, at this point we consider that the nation really became effective. There must have been a long process of preparation before that time, and there was probably a long process of consolidation and justification after that time. If we could establish our early Egyptian chronology with certainty and state that Menes held a ceremonial of “the Uniting of the Two Lands” on certain days in some specific year in the range of 3100 B.C., we should still have to face the problems of what went before and what came after that date.

What we do know is fragmentary and has little true significance. A ruling family of Upper Egypt came north, by conquest united the two parts of the land, set up a capital at Memphis near the junction of the Two Lands, and thus started the long series of dynasties, a series which lasted for about three thousand years. However, we do not know the antecedents of these conquerors from the south; we do not know whether Menes was an actual historical figure or only a later composition of legend; we do not know precisely what the word “conquest” means; we do not know whether the conquest was effected in a generation or two or lasted some centuries; and we do not know whether the role of Memphis was suddenly and immediately effective or whether it had long antecedents and later development. Above all, we lack the psychology of the process: was this a painful imposition of rule by force against long-drawn-out opposition or was Egypt ready and ripe for nationhood, with the only question one of internal competition for the rule?

We can only bring certain observations to play upon these questions. It seems that the first two dynasties were times of consolidation; for perhaps four hundred years after the founding of the First Dynasty, the culture of final predynastic times continued; then, in the Third and Fourth Dynasties, the new state was stable and secure enough to express itself in a distinctively new and “Egyptian” way. This change to new cultural expression appears to have come about with relative abruptness. The inference is that the new state could not at first address itself to matters of culture, such as architecture, art, and literature, while it was preoccupied with matters of government, such as the setting-up of force and bureaus and the securing of the acceptance of rule. This is a negative argument, but it can be bolstered with the positive observation that there are scattered records of fighting and an apparent rebellion within the First and Second Dynasties.¹ It would seem that the new state had to have plenty of time to discover and extend its powers.

Another problem, very difficult to state, is the role of the newly established king within this newly established state. In later times he was stated by the official dogma to be of other nature, a god reigning over humans. Was he so accepted from the beginnings? Probably not, for the conquest should have been more rapid if the conqueror had been widely accepted as a god. Did dogma from the beginning claim that he was a god, but did this claim gain slow acceptance because of competing claims? Or was the dogma of the divinity of the pharaoh a concept which the new state worked out over the early dynasties, in order to establish securely the new rule? In other words, did this new ruler find it necessary to promote himself from the role of the paramount mortal, whose authority might be challenged by other strong mortals, to the role of the god who could not be challenged?

This question is important because it deals with the central doctrine of the Egyptian state in all its aspects, the doctrine of the god-king. To understand that concept, we should like to know how, when, and why it came into being. It is false to assume that the divinity of the ruler belongs to a certain developmental stage of any culture. When we look at the comparable and contemporary cultures of Mesopotamia and Israel, we see that they looked upon their kings quite differently from the way the Egyptians did.² In those other cultures the king ruled for the gods but not as a god. In Egypt the pharaoh ruled as the god who was upon earth and among mortals. Can we understand why the Egyptians fixed upon this dogma? Can we discover when the dogma came into being?

We can give no firm and final answers to these questions. We can only pose certain hypotheses, which may or may not fit the case. The chief of these hypotheses goes back to the geographic nature of Egypt, at once isolated and divided. Egypt was the land which was cut off from major contacts and thus enjoyed a happy sense of security and special election. Her destiny was exceptional because divine providence had set her apart—distinctly apart—from her neighbors. The gods of the larger cosmos did not need to hover over her, cautiously deputizing a mortal to rule on their behalf but retaining to themselves the functional elements of power and control. No; they could go confidently about their cosmic business because one of their number, the pharaoh who was himself a god, carried the functions of power and control and resided in Egypt. The geographic security of the land, so different from Israel or Mesopotamia, gave the gods a sense of confidence about the land, so that rule could safely come down to earth de jure and need not be extended through a deputy on earth.

However, the geographic nature of Egypt provides a paradox, which may seem to vitiate both ends of our argument. Viewed in her external isolation, Egypt was a unity, a land apart. Viewed in her internal dualism, Egypt was a disunity, a land split apart. To the Egyptian, Egypt was at the same time “the land” and “the Two Lands.” Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were always distinctly conscious that they were different, one from the other. In any time of weakened rule they broke apart. What held them together was their common dependence upon the Nile and the accepted dogma that Egypt was ruled not by an Upper Egyptian nor by a Lower Egyptian but by a god, in whom could reside the essential forces of each part of the Two Lands. If Lower Egypt accepted this dogma, it could not object to being ruled by a being whose family seemed to have been resident in Upper Egypt but who was, by definition, not of a geographic region in this world but of the realm of the gods.

If this be true, it is probable that it took some time to secure nationwide acceptance of the dogma that this apparent human was not a mortal but was of other being. He proclaimed himself to be a Horus, a god of the distant spaces, of the sky, like a falcon. He proclaimed himself to be “the Two Ladies”; that is, his being incorporated the beings of the two goddesses who stood, respectively, for Upper and Lower Egypt. These two claims took him away from any part of the soil of Egypt and yet rooted him in both parts of Egypt. Ultimately, by the Fifth Dynasty, he would claim to be the divine son of the sun-god Re, the supreme god. How did such dogma secure acceptance?

To answer that question, we must make a distinction between the acceptance of the dogma as a theory of rule and the acceptance of the dogma as applying specifically to one conquering dynasty. We have argued above that the geography of Egypt supplied a propensity toward acceptance of divine kingship. An added argument would flow out of the psychology of the ancient Egyptian mind. Those people were neither mystics nor modern scientific rationalists. They were basically practical, eager to accept what worked in practice and to try several different approaches to attain an end. What was useful, effective, or advantageous was good. This does not mean that they were hardheaded, efficient, and categorical in a modern sense. Their reasoning never sought to penetrate to the essence of phenomena, and their easy-going pragmatism did not attempt to find the one single way; rather, different and disparate ways were acceptable if they gave some indication of practical effectiveness.³ Unlike their Asiatic neighbors, Babylonians and Hebrews, the Egyptians made little attempt to systematize a coherent scheme, with separate categories for distinct phenomena. Under a warmer sun the Egyptians blandly blended phenomena which might have been kept resolutely apart. They were lazily tolerant and catholic-minded. Ancient psychology gave animation to everything in the universe—sun, wind, water, tree, rock—and made no sharp boundaries among states of being—human and animal, living and dead, human and divine. Therefore, the Egyptian’s all-embracing catholicity saw no essential difference in substance in the several components of the universe. To him the various visible and tangible phenomena of his existence were only superficially or temporarily different, but essentially of one substance, blended into a great spectrum of overlapping colors without sharp margins.⁴ Since he felt no necessity for making clear-cut categories, it was easy for him to move comfortably from the human to the divine and to accept the dogma that this pharaoh, who lived among men as if of mortal flesh and blood, was actually a god, graciously residing upon earth in order to rule the land of Egypt. One may believe that the dogma of divine kingship was easy and natural for the Egyptian and thus may have had its roots deep in his prehistoric past.

However, it is a different question when we come to the application of the dogma to a new and conquering dynasty. When the First Dynasty came out of Upper Egypt and set up its claim to divine rule over all of Egypt, did that easygoing tolerance of the conquered territories promote immediate acceptance? Did they say to themselves: “This works; we’re a practical people; we accept these rulers as our divine kings”? We do not know the answer to this question. Was there any precedent for uniting the two parts of Egypt into a single nation? It has been claimed that there had been a predynastic union of the land, probably several centuries before the First Dynasty and followed by some centuries of disunion. Unfortunately, it is impossible to say whether that predynastic union was historical fact or later historical fiction. If it was fact, then there was a precedent for the union of Egypt by the rule of a god on earth, but the precedent had been broken by a long period of disunion. If the predynastic union was not fact, then the fiction of such a union must have been built up under the earliest dynasties to justify the dynastic union by a mythical prototype.

It has already been noted in this chapter that the first two dynasties appear to have been concerned with conquest and consolidation. We should therefore propose the working theory that the idea of divine kingship was native to Egypt and had long been present as a loosely formulated concept, that the first dynasties seized upon that concept to give sanction to their new rule, and that the dogma of the divine pharaoh as we know it was therefore worked out in detailed application and achieved formal acceptance under the earliest dynasties. It must be admitted that this cannot be proved, but it can stand as a theory until additional evidence may be adduced to prove or disprove it.

Before picking up the loose thread of historical narrative, we must wrestle with another concept which, like the divine kingship, gave-stability and authority to the new state. That concept lies in the Egyption word ma‘at variously translated as “truth,” “justice,” “righteousness,” “order,” and so on. Each of those translations may be apt in a certain context, but no one English word is always applicable. Ma‘at was a quality which belonged to good rule or administration, but it cannot be translated as “rule,” “government,” “administration,” or “law.” Ma‘at was the proper quality of such applied functions. Basically, ma‘at had some of the same flexibility as our English terms “right,” “just,” “true,” and “in order.” It was the cosmic force of harmony, order, stability, and security, coming down from the first creation as the organizing quality of created phenomena and reaffirmed at the accession of each god-king of Egypt. In the temple scenes the pharaoh exhibited ma‘at to the other gods every day, as the visible evidence that he was carrying out his divine function of rule on their behalf. Thus there was something of the unchanging, eternal, and cosmic about ma‘at. If we render it “order,” it was the order of created things, physical and spiritual, established at the beginning and valid for all time. If we render it “justice,” it was not simply justice in terms of legal administration; it was the just and proper relationship of cosmic phenomena, including the relationship of the rulers and the ruled. If we render it “truth,” we must remember that, to the ancient, things were true not because they were susceptible of testing and verification but because they were recognized as being in their true and proper places in the order created and maintained by the gods. Ma‘at, then, was a created and inherited rightness, which tradition built up into a concept of orderly stability, in order to confirm and consolidate the status quo, particularly the continuing rule of the pharaoh. The opposites of ma‘at were words which we translate as “lying,” “falsehood,” and “deceit.” That which was not consonant with the established and accepted order could be denied as being false. Ma‘at comes closest to the moral connotation of our word “good.”

To the human mind the future has fearful uncertainty, and passing time brings change, even decay. If man could arrest the flight of time, he would discharge some of his feeling of uncertainty and insecurity. It is possible to cut down on the ravages of time and the peril of the future by asserting the eternal and unchanging. If temporary and transitory phenomena can be related to the timeless and stable, doubts and fears can be reduced. The ancient did this by the process of myth-making, whereby the phenomena and activities of his little world were asserted to be momentary flashes of the everlasting, rocklike order of the gods. So this little pharaoh who sat upon the throne of Egypt was no transitory human but was the same “good god” that he had been from the Beginning and would be for all time. So the relationship of beings was not something which had to be worked out painfully in an evolution toward even better conditions but was magnificently free from change, experiment, or evolution, since it had been fully good from the Beginning and needed only to be reaffirmed in its unchanging rightness. Aspects of the divine kingship and of ma‘at might be subject to temporary misfortune or challenge, but the generalities of these two concepts came to be fundamental in acceptance because they gave timid man freedom from doubt through the operation of the immutable.

It is our theory that these two concepts had already been present in Egyptian consciousness before the dynasties, because they seem natural to Egypt and not artificial constructions, but that the early dynasties had the problem of articulating the concepts to that new nation which they were constructing. Until that specific application had been worked out in its many relationships and interpretations, the new nation was tentative and formative. When, finally, the application had become accepted as the eternal tradition of Egypt, the state was truly in being, and ancient Egypt ended her adolescence and entered upon her characteristic career of essential sameness for fifteen hundred years. We believe that the adolescence took up much of the energies of the new state for the first two dynasties, perhaps four centuries, and that it was not until the Third Dynasty that Egypt really became Egypt.

Thus we assume the process of the first two or three dynasties to have been highly centripetal, with the setting-up of a state with the pharaoh as its essential nucleus. He, as a god, was the state. To be sure, it was necessary for him to have officials of a government which had spread and which would become increasingly elaborated, but our evidence indicates that they were his officers, appointed by him, responsible to him alone, and holding office subject to his divine pleasure. To be sure, it was necessary for a new state to have rules and regulations for administrative procedure and precedent, but our negative evidence suggests that there was no codification of law, impersonally conceived and referable by magistrates without consideration of the crown. Rather, the customary law of the land was conceived to be the word of the pharaoh, articulated by him in conformance with the concept of ma‘at and ever subject to his divine pleasure, within his interpretation of ma‘at and of his function as a god. These suggestions derive from observations of later times and from our theory that the construction of the state was achieved in these earliest dynasties, to be valid for all later times. In later times there was visible no impersonal and continuing body of law, like one of the Mesopotamian codes, until we come down into Persian and Greek days; the centralization of the state in the person of the king apparently forbade such impersonal law. The authority of codified law would have competed with the personal authority of the pharaoh. We theorize that magistrates operated under customs and practices as locally known to them, all conceived to be the expression of royal will and immediately changeable by royal whim. The only qualification to such rigidly personalized and centralized government was the concept of ma‘at, that which was right and true and in conformance with divine order; but, since the king was himself a god, he was the earthly interpreter of ma‘at and—in theory, at least—was subject to the control of ma‘at only within the limits of his conscience, if a god needs to have a conscience.

These forms and this philosophy of rule are invisible to us in the earliest dynasties. It is the analogy of visible forms which leads us to suggest that the invisible forms were being worked out at this time. Physically, the culture of the first three dynasties is shown in architecture, sculpture, minor arts, and a small amount of writing. Such forms show the first two dynasties to have been a continuation of the physical culture of the final predynastic period, particularly as affected by the sti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Series Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Frontispiece
• Epigraph
• Introduction
• I. The Black Land: Geographic Factors of Egypt
• II. Out of the Mud: The Long Prehistoric Struggle
• III. The Search for Security and Order: Dynasties 1–3 (about 3100–2700 B.C.)
• IV. The King and God: Dynasties 4–6 (about 2700-2200 B.C.)
• V. The First Illness: Dynasties 7–11 (about 2200–2050 B.C.)
• VI. The King as the Good Shepherd: Dynasties 11–12 (about 2050–1800 B.C.)
• VII. The Great Humiliation: Dynasties 13–17 (about 1800–1550 B.C.)
• VIII. Far Frontiers: Earlier Dynasty 18 (about 1550–1375 B.C.)
• IX. Irrepressible Conflict: Later Dynasty 18 (about 1375–1325 B.C.)
• X. Where is the Glory? Dynasties 18–20 (about 1325–1100 B.C.)
• XI. The Broken Reed: Late Empire and Post-Empire (1350 B.C. and After)
• Notes
• Chronology
• A Note on Translations
• Abbreviations
• List of Illustrations
• Index