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ROLE OF PHAROAH IN ANCIENT EGYPT.

Hitory & development of dual role as God as as divine Ruler.

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PHAROAH AS GOD, PHAROAH AS RULER
The Dual Role of Kingship in Ancient Egypt

Illusions of Immobility
The popular image of ancient Egypt is of a civilization that persisted nearly without change, in culture, religion, or the role of the king, in the nearly three thousand years of its existence. The modern tourist, or viewer of illustrations in coffee-table books, can view inscriptions and art from the time of the Pyramids, c. 2680 BCE, or from the time of Rameses II, c. 1200 BCE, and see no obvious sign of change or development. This static perception of ancient Egypt is, however, a superficial one.
It is created in part by the very strong and distinctive Egyptian artistic

Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1995.----------------------- 22 57). The modern popular image ofAkhenaten is thus of a man far ahead of his time and society, even perhapsinfluenced by or influencing in some way the development of monotheism inancient Israel (something for which there is no evidence). Kingswere called on not simply to govern at home and repel the occasional desertraid, but to lead armies far from the Nile Valley and conduct great-powerdiplomacy with the other kingdoms and empires of the late Bronze Age. Moreover, the SecondIntermediate Period, separating the Middle and New Kingdoms, had beenmarked by the Hyksos invasion and foreign rule; the spread of civilization,and of charioteering warfare, brought Egypt into contact with the outerworld in a far more direct and forceful way than in previous times. Recorded Egyptian historybegins, if sketchily, c. The sun is a natural, almost inevitable symbol of overwhelming powerand grandeur. However, the sun -- the ultimate creator -- was evidently afusion of numerous different divine attributes" (Grimal, p. In the long history of ancient Egyptthey were more an accident than a stifled alternative possibility forgrowth.Compromise, Improvisation, and Success In the long view, the most remarkable feature of the Egyptian systemof divine kingship is that it worked so well, over a period close to threethousand years. (Kings were given severalnames, the forms varying by period.) He is the first known king, at thehead of the First Dynasty which traditionally unified Upper and LowerEgypt, i.e., the Nile Valley and the Delta. The pattern did not take hold, however. This static perception of ancient Egypt is, however, asuperficial one. New York: Routledge, 1989.Spencer, A.J. The precise theology behind these early funerary monuments cannot befully recovered, but the picture becomes clearer in the mature period ofthe Old Kingdom, when the kings took on a special identification with thesun god, Ra. 48-62.) The Early Dynastic period develops into the Old Kingdom, startingwith the Fourth Dynasty, around 2686 BCE. TheEgyptian kingship is remote and alien to our sensibilities, but it passedthe basic practical test of effectiveness. Nicholas Grimal calls Rameses II "undoubtedly the best-known pharoah inEgyptian history" (p. Such conditions could easily have led to the institutionalization ofdivided formal and actual rule. The great temple at Karnak, or the funerary temple of QueenHatshepsut, are nearly as familiar in our image of ancient Egypt. A Japanese emperor, upon his death, is regarded as a god, and givena new, divine name; thus the long-reigning 2 th century emperor known inhis lifetime as Hirohito is now the Emperor Showa. A development of this sort would have been very plausible in ancientEgypt. 2686-1 85BCE, a period then of some twenty-six centuries. Moreover, the Egyptian tradition was genuinely conservative;that is, it tended to respect and build on the past rather than breakingwith it. 51). (The term isborrowed from much later Islamic practice; the Egyptian name for thisoffice was tjati; James, Pharoah's People, pp. 62). 21). The history of the kings became neither one of ephemeral tyrants livingunder a permanent fear of violent overthrow, nor of secluded kings reigningisolated from furious civil wars around them, as in pre-Shogunate Japan.From the reworking of traditional forms the royal system adapted from theRa kings of the Old Kingdom to the Amun-Ra kings of the New Kingdom. 25 ), which would be deserved but is almost surelynot so. (The real process ofunification may have been more complex, but cannot be fully recovered; seeSpencer, pp. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization. When it came to the direct worship of the sun by hymns and the presentation of food-offerings, the air of mystery that is needed to cloak a somewhat artificial act was difficult to sustain (Kemp, pp. Activepersonal leadership was as much a part of the king's role as was hisstanding as a god. If the king was a god, and his earthly reign in some sense only apreparation for his divine place in the succession of god-kings socarefully recorded on monuments, it might be natural for the king to begradually separated from the messy business of government. The biblical story of Exodus gave "Pharoah" a poorimage in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is the most visible and obvious of sources of superhuman power. Nefertiti's image may have been as idealized to ancient Egyptians asit seems to us, but the nearly grotesque image of the king himself ispeculiar; one might have expected an idealization of himself as theembodiment of Aten, whatever his actual appearance. But it may be futileto seek consistency in this portraiture, or indeed in Akhenaten's reformsas a whole; we may simply be dealing with the expressions of a royaleccentric. Eventually, however, he came to power -- whether onhis stepmother's death or by overthrowing her is not clear -- and went onto become one of Egypt's great warrior kings (Grimal, pp. For the kings, their reigns were in someimportant sense only a temporary prelude to their permanent role as gods. The modern reputation of the Egyptian kings is not, to be sure,particularly favorable. More recently, however, it has been concludedthat the text was indeed a late one, perhaps of Shakaba's own time (Kemp,p. Had the kings so wished, their engineers and artists couldcertainly have built monumental palaces to match any ever built anywhere atany time. The scribes' skill at imitating language already ancient in theirown time was thus so great that modern experts were long fooled by it. 232) -- at the costof disrupting economic arrangements, requiring considerable effort in thefollowing reigns to restore normalcy. 47).However, there is a suggestion that the replacement of the early mastabatomb, or even step-pyramid, with a true pyramid indicated the growth ofsolar identification, in which case the key conceptual change took place inthe Fourth Dynasty, even if not fully verbalized till somewhat later."Gone is the raw power of a supreme territorial ruler. The bad repute of Khufu (whetheror not deserved) was passed down to Herodotus, and thence -- through acomparable period -- to Hollywood, which has made the most of pyramidsbuilt by slaves toiling under the lash. 2 7ff). The lattermight, in the extreme case, lead to assassination or overthrow -- ashappened a number of times in Egypt's long history. Facedwith changed circumstances, the traditional account was not rejected butmodified -- and the scribes carefully made the modification itself seemancient. If the dual role of an Egyptianking, as god and as actual ruler, carried an inherent tension, Akhenatenseemed bent on resolving it in favor of the divine role, not bydeliberately ceding administrative power to others but by simply ignoringthe complicated business of actual government. Thegod-kings struck an effective balance between their human and divine roles. So strong was this preference for continuity that even usurpers whocame to power by force gave honors due to their predecessors, as the kingsof the 12th dynasty did to those of the 11th, which they had overthrown(Kemp, p. Eventually, however, the Hyksos weredriven out; about 1567 strong central government was restored under Amosis,founder of the 18th Dynasty. After it came aperiod in which Egypt failed to respond effectively to changedcircumstances and thus was able to exercise its potential strength or even,in the end, retain its independence as a culture. Such temporary separation of symbolic from actual authority does not,however, necessarily lead to institutionalization of a powerless ceremonialruler. In the case of Britain, the shiftbegan in reaction to the Stuart kings' attempt to rule with an absolutismcontrary to older tradition; in other cases it may have begun with a weakking who allowed effective power to slip into other hands. An Introduction to Ancient Egypt. The power of this artistic tradition is so great that it haspassed into modern cliche; a contemporary graphic designer can adoptEgyptian themes and be sure that they will be instantly recognizable assuch. Such is the situation in modern Britain and (even more so)Japan. After that time royal and overall Egyptian power declined and werenever fully restored before the conquest and Hellenization of Egypt underAlexander and his successors from 332 BCE. Our knowledge of the Old Kingdom is relativelysketchy -- at least the sort of knowledge that comes from written sources.The Pyramids could not speak more clearly of their builders' power, ortheir overriding concern with their eternal, post-mortal selves, but weknow little about the personalities who built them. Very late in Egyptian history, when Egypt was ruled by theMacedonian Greek Ptolemies, a scholar-priest named Manetho wrote a historyof Egypt for the new rulers. In factthe identification of other gods with the sun was a well-established NewKingdom pattern, as in the case of Amun-Ra. In Egypt, the kings were firmly supremeover the priests, but it was the king's divine role that was given pride ofplace in monumental expression.Ritual Kingship: A Path Not Taken Rulers in almost all societies take on a formal and symbolic role, inaddition to the practical business of government and the actual exercise ofpower. But likewise they were not the monumentalarchitectural medium by which the kings chose to express and display theirpower: for that the kings built structures to serve them not during theirearthly lives, but for eternity. Yetpalaces are curiously lacking in our familiar image of ancient Egypt.Everyone instantly recognizes the Pyramids, and associates them withpharoahs. Yet: Having the sun as a supreme deity creates a difficulty. 228). Thus, Mesopotamian cities such as Babylon had bothmonumental temples (the zigguruts) and imposing palaces, and the two werein a sense rivals to one another. Internally, Egyptian society wasmore complex in its articulation, with quasi-autonomous foundations such astemple complexes playing a growing role. The Hyksos rulers seem to have generallyadopted Egyptian practices, and it was perhaps only in retrospect thattheir alienness was emphasized. What is clear is that, overall, the norm in Egypt from the earlydynasties through the end of the New Kingdom was and remained that thekings actually ruled. Our records from this period are tooscanty to reconstruct just what was happening, but the implication is thatAnkhu and the other vizers of the time were making and unmaking kings atwill. Architecture conveyedthis fundamental reappraisal to the greatest possible effect (Kemp, p. Allof these developments compelled a redefinition of the king in his divinerole. The funerary structuresbuilt by these early kings were not for use only after death; they werealso used for important public ceremonies during the king's reign. Three thousand years after the end of the New Kingdom, the pharoahsare still an enduring symbol of royalty at its grandest and most powerful.This too is in part a gift of nature; the arid environment has preservedmuch that elsewhere would have been lost. In fact, it is difficult to say what Akhenaten's intentions were inhis religious reforms, nor how they related to the striking artisticdevelopments of his reign. The chronological structure he used, framingEgyptian history as a succession of dynasties, was so effective that itstill provides the basic framework used by modern Egyptologists; referringto the such-and-such numbered Dynasty remains entirely standard practice. Given the power and grandeur of theEgyptian kings, this is both remarkable and indicative. One is its sheer exceptionalism: the unusualalways attracts attention, especially when set in a society conventionallyviewed as unchanging. All these developments required a conception of the divine kingship,that is, an ideology, that was richer and suppler than the simple solaridentification with Ra, handed down from the Old Kingdom. These gifts alone were not enough, however; they had to beefficiently used, and on the whole the Egyptians and their kings did so.The royal tradition was strong enough to survive numerous briefinterruptions and the two major interruptions of the Intermediate Periods. Some factors in the durability of ancient Egyptian societywere the gifts of nature: The Nile sustained the fertility of the land, andprovided a channel of communication for the long, narrow strip ofcultivable land along its valley, while surrounding deserts and seaprovided a barrier (though not an unsurmountable one) against most hostileneighbors. In his statues, "their bloated stomachs might even be interpreted interms of bodily fluids inflating the decomposed corpse of Osiris" (Grimal,p. A third is the tomb and mummy of Akhenaten's successor, Tutankhaten(or Tutankhamen) are the only Egyptian royal tomb and remains to haveescaped despoliation to fall intact into the hands of modern Egyptologists. The latter was still a child atthe death of his father, Thuthmose II. Often, indeed, these symbolic and practical roles are dividedbetween two different people: a monarch who reigns but does not rule, and asupreme official who actually governs. The effect was to reduce or eliminate centers of functionalautonomy and thus increase centralization (Grimal, p. Theinscription on the Shakaba Stone demonstrates this in its content as wellas its language. 197-98). No epic narrative of events spanned past generations, no greattheme or tale of destiny urged a moral on the living. A religion which has hymns, prayers, and offerings assumes a human-like capacity on the part of the deity to receive them... New York: Farrar Straus Giraux, 1979.________. 12 BCE, and see no obvious sign of change ordevelopment. 31 BCE with a king variously called Menes,Narmer, or Aha; all probably the same person. PHAROAH AS GOD, PHAROAH AS RULER The Dual Role of Kingship in Ancient EgyptIllusions of Immobility The popular image of ancient Egypt is of a civilization thatpersisted nearly without change, in culture, religion, or the role of theking, in the nearly three thousand years of its existence. It was,nevertheless, a different society from the one which had seen the buildingof the pyramids" (Kemp, p. 2 ). 233). Moreover, the palaces of the kings must have been sufficientlyimpressive in their own time that it is the word for "palace," not the wordfor "king," that was picked up by the Greeks to become our word pharoah.(This need not have been a mistake on the Greeks' part, but may havereflected popular usage at the time the first Greeks reached Egypt, just aswe often say "the White House" when speaking of the President.) In fact, the kings had a good many palaces, scattered through Egypt,ranging from "mooring palaces" used as overnight rest stops on journeys tothe much larger structures that served as primary royal residences (Kemp,p. Separation of the king from actual governance might further have beenencouraged by the conditions of Egypt in the Old and Middle Kingdoms.Egypt then stood alone in its world; while in contact with Mesopotamia andother regions, it had no neighbors of comparable wealth and power who couldthreaten it. 2181, in the Sixth Dynasty, at which time effective royal powerdeclined and Egypt fragmented into local principalities; this period ofdisunity, the First Intermediate Period, persisted till c. It wasfar too small to have been the actual residential palace, and was dwarfedby the main funerary monument at the other end of the enclosure, which wasgradually developing to the form and dimensions of a pyramid. The solutionfound by New Kingdom thinkers was to elevate the importance of a moreanthropomorphic, human god, Amun. The absence of monumental palaces is obviously not due to practicallimitations. A similar arrangement, of much longer duration, is foundin Japan; for over a thousand years the emperors have been ceremonialrulers, excluded from power, which was exercised in premodern times byshoguns and in contemporary Japan by an elected government. Moreover, early royal palaces were "probably the mud-brickprototypes for the funerary architecture of the time" (Grimal, p. No general rule can be given for when such a system of dividedsymbolic and actual rule will develop. When exactly this took place is not certain. But the New Kingdom was also a morearticulated society than its predecessors, too complex to be fully governedby a single bureaucracy centered on the king. Theconstruction of a new capital at Amarna (Akhetaten, "Horizon of the sun-disk," as Akhenaten called it) would then have been also a return tosimplicity and first principles, sweeping aside all the accretions ofexisting royal cities like Thebes and Memphis in favor of a restoration ofsimplicity and clarity. A particularly striking demonstration of this relative significanceis provided by the funerary monuments of the early dynasties, prior to thegreat pyramid-builders of the Fourth Dynasty. The antonymy of such foundationswas of a different sort than the quasi-autonomous role of nomarchs in theOld Kingdom (especially its later period); the nomarchs' base of power hadbeen geographical and local, whereas that of the newer foundations wasfunctional. 27). "Outwardly the style of the New Kingdom wasstill firmly in the tradition created in the earlier periods. Such was the case in early medieval France. Modern historians have added a broader schema that outlines theoverall ups and downs of Egyptian history. What applies to physical productions such as art and inscriptionsapplies as well to more intangible things such as institutions and beliefs:The ancient Egyptian method of innovation was typically to recraft oldforms to meet new needs rather than to create entirely novel forms. The long-term persistence and ultimate institutionalism of dividedformal and effective rule may, however, be encouraged when the formal ruler-- however powerless -- is an object of such reverence that he cannot besimply removed. (In fact they were built by corveelabor, probably accepted as an unwelcome but not intolerable fact of life.) Yet Egypt seems on the whole to have been as well-governed as anyancient society, or most societies of any period; the evidence, which isconsiderable, points on the whole to a prosperous, peaceful society. 184).The King as God Kings we expect to find, at least in their lifetime, in palaces. 54). since this concentration on Ra does not preclude anyother god. 218). Again royal power declined, followed by an invasion of peoples fromthe east, the charioteering Hyksos or "shepherd kings." This era is theSecond Intermediate Period. The final -- and probably the greatest -- reason why the abortivereligious reforms of Akhenaten draw such attention is that they arepopularly viewed as an early instance of monotheism, and thus stand out toour society with its monotheistic heritage. Nevertheless, Egyptians, at least of the well-educatedscribal class, knew that their actual history was not one of perfectcontinuity. Certainly nothing of it had any lasting impact on Egypt, whichafter his death quickly reverted to the mainstream of its New Kingdomdevelopment. ReferencesGrimal, Nicolas. It is the ultimate source of all light, warmth, and life; atthe same time it is too blindingly brilliant to look upon directly, and --in a warm country like Egypt -- its direct heat in summer can mean death.It is thus an apt symbol of royal power, both beneficent and terrible, andhas been often so used (e.g., Louis XIV, the Sun King). In fact, the beginning of such a trend can perhaps be seen in thelast period of the Middle Kingdom. Theceremonies took place in the open air, in a sacred enclosure, but as theking needed a place to rest and prepare, a little structure now called a"token palace" was included in the overall design (Kemp, p. These kingsalso claimed a divine association, but not normally as gods themselves.They had also to deal with a priesthood that was in some measureindependent of them. Occasions for command decisions ormanagement of grave crises were relatively rare. But again the Egyptians made themost of their advantages; building in stone they built for the ages, wherethe zigguruts of Babylon have been worn down to shapeless mounds. Akhenaten intended his rule to be as absolute as that of any Egyptianking; notably he closed, or restricted the scope, of existing temple-foundations. Ian Shaw, trans.Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1992.James, T.G.H. 3 -31). Our understanding of how Egyptian kingship functioned differs widelythough this long period. Pharoah's People: Scenes From Life in Imperial Egypt.London: The Bodley Head, 1984.Kemp, Barry J. The discussion of the interaction of divine and human attributes ofEgyptian kings, which makes up the remainder of this essay, concentrates onthe period spanning the Old Kingdom through the New Kingdom, c. The following era, which saw the greatestexpansion of Egyptian power, is the New Kingdom, which lasted until c. According to Kemp, "An appeal to antiquity, and sometimes acloaking in antique forms, made new ideas or new interpretations of oldideas, more acceptable" (p. Portrayals ofthe king himself "amount to a list of distortions: long forward-leaningneck, pendulous jaws, narrowed eyes, and swollen belly and hips" (Kemp, p.264). Individual kings might be weak, or children, andleave effective power to be wielded by others, but the expectation ofpersonal rule remained the norm, and it took only a vigorous king torestore the norm.The King as Ruler The famous episode of Queen Hatshepsut and Thuthmose III in the 18thDynasty demonstrates this norm at work. 199). The moderntourist, or viewer of illustrations in coffee-table books, can viewinscriptions and art from the time of the Pyramids, c. The dominant feature of his religious systemwas its emphasis on the visible disk of the sun, in Egyptian the Aten.However, modern experts caution against reading monotheism, as weunderstand it, into this development: "It is certainly excessive to speakof monotheism ... Here,expressed in stone, was the relative relationship between the king'searthly human life and his eternal divine life. A familiar modern example of thisdual system is Great Britain; the Queen has an almost purely ceremonialrole as chief of state, while the decision-making head of government is thePrime Minister. 26). A more complex and sophisticatedsociety made the task of rulership more complicated. He might be rivaled by Khufu, or Cheops, builder of the GreatPyramid, but both are surely surpassed by Tutankhamen, who but for thediscovery of his tomb might be among most obscure of kings, but as "KingTut" is familiar today to millions of people who know almost nothing elseabout ancient Egypt. The reliable flood of the Nile provided its material needsunder almost all circumstances. A second is that Akhenaten, as part of his reform,founded a new capital, which in turn was abandoned in the subsequentreaction, to be lost under the sands and preserved relatively intact fordiscovery in modern times. New centers of powers arose,functional rather than territorial, and the external world also createdmuch more complex demands. Detecting the evolution of Egyptianthought is thus a matter of identifying subtle changes, and determining whythese subtleties were introduced.An Outline of Development The ancient Egyptians had a good grasp of their own history; royalinscriptions of the later periods list up to three hundred kings, from thefirst known one to the current one, often in correct chronological order.How this past was viewed, however, was shaped by the Egyptian preferencefor continuity and stability. In this respect,Atenism could be seen not as revolutionary but as reactionary -- a returnto first principles, such as (at least in Akhenaten's imagination) mighthave prevailed in the Ra-centered kingly cult of the Old Kingdom. 268 BCE, or fromthe time of Rameses II, c. This last era is called simplythe Late Dynastic Period. A more "natural" alternative is a palace revolution or usurpation,brushing aside the powerless symbolic ruler. It is created in part by the very strong and distinctive Egyptianartistic tradition, which did indeed persist throughout ancient Egyptianhistory. TheMerovingian monarchs became purely symbolic figures, with real powershifting to the "mayors of the palace." In due course the monarch wasdispatched to a monastery and the ruling "mayor" assumed the royal title,founding the Carolingian dynasty. Egyptian art had gradually expanded from the severe conventions ofthe Old Kingdom to incorporate elements of naturalism, but "Amarna period"art goes beyond naturalism itself to verge on caricature. In the 13th Dynastywe find a succession of kings that appear and vanish in short order, whilethe vizers hold office for a much longer period under a succession ofkings. Thuthmose II's queen, Hatshepsut,ruled briefly as regent in her stepson's name; then she proclaimed herselfking in her own right, even adopting a false beard, and ruled as such forover two decades. The Middle Kingdom was far more formallycentralized and bureaucratic; the quasi-autonomy of the nomarchs wascurtailed and the office itself possibly abolished (James, Pharoah'sPeople, p. Faced with new requirements or desires, the Egyptian response wasto re-interpret traditional motifs in a new way rather than to createentirely new ones. Toolittle can be determined about the apparent period of rule by vizers to saywhether it contributed to the subsequent decline, much less as to whetherEgyptians of the following generations saw rule by vizers as a cause ofdecline. Moreover, Egyptians knew and understood their pastwell, and when they so wished could imitate it remarkably well. To borrow a familiar and particularly apt symbolism, Egyptiansociety of the New Kingdom was less simply pyramidal than had been that ofthe Old or Middle Kingdoms. Producedfor King Shakaba of the 25th Dynasty, around 7 BC, it is written inarchaic language, and modern scholars long assumed that it was areproduction of a much older original, dating as far back as the ThirdDynasty, 2 years earlier. Butphotographs of palace ruins will not be found in coffee-table books, andindeed the word "palace" does not so much as appear in the index of most ofthe works cited in this discussion. One vizer, Ankhu, served as many as five kings in succession(James, Pharoah's People, p. 1 85BCE. Indeed, this can happen evenafter a succession of such rulers showed the beginnings of aninstitutionalization. Yet its very visibility and fixed shape makes it more difficult to comprehend in personalized terms. Early Egypt: The Rise of Civilization in the NileValley. The Old Kingdom lasteduntil c. A ceremonial rulercould glide serenely through such temporal turmoil, quietly awaiting histime to enter eternity. His monuments were effaced or defaced; in the case of Amarnaabandoned outright, actions that speak less of suppressing a revolutionthan of erasing an embarrassment. Nevertheless, with royal decline and Hyksos invasion poweragain passed into the hands of local notables. Each case may have developedinitially from particular circumstances. The title "Sonof Ra" only became standard in the Fifth Dynasty, though it had been usedby some kings in the Fourth Dynasty (James, Ancient Egypt, p. A tinge of sanctitystill adheres to the British monarch as well; the coronation is a form ofchurch service. The divinity of Egyptian kings, as expressed by the primacy given tofunerary monuments as against palaces, may be contrasted to the situationof Bronze Age kings in Mesopotamia and neighboring regions. Nor can it be because the kings lacked the taste for "livinglike kings." The quality of their funerary furnishings surely attests towhat surrounded them in life, as do the scenes of royal life painted intombs. At the same time, as noted earlier, thegrowing complexity of international relations thrust the kings into a newdiplomatic and military role as Great Kings in the broader Middle East,dealing with other Great Kings in Hatti, Mesopotamia, and elsewhere. 2 5 BCE. A History of Ancient Egypt. 52-53). Instead, central authoritydeclined altogether, leading to the Second Intermediate Period and theHyksos invasion. Before it lay anevolutionary period about which relatively little is known, though it musthave shaped the main outlines of later developments. 198). All of these conditions,combined with the role of the king as god, might well have favored thegradual separation of the king from the routine business of government, andhis transformation into the equivalent of a Japanese emperor. Young Thuthmose III was effectively pushed aside, thoughnot formally deposed. Looking at Egyptian works of different periods, what is consistentamong them jumps out at us, while we miss the subtler variations anddevelopments. Khufu (in olderpopular works Cheops), builder of the Great Pyramid, had a bad reputationin much later times, but we do not know if it was handed down from his ownage or inferred from the sheer excess of the Great Pyramid itself. The past was amodel of order, a continuous and almost exclusively peacefulsuccession of reigns of previous kings, each one handing the throne on tohis successor in a single, direct linear sequence (Kemp, p. Indeed, this was even more the case in the New Kingdom (18th and 19thdynasties) than it had been previously. It may be that the vizers were not able in the long runto wield effective authority in the name of transient, invisible kings, butthis can only be put forth as a speculative if plausible scenario. (Ancient Egyptian chronology issubject to many disputes on detail, but is broadly agreed upon in outline.) The Fourth Dynasty kings were the pyramid builders, an activity thatdisplayed both great power and a distinct ideology. Amun's early history is relativelyobscure, but he was traditionally associated with Thebes, the capital ofthe kings of the 18th Dynasty (Kemp, p. In characteristic Egyptianfashion, the rise of Amun did not mean that he supplanted the sun, Ra, inthe royal cult; instead the two were assimilated as Amun-Ra.Akhenaten: Revolution or Reaction? One possible way to interpret Atenism is as an attempt to achieveconceptual simplicity: "Akhenaten's originality lay in his perception ofthe simplicity of solar religion, and thus the irrelevance of much of thetraditional theological language-game" (Kemp, 263). An entirely contrasting impression is given by the famous bust ofhis queen, Nefertiti, which conveys a startlingly contemporary image ofglamour to 2 th century sensibilities. 57).Palaces were not insignificant. Unitywas restored under the 11th Dynasty, beginning a period called the MiddleKingdom which lasted through the 12th Dynasty, until about 1786 BCE. From Old Kingdom times the kings had achief advisor and officer, now commonly called the vizer. A difficulty with this interpretation of Akhenaten's religious systemis explaining how it relates to the remarkable artistic development of hisreign. The inscription retells the very old myth of the unification of Upperand Lower Egypt, as symbolized by the gods Horus and Seth. In general, however, the Old Kingdom seems to have been characterizedby direct personal rule, exercised through the king's relatives and otherclose associates, with little central administrative structure; thus(though we cannot recover details) power seems to have slipped away tohereditary local sub-rulers, the nomarchs, leading to royal decline and theFirst Intermediate Period. The problems inherent in a "sun king" became more difficult in themore complex society of the New Kingdom. A strikinginstance is given by an inscription known as the Shakaba Stone. The role andstatus of the gods, however, is subtly changed from earlier versions of themyth, Seth being made more clearly subordinate (Kemp, p. Perhaps nothing in the history and development of Egyptian religionis more familiar today than one of its shortest-lived and uncharacteristicepisodes, the sweeping religious reformation undertaken by Amenophis IV,much better known as Akhenaten, in the latter days of 18th Dynasty.Several factors have contributed to the prominence of this transitorymovement in Egyptian history. With the restoration of royal power in the New Kingdom, the power ofthese notables was again reduced, and a more sophisticated administrationput in place (Grimal, p. The king is nowsubliminated into a manifestation of the sun-god.

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