Did we but know the details of the internal history of Egypt, it would appear to us as stormy and as bloody as that of other Oriental empires: intrigues of the harem, conspiracies in the palace, murders of heirs-apparent, divisions and rebellions in the royal family, were the almost inevitable accompaniment of every accession to the Egyptian throne.
The earliest dynasties had their origin in the “White Wall,” but the Pharaohs hardly ever made this town their residence, and it would be incorrect to say that they considered it as their capital; each king chose for himself in the Memphite or Letopolite nome, between the entrance to the Fayûni and the apex of the Delta, a special residence, where he dwelt with his court, and from whence he governed Egypt. Such a multitude as formed his court needed not an ordinary palace, but an entire city. A brick wall, surmounted by battlements, formed a square or rectangular enclosure around it, and was of sufficient thickness and height not only to defy a popular insurrection or the surprises of marauding Bedouin, but to resist for a long time a regular siege. At the extreme end of one of its façades, was a single tall and narrow opening, closed by a wooden door supported on bronze hinges, and surmounted with a row of pointed metal ornaments; this opened into a long narrow passage between the external wall and a partition wall of equal strength; at the end of the passage in the angle was a second door, sometimes leading into a second passage, but more often opening into a large courtyard, where the dwelling-houses were somewhat crowded together: assailants ran the risk of being annihilated in the passage before reaching the centre of the place.* The royal residence could be immediately distinguished by the projecting balconies on its façade, from which, as from a tribune, Pharaoh could watch the evolutions of his guard, the stately approach of foreign envoys, Egyptian nobles seeking audience, or such officials as he desired to reward for their services. They advanced from the far end of the court, stopped before the balcony, and after prostrating themselves stood up, bowed their heads, wrung and twisted their hands, now quickly, now slowly, in a rhythmical manner, and rendered worship to their master, chanting his praises, before receiving the necklaces and jewels of gold which he presented to them by his chamberlains, or which he himself deigned to fling to them.**
* No plan or exact drawing of any of the palaces of the
Ancient Empire has come down to us, but, as Erman has very
justly pointed out, the signs found in contemporary
inscriptions give us a good general idea of them. The doors
which lead from one of the hours of the night to another, in
the “Book of the Other World,” show us the double passage
leading to the courtyard. The hieroglyph [—] gives us the
name Ûôskhît (literally, the broad [place]) of the
courtyard on to which the passage opened, at the end of
which the palace and royal judgment-seat (or, in the other
world, the tribunal of Osiris, the court of the double
truth) were situated.
** The ceremonial of these receptions is not represented on
any monuments with which we are at present acquainted, prior
to the XVIIIth dynasty.
It is difficult for us to catch a glimpse of the detail of the internal arrangements: we find, however, mention made of large halls “resembling the hall of Atûmû in the heavens,” whither the king repaired to deal with state affairs in council, to dispense justice and sometimes also to preside at state banquets. Long rows of tall columns, carved out of rare woods and painted with bright colours, supported the roofs of these chambers, which were entered by doors inlaid with gold and silver, and incrusted with malachite or lapis-lazuli.*
* This is the description of the palace of Amon built by
Ramses III. Ramses II. was seated in one of these halls, on
a throne of gold, when he deliberated with his councillors
in regard to the construction of a cistern in the desert for
the miners who were going to the gold-mines of Akiti. The
room in which the king stopped, after leaving his
apartments, for the purpose of putting on his ceremonial
dress and receiving the homage of his ministers, appears to
me to have been called during the Ancient Empire “Pi-dait”
—“The House of Adoration,” the house in which the king was
worshipped, as in temples of the Ptolemaic epoch, was that
in which the statue of the god, on leaving the sanctuary,
was dressed and worshipped by the faithful. Sinûhît, under
the XIIth dynasty, was granted an audience in the “Hall of
Electrum.”
The private apartments, the “âkhonûiti,” were entirely separate, but they communicated with the queen’s dwelling and with the harem of the wives of inferior rank. The “royal children” occupied a quarter to themselves, under the care of their tutors; they had their own houses and a train of servants proportionate to their rank, age, and the fortune of their mother’s family. The nobles who had appointments at court and the royal domestics lived in the palace itself, but the offices of the different functionaries, the storehouses for their provisions, the dwellings of their employés, formed distinct quarters outside the palace, grouped around narrow courts, and communicating with each other by a labyrinth of lanes or covered passages. The entire building was constructed of wood or bricks, less frequently of roughly dressed stone, badly built, and wanting in solidity. The ancient Pharaohs were no more inclined than the Sultans of later days to occupy palaces in which their predecessors had lived and died. Each king desired to possess a habitation after his own heart, one which would not be haunted by the memory, or perchance the double, of another sovereign. These royal mansions, hastily erected, hastily filled with occupants, were vacated and fell into ruin with no less rapidity: they grew old with their master, or even more rapidly than he, and his disappearance almost always entailed their ruin. In the neighbourhood of Memphis many of these palaces might be seen, which their short-lived masters had built for eternity, an eternity which did not last longer than the lives of their builders.*
Nothing could present a greater variety than the population of these ephemeral cities in the climax of their splendour. We have first the people who immediately surrounded the Pharaoh,** the retainers of the palace and of the harem, whose highly complex degrees of rank are revealed to us on the monuments.*** His person was, as it were, minutely subdivided into departments, each requiring its attendants and their appointed chiefs.
* The song of the harp-player on the tomb of King Antûf
contains an allusion to these ruined palaces: “The gods
[kings] who were of yore, and who repose in their tombs,
mummies and manes, all buried alike in their pyramids, when
castles are built they no longer have a place in them; see,
thus it is done with them! I have heard the poems in praise
of Imhotpû and of Hardidif which are sung in the songs, and
yet, see, where are their places to-day? their walls are
destroyed, their places no more, as though they have never
existed!”
** They are designated by the general terms of Shonîtiû, the
“people of the circle,” and Qonbîtiû, the “people of the
corner.” These words are found in religious inscriptions
referring to the staff of the temples, and denote the
attendants or court of each god; they are used to
distinguish the notables of a town or borough, the sheikhs,
who enjoyed the right to superintend local administration
and dispense justice.
*** The Egyptian scribes had endeavoured to draw up an
hierarchical list of these offices. At present we possess
the remains of two lists of this description. One of these,
preserved in the “Hood Papyrus” in the British Museum, has
been published and translated by Maspero, in Études
Égyptiennes, vol. ii. pp. 1-66; another and more complete
copy, discovered in 1890, is in the possession of M.
Golénischeff. The other list, also in the British Museum,
was published by Prof. Petrie in a memoir of The Egypt
Exploration Fund ; in this latter the names and titles are
intermingled with various other matter. To these two works
may be added the lists of professions and trades to be found
passim on the monuments, and which have been commented on
by Brugsch.