The significance of the age of our text is evident. In view of the overriding importance of the institution of kingship for Egyptian society, the formulation of a theory of kingship at the very beginning of the monarchy aptly illustrates the emergence of the “form” of Egyptian civilization at that critical time.
Reference to the founding of Memphis is made in our text by implication: its tenor is to emphasize the profound significance of the city. Thus the content corroborates the linguistic evidence for an early date of the document, since a trustworthy tradition, preserved by Herodotus, ascribed the founding of Memphis to Menes. The text expounds the theology of the new foundation. Of the actual course of events the following account survived into Greek times: it was believed that Menes threw up a dike across the western part of the valley north of the Fayum, thus compelling a branch of the Nile to rejoin the main stream, and reclaiming fifty miles of valley. On the newly won land he then founded a royal castle, a little to the south of modern Cairo. It was called “The White Walls,” and thus characterized as an Upper Egyptian foundation—for white was the colour of the mother-goddess Nekhbet, the protectress of Upper Egypt and of the king’s house. But the new settlement was not really a capital of the united country. The successors of Menes in the First and Second dynasties did not even reside there. They seem to have maintained their residence at This and were buried in neighbouring Abydos,[138] within the district whence their ancestors had come. Memphis was originally—and remained for fifteen hundred years almost exclusively (see [pp. 97 f.])—a sacred city, the locus where events of unparalleled importance for the Egyptian commonwealth had taken place. The Memphite Theology deals precisely with these events.
We have elsewhere attempted to elucidate the text, which is too abstruse to be discussed here.[139] It translates history into mythology and purports to reveal thereby the transcendent significance of Menes’ achievement. Later generations acknowledged the validity of these early teachings by their deeds: each new king came to Memphis to celebrate the “Union of the Two Lands” and to perform the “Circuit of the White Wall,” as Menes was thought to have done when he had constructed his royal castle.[140]
The state which Menes created was habitually referred to as “The Two Lands,” a designation apt to be misunderstood; we meet here—as so often in Egypt—a term with cosmological rather than political connotations. We have shown elsewhere[141] that the dualistic mould of the “Kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypt” satisfied the Egyptian mode of thought which conceived totality as an equilibrium of opposites. A meaningful symmetry was imposed upon the unified land, but it had no basis in fact, for Scorpion and Narmer conquered the north piecemeal, as far as we know. Nor is there any sign of resentment against the north. On the contrary, northerners were found among the highest in the land: two queens of the First Dynasty reveal a Delta origin by their names, and officials of that dynasty, buried near their royal masters at Abydos, exemplify the Lower Egyptian physical type.[142]
The outside world did not challenge the exalted view of their state which the Egyptians entertained. None of their neighbours threatened the safety of “The Two Lands”; all of them disposed of natural resources which seemed predestined to be offered as tribute to the divine ruler of Egypt. We have seen that the southern littoral of the Mediterranean was not a desert in antiquity. Narmer’s successors had to consolidate their northern frontiers even though they prevailed with ease over the neighbouring populations. Some had to fight the Libyans in the west. At the malachite mines in Sinai, Semerkhet recorded his victory over the local Bedouin on a rock-stela repeating the main motif of Narmer’s palette. Another king of the First Dynasty had an ivory gaming piece engraved with the picture of a bound Syrian captive. The roofing beams of the royal tombs at Abydos consist of coniferous wood imported from the Lebanon. Jugs of Syrian and Palestinian manufacture have been found in these tombs and in those of dignitaries buried at Saqqara: they probably served as containers of olive oil. Gold, ivory, ostrich feathers, and ebony came through Nubia from inner Africa.
However, in this phase of Egyptian civilization, signs of contact with a yet more distant region are also found. They differ in character from those we have just mentioned. Libya, Sinai, and Syria supplied the Nile valley with much-needed raw materials; but Sumer supplied ideas. Imported Mesopotamian cylinder seals have been found in Egypt, and the same odd form of seal was adopted in Egypt. The earliest Egyptian brick buildings resemble the Protoliterate temples of Mesopotamia in all significant matters of technique. Egyptian art—even in the Narmer palette—used Mesopotamian motifs. Even writing seems to have been due to the stimulus derived from acquaintance with Mesopotamian writing of the end of the Protoliterate period.
We have dealt with these matters in an [Appendix]. For although it is certain that contact between the two great centres of the Near East took place, it did not affect the social and political sphere with which we are concerned here. In fact, if we look back over the evidence presented in this chapter, the autochthonous character of the Egyptian development is unmistakable. The basic structure of the society which emerged was the direct opposite of that which came into being in Mesopotamia. In Egypt the great change did not lead to a concentration of social activity in urban centres. It is true that there were cities in Egypt, but, with the single exception of the capital, these were no more than market towns for the countryside. Paradoxically enough, the capital was less permanent than the towns in the provinces, for in principle it served for only a single reign. Each pharaoh took up residence near the site chosen for his tomb, where, during the best part of his lifetime, the work on the pyramid and its temple continued, while the government functioned in the neighbouring city. But after his death the place was abandoned to the priests and officials who maintained his cult and managed his mortuary estate, unless the new king decided to continue in residence because the adjoining desert offered a suitable site for his own tomb. Until the middle of the second millennium B.C. (when Thebes assumed a metropolitan character) there was no truly permanent capital in Egypt, a situation which clearly demonstrates the insignificant role played by the concept of the city in the political thought of the Egyptians.[143] In Mesopotamia, on the other hand, even the most powerful rulers of the land styled themselves rulers of cities and functioned as such, in Akkad or Ur, in Babylon or in Assur.
The contrast in social structure and the divergent conceptions of kingship can be seen as correlated. The city as the ultimate form of political organization is inconceivable without a ruler who remains potentially one among many; conversely, absolute power entails a unified realm. We did, therefore, not lose sight of our theme when we discussed in this chapter the origin of the myths and rites of kingship under Menes; nor is it due to the accident of discovery that we studied the birth of Egyptian civilization with the aid of royal monuments. For Pharaoh symbolized the community in its temporal and transcendent aspects, and, for the Egyptians, civilized life gravitated around the divine king.
Our discussion of the rise of the monarchical society of Egypt must now be complemented by a concrete description. The administration of the country[144] functioned on the strength of delegated royal power. Pharaoh was the living fount of law, governing by decrees which were formulated as inspired decisions.[145] In early times the government assumed a somewhat patriarchal character. Sons and other close relatives of Pharaoh acted as his principal advisors and aids. Distant relatives and descendants of past rulers were found in minor government posts. At first no single minister stood between the king and the various branches of the administration. There was no Grand Vizier. Under the Fourth Dynasty, however, the vizierate was introduced as the apex of the bureaucracy; but it was, at first, occupied by a prince of royal blood.
Even in later times the king reserved certain prerogatives, such as the imposition of the death penalty and of mutilations; and the vizier had an audience each morning to report on the state of the land. Nevertheless, the vizier’s power of initiative was very great. He was Chief Justice, Head of the Archives, and, in fact, of every government department. His messengers travelled through the country carrying his orders to the local administrators and reporting back to him on the conditions they observed. One of his designations was “to whom is reported all that is and is not.” In view of the overwhelming importance of agriculture for the state, every transaction involving land had to be registered at the Vizier’s office. After the Sixth Dynasty the vizier was, probably for practical reasons, “Mayor of the Town,” that is, head and military governor of the royal residence.