A scene in a tomb at Sakkara[[35]] shows one of these officials carrying a pail of mud with a ladle in it, going to instruct his pupils. These “sealers” formed a regularly organized body, and served under a
mer or “superintendent.”[[36]]
The reader’s attention has already been drawn to the fact that the monarch was invested at his coronation with a Royal Signet, upon which his name and titles were engraved. In the earlier periods of Egyptian history this Royal Signet was, doubtless, either worn by the monarch himself or carried in some secure way about his person. We do not read in the inscriptions of the earliest dynasties of any “Keeper of the Royal Seal,” as we find so frequently alluded to in the hieroglyphic texts from the Middle Kingdom onwards, and it would consequently appear as if the king himself in those early times attended to the business connected with his Treasury Department.
Two important officials of the oldest period, however, were closely concerned with the use of the seal, and their titles were derived from its name. One of these was the “Sealer of the Honey [jars]”; the other was the “Divine Sealer,” “Sealer of the God.” The first title[[37]]
“the Sealer of the Honey [jars],” was, perhaps, the oldest of the many hundreds of titles that we find at all periods of Egyptian history, and from the Third Dynasty onwards there was probably not a man of less than royal rank who would not have been proud to bear it. It originally meant, as we have said, “the Sealer of the Honey [jars]” honey being the greatest of all primitive luxuries, and its use reserved for the king’s table. This title must therefore be regarded as a relic of the most extreme antiquity, and it certainly goes back to the time before the use of wine in the Nile Valley. At the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty (circa 3000 B.C.), however, its meaning had probably become already obsolete, and from that period onwards it meant nothing more than a “Royal Sealer,”[[38]] or one entitled to use a seal with the monarch’s name engraven upon it. Doubtless there were several of these officers employed in the royal palaces to look after the security of the king’s private property, and it was the duty of some of them to accompany the sovereign on his various military expeditions.[[39]]
In contradistinction to this secular title we find the
“Divine Sealer,” the priest who had charge of the temple treasure, furniture, and goods that were kept under the temple seals. This title, like the one that we have just discussed, occurs also at an early period, and continued in use till very late times.[[40]] These “Divine Sealers” were attached to the service of various gods, or they were employed by the religious authorities of certain districts. In the first case they are specified as “of Amen,”[[41]] “of Horus,” etc.; while in the second as “of Abydos,”[[42]] “of Thebes,” etc. It is possible that they were placed under a mer[[43]] or “Superintendent,” but the title is so rare that this was not usually the case. It was the Divine Sealer’s duty to obtain and supervise the transport of stone for the temple buildings,[[44]] and to pay for and, if necessary, to collect in far distant countries precious things for the service of the gods. In order to obtain stone for statues or for temple buildings, he sometimes led semi-military expeditions to quarries far in the deserts,[[45]] and when it was necessary to convey the huge blocks of granite and other material down the river, he was usually placed in command of the transport ships.[[46]]