Lives of the Ancient Egyptians, page 1
About the Author
Toby Wilkinson holds a doctorate in Egyptology from the University of Cambridge where he is a Fellow of Clare College. He lectures widely on ancient Egypt and has extensive experience of the archaeological sites in the Nile Valley and Egyptian deserts. His other publications include Early Dynastic Egypt, Genesis of the Pharaohs and The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Ancient Egypt.
Other titles of interest published by Thames & Hudson include:
The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Ancient Egypt
Chronicle of the Pharaohs:
The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt
The Complete Pyramids
The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt
The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt
Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Complete Beginners
Mummies: A Journey Through Eternity
Ancient Egypt on Five Deben a Day
The Pharaoh: Life at Court and on Campaign
See our websites
www.thamesandhudson.com
www.thamesandhudsonusa.com
For Emma
Author’s Note
Particular thanks are due to Dr Aidan Dodson, Dr Bill Manley and Peter Grose-Hodge who kindly read earlier drafts of this book and made a number of helpful corrections, comments and suggestions. The author would also like to thank Professor Geoffrey Martin for supplying a key study on the life and career of Maya; Dr David Denisch for material relating to the career of Hesira; the editorial and production staff at Thames & Hudson for their enthusiasm and support; and Michael Bailey, as always, for his patience and understanding.
The intention of this book is to enable the reader to explore and experience the history and civilization of the ancient Nile Valley through the lives of its inhabitants. To maintain the pace and flow of the narrative, and with a general readership in mind, the writing deliberately eschews the caveats that properly characterize academic studies of ancient Egyptian material. It must be acknowledged, however, that our picture of pharaonic civilization is both partial and fragmentary. The lives that follow comprise a mix of established fact, scholarly consensus and educated guesswork – but, we trust, more of the first two and relatively little of the last. Readers interested in finding out more about the individual life-stories, and the debates that continue to surround them, are referred to the suggestions for further reading at the end of the book.
Contents
Introduction
Part 1 Foundations
Early Dynastic Period
1 NARMER
Egypt’s first king
2 MERNEITH
The first woman to hold the reins of power
3 DEN
Reforming ruler of the 1st Dynasty
4 KHASEKHEMWY
Harbinger of the Pyramid Age
5 DJOSER
Builder of the Step Pyramid
6 HESIRA
Chief dentist at the court of Djoser
7 IMHOTEP
Architect and sage who became a god
8 METJEN
Career civil servant
Part 2 The Pyramid Age
Old Kingdom
9 HETEPHERES
Mother of King Khufu
10 KHUFU
Lord of the Great Pyramid
11 HEMIUNU
Overseer of Works
12 PERNIANKHU
Court dwarf
13 PTAHSHEPSES
Royal son-in-law
14 PEPIANKH
Centenarian official
15 UNAS
The enigmatic monarch
16 METJETJI
Courtier, patron, aesthete
17 MERERUKA
Grand vizier
18 WENI
Royal factotum
19 HARKHUF
Explorer of distant lands
20 PEPI II
Egypt’s longest-reigning king
21 PEPINAKHT-HEQAIB
Local hero
Part 3 Civil War and Restoration
First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom
22 TJAUTI
Controller of desert routes
23 ANKHTIFI
Provincial leader in a time of civil war
24 HEMIRA
Humble priestess from the Delta
25 INTEF II
Theban warrior-king
26 TJETJI
High official who served two monarchs
27 MENTUHOTEP II
Reunifier of Egypt
28 MEKETRA
Chancellor under Mentuhotep II
29 AMENEMHAT I
Victim of a court conspiracy
30 HEKANAKHT
Farmer and letter writer
31 SARENPUT
Prince of Elephantine
32 HAPDJEFA
Provincial governor with a legal mindset
33 KHNUMHOTEP
Hereditary noble
34 IKHERNOFRET
Witness of the Osiris mysteries
35 SENUSRET III
Lord of Nubia
36 HORWERRA
Expedition leader
37 SOBEKHOTEP III
Commoner who became king
Part 4 A Golden Age
Early 18th Dynasty
38 APEPI
An Asiatic on the throne of Egypt
39 TAA II
King slain in battle against the Hyksos
40 AHMOSE-NEFERTARI
Royal daughter, wife and mother
41 AHMOSE SON OF ABANA
Wartime naval officer
42 AHMOSE PENNEKHBET
Soldier under four successive monarchs
43 HATSHEPSUT
The female pharaoh
44 SENENMUT
Favoured courtier of Hatshepsut
45 THUTMOSE III
Creator of an Egyptian empire
46 MENKHEPERRASENEB
High Priest of Amun
47 REKHMIRA
Prime Minister of Upper Egypt
48 DEDI
Governor of the Western Desert
49 QENAMUN
Bombastic chief steward
50 NAKHT
Humble owner of a beautiful tomb
51 SENNEFER
Mayor of Thebes
52 AMENHOTEP III
Ruler of a golden age
53 TIYE
Queen with an interest in power-politics
54 USERHAT
Lowly scribe, artistic patron
55 AMENHOTEP SON OF HAPU
The king’s right-hand man
Part 5 The Great Heresy
Amarna Period
56 AKHENATEN
The heretic pharaoh
57 NEFERTITI
The power behind the throne
58 MERYRA
Zealot of a new religion
59 BAK
Sculptor who led an artistic revolution
60 MAHU
Akhenaten’s chief of police
61 HUY
Viceroy of Kush
62 TUTANKHAMUN
The boy king
63 ANKHESENAMUN
Tutankhamun’s child bride
64 MAYA
Royal treasurer
65 AY
The great survivor
Part 6 Imperial Egypt
Ramesside Period
66 HOREMHEB
Founder of a new age
67 SENNEDJEM
Workman in the Valley of the Kings
68 URHIYA
Foreigner who became an army general
69 YUPA
Successful second-generation immigrant
70 RAMESSES II
The greatest of all pharaohs
71 RAIA
A musician from Memphis
72 KHAEMWASET
The first Egyptologist
73 MES
Victor in a long-running court case
74 DIDIA
Chief draughtsman of foreign ancestry
75 MERENPTAH
Pharaoh who subdued Israel
76 PANEB
Notorious criminal
77 BAY
Kingmaker
78 RAMESSES III
The last great king of Egypt
79 RAMESSESNAKHT
High Priest under the late Ramessides
80 NAUNAKHT
Woman who disinherited her children
81 THUTMOSE
Correspondent in a time of trouble
82 PANEHSY
Strongman who challenged royal power
83 HERIHOR
Great Overseer of the Army
Part 7 Twilight of the Gods
Third Intermediate Period, Late Period and Ptolemaic Period
84 WENDJEBAENDJEDET
Royal favourite
85 OSORKON
Prince caught up in a bitter power struggle
86 PIYE
The first black pharaoh
87 HARWA
Steward of the Divine Adoratrice
88 MONTUEMHAT
Governor of Thebes in uncertain times
89 PADIAMENOPE
Owner of the largest private tomb in Egypt
90 NITIQRET (NITOCRIS)
God’s Wife, king’s servant
91 SEMATAWYTEFNAKHT (I)
Royal Flotilla Commander
92 AHMOSE II (AMASIS)
Usurper who made peace with the Greeks
93 WADJHORRESNET
Admiral who
94 WENNEFER (ONNOFRI)
Snake doctor and political survivor
95 NAKHTHORHEB (NECTANEBO II)
Egypt’s last native ruler
96 SEMATAWYTEFNAKHT (II)
Eyewitness of Alexander’s conquest
97 PADIUSIR (PETOSIRIS)
Devoted servant of his local god
98 PTOLEMY I
Macedonian general who founded a dynasty
99 MANETHO
The father of Egyptian history
100 CLEOPATRA VII
Tragic queen who became a legend
Chronology and King List
Map
Sources of Quotations
Further Reading
Index
Copyright
Introduction
What was it really like to live in ancient Egypt? Our impression of pharaonic civilization is dominated by its visible remains, by pyramids, temples and tombs: but what of the people who commissioned and built them, who staffed the offices of central and provincial government, who served in the temples, who fought to defend Egypt’s borders, who toiled in its fields? What of the men and women of the Nile Valley who created and sustained its spectacular culture? Individual perspectives on ancient Egypt are rarely encountered in the literature, with the exception of a few well-known pharaohs, such as Hatshepsut or Amenhotep III, Ramesses II or Cleopatra. Yet rulers lived lives heavily circumscribed by ideology and ritual and, for this reason, they are often rather less interesting witnesses than their subjects. It is surprising, therefore, that so little has been written about the ordinary people who actually experienced Egyptian civilization at first hand. For it is only by sharing their viewpoint that we can begin to appreciate the variety and complexity of life under the pharaohs. That is the simple aim of this book: to explore the history and culture of ancient Egypt through the lives of its inhabitants, to give them their own voice.
In selecting our hundred subjects, the aim has been to strike a balance – chronological, geographical and social. The limits of the available evidence have not always made this an easy task. Take the chronological scope of ancient Egyptian civilization: 3,000 years separated the birth of the Egyptian state from its absorption into the Roman empire. Put another way, the era of the Great Pyramid was more remote from Cleopatra’s time than she is from our own. If a single generation approximates to thirty years, then ancient Egypt – as an independent and vibrant culture – spanned one hundred generations. Hence, with one hundred lives, this book should be able to cover every phase of pharaonic history in equal detail. Unfortunately, the vagaries of archaeological preservation do not permit so even-handed an approach. More is known about a single thirty-year span in the fourteenth century BC (the so-called Amarna Period) than about the first half-millennium of Egyptian civilization (the Early Dynastic Period). Hence, in this book, ten personalities have been selected to represent the former whereas the latter has only eight representatives. Nevertheless, care has been taken to ensure that every major phase of ancient Egyptian history is covered, together with all the main turning-points: the collapse of the Old Kingdom, the rule of the Hyksos, the rise of the Ramessides, and so on.
The geographical extent of ancient Egypt was as impressive as its longevity. The state’s core territory stretched from the First Cataract in the south to the shores of the Mediterranean in the north, a distance by river of some 1,000 km (625 miles). At particular periods of its history, Egypt extended its borders still further, through conquest and colonization, to take in large parts of Nubia and the Near East. Within this vast empire, administrative and religious life was concentrated in two or three major centres: Memphis at the apex of the Delta; Thebes in Upper Egypt; and, from the thirteenth century BC onwards, various cities in the central and eastern Delta. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of our characters lived and died in these great conurbations. But the provinces were important, too, and even shaped the country’s destiny at certain key moments. To get a fully rounded picture of life under the pharaohs, it is crucial to give a voice to the inhabitants of the towns and villages of rural Egypt, from the broad marshlands of the Delta to the narrow valley of southern Upper Egypt. Our witnesses therefore include citizens of places like Busiris, Herakleopolis and Elkab, as well as their metropolitan counterparts.
Although surprisingly extensive, the evidence for ancient Egyptian lives is by no means evenly spread across different sectors of society. Because the majority of monuments and texts were commissioned by men for men, our view of ancient Egyptian culture is filtered almost exclusively through a male lens. A few women gained positions of prominence, especially in the 18th Dynasty royal family, but, in general terms, the lives of half the population remain hidden from view. In this book, eleven out of one hundred subjects are women: less of a gender bias than in many treatments of ancient Egypt, but still far from an ideal balance. Furthermore, most of the scenes and inscriptions on tomb and temple walls, the texts on statues, stelae and other artifacts, and the surviving papyrus documents pertain to the careers and family relationships of Egypt’s small, literate ruling class. By contrast, the lives of the illiterate peasantry, comprising up to ninety per cent of the population, are largely unrecorded. Yet, even within the governing elite, many different ethnic backgrounds were represented. Egypt was always a melting pot of peoples and cultures, a crossroads between Africa, Asia and Europe. Indeed, at various times, the kings themselves were Asiatic, Libyan, Nubian or Macedonian. Their stories lift the veil of cultural conservatism promulgated in art and architecture, revealing Egypt as a multi-ethnic and dynamic society.
During the three millennia of Egyptian history, essential continuity and stability were provided, above all, by the bureaucrats: the men who served in the royal household, the central administration and the provincial government. These officials are some of the best-known figures from the ancient past, and they too – from a vizier to a court dwarf – have their stories to tell. Equally influential in pharaonic society were the great priesthoods of the country; no picture of ancient Egypt would be complete without including its religious personnel, from the High Priest of the chief state god to a humble priestess in a provincial temple. Joining them in the following pages are myriad others, including a doctor, a dentist, a draughtsman, a sculptor, an architect, a musician, a soldier, a sailor, a farmer, a housewife, a criminal, an historian, even the first Egyptologist: for these are the real ancient Egyptians, and it is their experiences that give the best idea of what life was like in the Nile Valley twenty, thirty or forty centuries ago.
PART 1
Foundations
Early Dynastic Period
Around 3000 BC, the first nation-state in history was born – in Egypt. In the Nile Valley and Delta (known to the Egyptians themselves as the Two Lands), the various rival kingdoms and territories which had developed over a period of a thousand years were unified into a single country ruled over by a single king who claimed divine authority. This process, known as the unification, seems to have occurred fairly quickly, taking a few generations at most to complete. Although the precise course of events remains a little hazy, the outcome is clear: the kings of This (ancient Tjeni), one of two or three proto-kingdoms in Upper Egypt (the southern Nile Valley), emerged supreme. They overcame not only their rivals in the south of the country, but also the rulers of towns and cities throughout the marshlands of the Delta. The king known to us as Narmer (no. 1) is the first monarch who can be said with confidence to have ruled over the whole of Egypt, from the First Cataract in the south to the shores of the Mediterranean in the north. He was recognized by his near-contemporaries as a founder figure, and has a special place in Egyptian history as the first king of the 1st Dynasty.
The challenge for Narmer and his immediate successors (nos 2–4) was to develop and prescribe the means for ruling their new, geographically vast realm. Egypt was certainly not lacking in cultural dynamism: two distinctive and vibrant traditions had grown up, in the Nile Valley and Delta, respectively, during the millennium or more preceding the unification. Technologically superior and more in tune with the conspicuous consumption favoured by Egypt’s early ruling class, Upper Egyptian culture had supplanted its northern counterpart in the Delta during the late predynastic period, mirroring the process of political unification that was likewise driven from the south. The kings of the 1st Dynasty took this cultural tradition, and refined and codified it as an expression of the court’s own power. Art and architecture were carefully deployed to enhance the prestige of the monarchy as an institution, allowing it to overcome challenges such as the regency under Merneith (no. 2) or all-out civil war in the early years of Khasekhemwy’s reign (no. 4). The barrage of propaganda worked spectacularly well: kingship swiftly became the ideological glue that bound Egypt together; government without monarchy was unthinkable. One of the great achievements of Egypt’s early rulers was thus to develop an iconography and ideology of royal rule that survived, virtually unchanged, for the next 3,000 years.
