Chapter I: The Political Constitution of Egypt (2)

* M. de Rougé was the first to bring this fact to light in
his _Becherches sur les monuments qu’on peut attribuer aux
six premières dynasties de Manéthon,_ pp. 36-38. Mirtîttefsi
also lived in the harem of Khephren, but the title which
connects her with this king--_Amahhit_, the vassal--proves
that she was then merely a nominal wife; she was probably by
that time, as M. de Rougé says, of too advanced an age to
remain the favourite of a third Pharaoh.

** The title of “divine spouse” is not, so far as we know at
present, met with prior to the XVIIIth dynasty. It was given
to the wife of a living monarch, and was retained by her
after his death; the divinity to whom it referred was no
other than the king himself.

*** This was probably so in the case of the Pharaoh Ramses
II., more than one hundred and fifty of whose children, boys
and girls, are known to us, and who certainly had others
besides of whom we know nothing.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in the temple of
Ibsambûl: Nofrîtari shakes behind Ramses II. two sistra, on
which are representations of the head of Hâthor.

The origin and rank of their mothers greatly influenced the condition of the children. No doubt the divine blood which they took from a common father raised them all above the vulgar herd but those connected with the solar line on the maternal side occupied a decidedly much higher position than the rest: as long as one of these was living, none of his less nobly-born brothers might aspire to the crown.*

* Proof of this fact is furnished us, in so far as the
XVIIIth dynasty is concerned, by the history of the
immediate successors of Thûtmosis I., the Pharaohs Thûtmosis
IL, Thûtmosis III., Queen Hâtshopsîtû, Queen Mûtnofrît, and
Isis, concubine of Thûtmosis IL and mother of Thûtmosis III.

Those princesses who did not attain to the rank of queen by marriage, were given in early youth to some well-to-do relative, or to some courtier of high descent whom Pharaoh wished to honour; they filled the office of priestesses to the goddesses Nît or Hâthor, and bore in their households titles which they transmitted to their children, with such rights to the crown as belonged to them. The most favoured of the princes married an heiress rich in fiefs, settled on her domain, and founded a race of feudal lords. Most of the royal sons remained at court, at first in their father’s service and subsequently in that of their brothers’ or nephews’: the most difficult and best remunerated functions of the administration were assigned to them, the superintendence of public works, the important offices of the priesthood, the command of the army. It could have been no easy matter to manage without friction this multitude of relations and connections, past and present queens, sisters, concubines, uncles, brothers, cousins, nephews, sons and grandsons of kings who crowded the harem and the palace. The women contended among themselves for the affection of the master, on behalf of themselves or their children. The children were jealous of one another, and had often no bond of union except a common hatred for the son whom the chances of birth had destined to be their ruler. As long as he was full of vigour and energy, Pharaoh maintained order in his family; but when his advancing years and failing strength betokened an approaching change in the succession, competition showed itself more openly, and intrigue thickened around him or around his nearest heirs. Sometimes, indeed, he took precautions to prevent an outbreak and its disastrous consequences, by solemnly associating with himself in the royal power the son he had chosen to succeed him: Egypt in this case had to obey two masters, the younger of whom attended to the more active duties of royalty, such as progresses through the country, the conducting of military expeditions, the hunting of wild beasts, and the administration of justice; while the other preferred to confine himself to the _rôle_ of adviser or benevolent counsellor. Even this precaution, however, was insufficient to prevent disasters. The women of the seraglio, encouraged from without by their relations or friends, plotted secretly for the removal of the irksome sovereign.* Those princes who had been deprived by their father’s decision of any legitimate hope of reigning, concealed their discontent to no purpose; they were arrested on the first suspicion of disloyalty, and were massacred wholesale; their only chance of escaping summary execution was either by rebellion** or by taking refuge with some independent tribe of Libya or of the desert of Sinai.

* The passage of the Uni inscription, in which mention is
made of a lawsuit carried on against Queen Amîtsi, probably
refers to some harem conspiracy. The celebrated lawsuit,
some details of which are preserved for us in a papyrus of
Turin, gives us some information in regard to a conspiracy
which was hatched in the harem against Ramses II.

** A passage in the “Instructions of Amenemhâît” describes in
somewhat obscure terms an attack on the palace by
conspirators, and the wars which followed their undertaking.

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.

His toilet alone gave employment to a score of different trades. There were royal barbers, who had the privilege of shaving his head and chin; hairdressers who made, curled, and put on his black or blue wigs and adjusted the diadems to them; there were manicurists who pared and polished his nails, perfumers who prepared the scented oils and pomades for the anointing of his body, the kohl for blackening his eyelids, the _rouge_ for spreading on his lips and cheeks. His wardrobe required a whole troop of shoemakers, belt-makers, and tailors, some of whom had the care of stuffs in the piece, others presided over the body-linen, while others took charge of his garments, comprising long or short, transparent or thick petticoats, fitting tightly to the hips or cut with ample fulness, draped mantles and flowing pelisses. Side by side with these officials, the laundresses plied their trade, which was an important one among a people devoted to white, and in whose estimation want of cleanliness in dress entailed religious impurity. Like the fellahîn of the present time, they took their linen daily to wash in the river; they rinsed, starched, smoothed, and pleated it without intermission to supply the incessant demands of Pharaoh and his family.*

* The “royal laundrymen” and their chiefs are mentioned in
the Conte des deux frères under the XIXth dynasty, as well
as their laundries on the banks of the Nile.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a squeeze taken at Saqqâra in
1878 by Mariette

The task of those set over the jewels was no easy one, when we consider the enormous variety of necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, and sceptres of rich workmanship which ceremonial costume required for particular times and occasions. The guardianship of the crowns almost approached to the dignity of the priesthood; for was not the uraeus, which ornamented each one, a living goddess? The queen required numerous waiting-women, and the same ample number of attendants were to be encountered in the establishments of the other ladies of the harem. Troops of musicians, singers, dancers, and almehs whiled away the tedious hours, supplemented by buffoons and dwarfs. The great Egyptian lords evinced a curious liking for these unfortunate beings, and amused themselves by getting together the ugliest and most deformed creatures. They are often represented on the tombs beside their masters in company with his pet dog, or a gazelle, or with a monkey which they sometimes hold in leash, or sometimes are engaged in teasing. Sometimes the Pharaoh bestowed his friendship on his dwarfs, and confided to them occupations in his household. One of them, Khnûmhotpû, died superintendent of the royal linen. The staff of servants required for supplying the table exceeded all the others in number. It could scarcely be otherwise if we consider that the master had to provide food, not only for his regular servants,* but for all those of his _employés_ and subjects whose business brought them to the royal residence: even those poor wretches who came to complain to him of some more or less imaginary grievance were fed at his expense while awaiting his judicial verdict. Head-cooks, butlers, pantlers, pastrycooks, fishmongers, game or fruit dealers--if all enumerated, would be endless. The bakers who baked the ordinary bread were not to be confounded with those who manufactured biscuits. The makers of pancakes and dough-nuts took precedence of the cake-bakers, and those who concocted delicate fruit preserves ranked higher than the common dryer of dates.

* Even after death they remained inscribed on the registers
of the palace, and had rations served out to them every day
as funeral offerings.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
Bey; the original is at Gizeh

If one had held a post in the royal household, however low the occupation, it was something to be proud of all one’s life, and after death to boast of in one’s epitaph. The chiefs to whom this army of servants rendered obedience at times rose from the ranks; on some occasion their master had noticed them in the crowd, and had transferred them, some by a single promotion, others by slow degrees, to the highest offices of the state. Many among them, however, belonged to old families, and held positions in the palace which their fathers and grandfathers had occupied before them, some were members of the provincial nobility, distant descendants of former royal princes and princesses, more or less nearly related to the reigning sovereign.*

* It was the former who, I believe, formed the class of
_rokhu sûton_ so often mentioned on the monuments. This
title is generally supposed to have been a mark of
relationship with the royal family. M. de Rougé proved long
ago that this was not so, and that functionaries might bear
this title even though they were not blood relations of the
Pharaohs. It seems to me to have been used to indicate a
class of courtiers whom the king condescended to “know”
(_rokhu_) directly, without the intermediary of a
chamberlain, the “persons known by the king;” the others
were only his “friends” (samirû).

They had been sought out to be the companions of his education and of his pastimes, while he was still living an obscure life in the “House of the Children;” he had grown up with them and had kept them about his person as his “sole friends” and counsellors. He lavished titles and offices upon them by the dozen, according to the confidence he felt in their capacity or to the amount of faithfulness with which he credited them. A few of the most favoured were called “Masters of the Secret of the Royal House;” they knew all the innermost recesses of the palace, all the passwords needed in going from one part of it to another, the place where the royal treasures were kept, and the modes of access to it. Several of them were “Masters of the Secret of all the Royal Words,” and had authority over the high courtiers of the palace, which gave them the power of banishing whom they pleased from the person of the sovereign. Upon others devolved the task of arranging his amusements; they rejoiced the heart of his Majesty by pleasant songs, while the chiefs of the sailors and soldiers kept watch over his safety. To these active services were attached honorary privileges which were highly esteemed, such as the right to retain their sandals in the palace, while the general crowd of courtiers could only enter unshod; that of kissing the knees and not the feet of the “good god,” and that of wearing the panther’s skin. Among those who enjoyed these distinctions were the physicians of the king, chaplains, and men of the roll--“khri-habi.” The latter did not confine themselves to the task of guiding Pharaoh through the intricacies of ritual, nor to that of prompting him with the necessary formulas needed to make the sacrifice efficacious; they were styled “Masters of the Secrets of Heaven,” those who see what is in the firmament, on the earth and in Hades, those who know all the charms of the soothsayers, prophets, or magicians. The laws relating to the government of the seasons and the stars presented no mysteries to them, neither were they ignorant of the months, days, or hours propitious to the undertakings of everyday life or the starting out on an expedition, nor of those times during which any action was dangerous. They drew their inspirations from the books of magic written by Thot, which taught them the art of interpreting dreams or of curing the sick, or of invoking and obliging the gods to assist them, and of arresting or hastening the progress of the sun on the celestial ocean. Some are mentioned as being able to divide the waters at their will, and to cause them to return to their natural place, merely by means of a short formula. An image of a man or animal made by them out of enchanted wax, was imbued with life at their command, and became an irresistible instrument of their wrath. Popular stories reveal them to us at work. “Is it true,” said Kheops to one of them, “that thou canst replace a head which has been cut off?” On his admitting that he could do so, Pharaoh immediately desired to test his power. “Bring me a prisoner from prison and let him be slain.” The magician, at this proposal, exclaimed: “Nay, nay, not a man, sire my master; do not command that this sin should be committed; a fine animal will suffice!” A goose was brought, “its head was cut off and the body was placed on the right side, and the head of the goose on the left side of the hall: he recited what he recited from his book of magic, the goose began to hop forward, the head moved on to it, and, when both were united, the goose began to cackle. A pelican was produced, and underwent the same process. His Majesty then caused a bull to be brought forward, and its head was smitten to the ground: the magician recited what he recited from his book of magic, the bull at once arose, and he replaced on it what had fallen to the earth.” The great lords themselves deigned to become initiated into the occult sciences, and were invested with these formidable powers. A prince who practised magic would enjoy amongst us nowadays but small esteem: in Egypt sorcery was not considered incompatible with royalty, and the magicians of Pharaoh often took Pharaoh himself as their pupil.*

Such were the king’s household, the people about his person, and those attached to the service of his family. His capital sheltered a still greater number of officials and functionaries who were charged with the administration of his fortune--that is to say, what he possessed in Egypt.** In theory it was always supposed that the whole of the soil belonged to him, but that he and his predecessors had diverted and parcelled off such an amount of it for the benefit of their favourites, or for the hereditary lords, that only half of the actual territory remained under his immediate control. He governed most of the nomes of the Delta in person:*** beyond the Fayum, he merely retained isolated lands, enclosed in the middle of feudal principalities and often at considerable distance from each other.

* We know the reputation, extending even to the classical
writers of antiquity, of the Pharaohs Nechepso and Nectanebo
for their skill in magic. Arab writers have, moreover,
collected a number of traditions concerning the marvels
which the sorcerers of Egypt were in the habit of
performing; as an instance, I may quote the description
given by Makrîzî of one of their meetings, which is probably
taken from some earlier writer.

** They were frequently distinguished from their provincial
or manorial colleagues by the addition of the word _khonû_
to their titles, a term which indicates, in a general
manner, the royal residence. They formed what we should
nowadays call the departmental staff of the public officers,
and might be deputed to act, at least temporarily, in the
provinces, or in the service of one of the feudal princes,
without thereby losing their status as functionaries of the
_khonû_ or central administration.

*** This seems, at any rate, an obvious inference from the
almost total absence of feudal titles on the most ancient
monuments of the Delta. Erman, who was struck by this fact,
attributed it to a different degree of civilization in the
two halves of Egypt; I attribute it to a difference in
government. Feudal titles naturally predominate in the
South, royal administrative titles in the North.

The extent of the royal domain varied with different dynasties, and even from reign to reign: if it sometimes decreased, owing to too frequently repeated concessions,* its losses were generally amply compensated by the confiscation of certain fiefs, or by their lapsing to the crown. The domain was always of sufficient extent to oblige the Pharaoh to confide the larger portion of it to officials of various kinds, and to farm merely a small remainder of the “royal slaves:” in the latter case, he reserved for himself all the profits, but at the expense of all the annoyance and all the outlay; in the former case, he obtained without any risk the annual dues, the amount of which was fixed on the spot, according to the resources of the nome.

* We find, at different periods, persons who call themselves
masters of new domains or strongholds--Pahûrnofir, under the
IIIrd dynasty; several princes of Hermopolis, under the VIth
and VIIth; Khnûmhotpû at the begining of the XIIth. In
connection with the last named, we shall have occasion,
later on, to show in what manner and with what rapidity one
of these great _new_ fiefs was formed.

In order to understand the manner in which the government of Egypt was conducted, we should never forget that the world was still ignorant of the use of money, and that gold, silver, and copper, however abundant we may suppose them to have been, were mere articles of exchange, like the most common products of Egyptian soil. Pharaoh was not then, as the State is with us, a treasurer who calculates the total of his receipts and expenses in ready money, banks his revenue in specie occupying but little space, and settles his accounts from the same source. His fiscal receipts were in kind, and it was in kind that he remunerated his servants for their labour: cattle, cereals, fermented drinks, oils, stuffs, common or precious metals,--“all that the heavens give, all that the earth produces, all that the Nile brings from its mysterious sources,” * --constituted the coinage in which his subjects paid him their contributions, and which he passed on to his vassals by way of salary.

* This was the most usual formula for the offering on the
funerary stelo, and sums up more completely than any other
the nature of the tax paid to the gods by the living, and
consequently the nature of that paid to the king; here, as
elsewhere, the domain of the gods is modelled on that of the
Pharaohs.

One room, a few feet square, and, if need be, one safe, would easily contain the entire revenue of one of our modern empires: the largest of our emporiums would not always have sufficed to hold the mass of incongruous objects which represented the returns of a single Egyptian province. As the products in which the tax was paid took various forms, it was necessary to have an infinite variety of special agents and suitable places to receive it; herdsmen and sheds for the oxen, measurers and granaries for the grain, butlers and cellarers for the wine, beer, and oils. The product of the tax, while awaiting redistribution, could only be kept from deteriorating in value by incessant labour, in which a score of different classes of clerks and workmen in the service of the treasury all took part, according to their trades. If the tax were received in oxen, it was led to pasturage, or at times, when a murrain threatened to destroy it, to the slaughter-house and the currier; if it were in corn, it was bolted, ground to flour, and made into bread and pastry; if it were in stuffs, it was washed, ironed, and folded, to be retailed as garments or in the piece. The royal treasury partook of the character of the farm, the warehouse, and the manufactory.

Each of the departments which helped to swell its contents, occupied within the palace enclosure a building, or group of buildings, which was called its “house,” or, as we should say, its storehouse.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a chromolithograph in Lepsius,
_Denhm._, ii. 96.

There was the “White Storehouse,” where the stuffs and jewels were kept, and at times the wine; the “Storehouse of the Oxen,” the “Gold Storehouse,” the “Storehouse for Preserved Fruits,” the “Storehouse for Grain,” the “Storehouse for Liquors,” and ten other storehouses of the application of which we are not always sure. In the “Storehouse of Weapons” (or Armoury) were ranged thousands of clubs, maces, pikes, daggers, bows, and bundles of arrows, which Pharaoh distributed to his recruits whenever a war forced him to call out his army, and which were again warehoused after the campaign. The “storehouses” were further subdivided into rooms or store-chambers,* each reserved for its own category of objects.

* Aît, Âî. Lefébure has collected a number of passages in
which these storehouses are mentioned, in his notes _Sur
différents mots et noms Égyptiens._ In many of the cases
which he quotes, and in which he recognizes an office of the
State, I believe reference to be made to a trade: many of
the ari âît-afû, “people of the store-chambers for meat,”
were probably butchers; many of the ari âît-hiqÎtû, “people
of the store-chamber for beer,” were probably keepers of
drink-shops, trading on their own account in the town of
Abydos, and not _employés_ attached to the exchequer of
Pharaoh or of the ruler of Thinis.

It would be difficult to enumerate the number of store-chambers in the outbuildings of the “Storehouse of Provisions”--store-chambers for butcher’s meat, for fruits, for beer, bread, and wine, in which were deposited as much of each article of food as would be required by the court for some days, or at most for a few weeks. They were brought there from the larger storehouses, the wines from vaults, the oxen from their stalls, the corn from the granaries. The latter were vast brick-built receptacles, ten or more in a row, circular in shape and surmounted by cupolas, but having no communication with each other. They had only two openings, one at the top for pouring in the grain, another on the ground level for drawing it out; a notice posted up outside, often on the shutter which closed the chamber, indicated the character and quantity of the cereals within. For the security and management of these, there were employed troops of porters, store-keepers, accountants, “primates” who superintended the works, record-keepers, and directors. Great nobles coveted the administration of the “storehouses,” and even the sons of kings did not think it derogatory to their dignity to be entitled “Directors of the Granaries,” or “Directors of the Armoury.” There was no law against pluralists, and more than one of them boasts on his tomb of having held simultaneously five or six offices. These storehouses participated like all the other dependencies of the crown, in that duality which characterized the person of the Pharaoh. They would be called in common parlance, the Storehouse or the Double White Storehouse, the Storehouse or the Double Gold Storehouse, the Double Warehouse, the Double Granary.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a scene on the tomb of Amoni at
Beni-Hasan. On the right, near the door, is a heap of grain,
from which the measurer fills his measure in order to empty
it into the sack which one of the porters holds open. In the
centre is a train of slaves ascending the stairs which lead
to the loft above the granaries; one of them empties his
sack into a hole above the granary in the presence of the
overseer. The inscriptions in ink on the outer wall of the
receptacles, which have already been filled, indicate the
number of measures which each one of them contains.

The large towns, as well as the capital, possessed their double storehouses and their store-chambers, into which were gathered the products of the neighbourhood, but where a complete staff of employés was not always required: in such towns we meet with “localities” in which the commodities were housed merely temporarily. The least perishable part of the provincial dues was forwarded by boat to the royal residence,* and swelled the central treasury.

* The boats employed for this purpose formed a flotilla, and
their commanders constituted a regularly organized transport
corps, who are frequently to be found represented on the
monuments of the New Empire, carrying tribute to the
residence of the king or of the prince, whose retainers they
were.

The remainder was used on the spot for paying workman’s wages, and for the needs of the Administration. We see from the inscriptions, that the staffs of officials who administered affairs in the provinces was similar to that in the royal city. Starting from the top, and going down to the bottom of the scale, each functionary supervised those beneath him, while, as a body, they were all responsible for their depot. Any irregularity in the entries entailed the bastinado; peculators were punished by imprisonment, mutilation, or death, according to the gravity of the offence. Those whom illness or old age rendered unfit for work, were pensioned for the remainder of their life.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius, _Denkm_., iii. 95. The
illustration is taken from one of the tombs at Tel el-
Amarna. The storehouse consists of four blocks, isolated by
two avenues planted with trees, which intersect each other
in the form of a cross. Behind the entrance gate, in a small
courtyard, is a kiosque, in which the master sat for the
purpose of receiving the stores or of superintending their
distribution; two arms of the cross are lined by porticoes,
under which are the entrances to the “chambers” (dît) for
the stores, which are filled with jars of wine, linen-
chests, dried fish, and other articles.

The writer, or, as we call him, the scribe, was the mainspring of all this machinery. We come across him in all grades of the staff: an insignificant registrar of oxen, a clerk of the Double White Storehouse, ragged, humble, and badly paid, was a scribe just as much as the noble, the priest, or the king’s son. Thus the title of scribe was of no value in itself, and did not designate, as one might naturally think, a savant educated in a school of high culture, or a man of the world, versed in the sciences and the literature of his time; El-kab was a scribe who knew how to read, write, and cipher, was fairly proficient in wording the administrative formulas, and could easily apply the elementary rules of book-keeping. There was no public school in which the scribe could be prepared for his future career; but as soon as a child had acquired the first rudiments of letters with some old pedagogue, his father took him with him to his office, or entrusted him to some friend who agreed to undertake his education. The apprentice observed what went on around him, imitated the mode of procedure of the _employés_, copied in his spare time old papers, letters, bills, flowerily-worded petitions, reports, complimentary addresses to his superiors or to the Pharaoh, all of which his patron examined and corrected, noting on the margin letters or words imperfectly written, improving the style, and recasting or completing the incorrect expressions.* As soon as he could put together a certain number of sentences or figures without a mistake, he was allowed to draw up bills, or to have the sole superintendence of some department of the treasury, his work being gradually increased in amount and difficulty; when he was considered to be sufficiently _au courant_ with the ordinary business, his education was declared to be finished, and a situation was found for him either in the place where he had begun his probation, or in some neighbouring office.**

* We still possess school exercises of the XIXth and XXth
dynasties, e.g. the _Papyrus Anastasi n IV_., and the
_Anastasi Papyrus n V._, in which we find a whole string of
pieces of every possible style and description--business
letters, requests for leave of absence, complimentary verses
addressed to a superior, all probably a collection of
exercises compiled by some professor, and copied by his
pupils in order to complete their education as scribes; the
master’s corrections are made at the top and bottom of the
pages in a bold and skilful hand, very different from that
of the pupil, though the writing of the latter is generally
more legible to our modern eyes (_Select Papyri,_ vol. i.
pls. lxxxiii.-cxxi.).

** Evidence of this state of things seems to be furnished by
all the biographies of scribes with which we are acquainted,
e.g. that of Amten; it is, moreover, what took place
regularly throughout the whole of Egypt, down to the latest
times, and what probably still occurs in those parts of the
country where European ideas have not yet made any deep
impression.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a wall-painting on the tomb of
Khûnas. Two scribes are writing on tablets. Before the
scribe in the upper part of the picture we see a palette,
with two saucers, on a vessel which serves as an ink-bottle,
and a packet of tablets tied together, the whole supported
by a bundle of archives. The scribe in the lower part rests
his tablet against an ink-bottle, a box for archives being
placed before him. Behind them a _nakht-khrôû_ announces the
delivery of a tablet covered with figures which the third
scribe is presenting to the master.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a picture in the tomb of
Shopsisûri. Four registrars of the funerary temple of
Ûsirnirî advance in a crawling posture towards the master,
the fifth has just risen and holds himself in a stooping
attitude, while an usher introduces him and transmits to him
an order to send in his accounts.

Thus equipped, the young man ended usually by succeeding his father or his patron: in most of the government administrations, we find whole dynasties of scribes on a small scale, whose members inherited the same post for several centuries. The position was an insignificant one, and the salary poor, but the means of existence were assured, the occupant was exempted from forced labour and from military service, and he exercised a certain authority in the narrow world in which he lived; it sufficed to make him think himself happy, and in fact to be so. “One has only to be a scribe,” said the wise man, “for the scribe takes the lead of all.” Sometimes, however, one of these contented officials, more intelligent or ambitious than his fellows, succeeded in rising above the common mediocrity: his fine handwriting, the happy choice of his sentences, his activity, his obliging manner, his honesty--perhaps also his discreet dishonesty--attracted the attention of his superiors and were the cause of his promotion. The son of a peasant or of some poor wretch, who had begun life by keeping a register of the bread and vegetables in some provincial government office, had been often known to crown his long and successful career by exercising a kind of vice-regency over the half of Egypt. His granaries overflowed with corn, his storehouses were always full of gold, fine stuffs, and precious vases, his stalls “multiplied the backs” of his oxen; the sons of his early patrons, having now become in turn his _protégés_, did not venture to approach him except with bowed head and bended knee.

No doubt the Amten whose tomb was removed to Berlin by Lepsius, and put together piece by piece in the museum, was a _parvenu_ of this kind. He was born rather more than four thousand years before our era under one of the last kings of the IIIrd dynasty, and he lived until the reign of the first king of the IVth dynasty, Snofrûi. He probably came from the Nome of the Bull, if not from Xoïs itself, in the heart of the Delta. His father, the scribe Anûpûmonkhû, held, in addition to his office, several landed estates, producing large returns; but his mother, Nibsonît, who appears to have been merely a concubine, had no personal fortune, and would have been unable even to give her child an education. Anûpûmonkhû made himself entirely responsible for the necessary expenses, “giving him all the necessities of life, at a time when he had not as yet either corn, barley, income, house, men or women servants, or troops of asses, pigs, or oxen.” As soon as he was in a condition to provide for himself, his father obtained for him, in his native Nome, the post of chief scribe attached to one of the “localities” which belonged to the Administration of Provisions. On behalf of the Pharaoh, the young man received, registered, and distributed the meat, cakes, fruits, and fresh vegetables which constituted the taxes, all on his own responsibility, except that he had to give an account of them to the “Director of the Storehouse” who was nearest to him. We are not told how long he remained in this occupation; we see merely that he was raised successively to posts of an analogous kind, but of increasing importance. The provincial offices comprised a small staff of _employés, _ consisting always of the same officials:--a chief, whose ordinary function was “Director of the Storehouse;” a few scribes to keep the accounts, one or two of whom added to his ordinary calling that of keeper of the archives; paid ushers to introduce clients, and, if need be, to bastinado them summarily at the order of the “director;” lastly, the “strong of voice,” the criers, who superintended the incomings and outgoings, and proclaimed the account of them to the scribes to be noted down forthwith. A vigilant and honest crier was a man of great value.

He obliged the taxpayer not only to deliver the exact number of measures prescribed as his quota, but also compelled him to deliver good measure in each case; a dishonest crier, on the contrary, could easily favour cheating, provided that he shared in the spoil. Amten was at once “crier” and “taxer of the colonists” to the civil administrator of the Xoïte nome: he announced the names of the peasants and the payments they made, then estimated the amount of the local tax which each, according to his income, had to pay. He distinguished himself so pre-eminently in these delicate duties, that the civil administrator of Xoïs made him one of his subordinates. He became “Chief of the Ushers,” afterwards “Master Crier,” then “Director of all the King’s flax” in the Xoïfce nome--an office which entailed on him the supervision of the culture, cutting, and general preparation of flax for the manufacture which was carried on in Pharaoh’s own domain. It was one of the highest offices in the Provincial Administration, and Amten must have congratulated himself on his appointment.

From that moment his career became a great one, and he advanced quickly. Up to that time he had been confined in offices; he now left them to perform more active service. The Pharaohs, extremely jealous of their own authority, usually avoided placing at the head of the nomes in their domain, a single ruler, who would have appeared too much like a prince; they preferred having in each centre of civil administration, governors of the town or province, as well as military commanders who were jealous of one another, supervised one another, counterbalanced one another, and did not remain long enough in office to become dangerous. Amten held all these posts successively in most of the nomes situated in the centre or to the west of the Delta. His first appointment was to the government of the village of Pidosû, an unimportant post in itself, but one which entitled him to a staff of office, and in consequence procured for him one of the greatest indulgences of vanity that an Egyptian could enjoy. The staff was, in fact, a symbol of command which only the nobles, and the officials associated with the nobility, could carry without transgressing custom; the assumption of it, as that of the sword with us, showed every one that the bearer was a member of a privileged class.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius, Denkm., ii. 120 a;
the original is in the Berlin Museum.

Amten was no sooner ennobled, than his functions began to expand; villages were rapidly added to villages, then towns to towns, including such an important one as Bûto, and finally the nomes of the Harpoon, of the Bull, of the Silurus, the western half of the Saïte nome, the nome of the Haunch, and a part of the Fayûm came within his jurisdiction. The western half of the Saïte nome, where he long resided, corresponded with what was called later the Libyan nome. It reached nearly from the apex of the Delta to the sea, and was bounded on one side by the Canopic branch of the Nile, on the other by the Libyan range; a part of the desert as well as the Oases fell under its rule. It included among its population, as did many of the provinces of Upper Egypt, regiments composed of nomad hunters, who were compelled to pay their tribute in living or dead game. Amten was metamorphosed into Chief Huntsman, scoured the mountains with his men, and thereupon became one of the most important personages in the defence of the country. The Pharaohs had built fortified stations, and had from time to time constructed walls at certain points where the roads entered the valley--at Syene, at Coptos, and at the entrance to the Wady Tûmilât. Amten having been proclaimed “Primate of the Western Gate,” that is, governor of the Libyan marches, undertook to protect the frontier against the wandering Bedouin from the other side of Lake Mareotis. His duties as Chief Huntsman had been the best preparation he could have had for this arduous task. They had forced him to make incessant expeditions among the mountains, to explore the gorges and ravines, to be acquainted with the routes marked out by wells which the marauders were obliged to follow in their incursions, and the pathways and passes by which they could descend into the plain of the Delta; in running the game to earth, he had gained all the knowledge needful for repulsing the enemy. Such a combination of capabilities made Amten the most important noble in this part of Egypt. When old age at last prevented him from leading an active life, he accepted, by way of a pension, the governorship of the nome of the Haunch: with civil authority, military command, local priestly functions, and honorary distinctions, he lacked only one thing to make him the equal of the nobles of ancient family, and that was permission to bequeath without restriction his towns and offices to his children.

His private fortune was not as great as we might be led to think. He inherited from his father only one estate, but had acquired twelve others in the nomes of the Delta whither his successive appointments had led him--namely, in the Saïte, Xoïte, and Letopolite nomes. He received subsequently, as a reward for his services, two hundred portions of cultivated land, with numerous peasants, both male and female, and an income of one hundred loaves daily, a first charge upon the funeral provision of Queen Hâpûnimâit. He took advantage of this windfall to endow his family suitably. His only son was already provided for, thanks to the munificence of Pharaoh; he had begun his administrative career by holding the same post of scribe, in addition to the office of provision registrar, which his father had held, and over and above these he received by royal grant, four portions of cornland with their population and stock. Amten gave twelve portions to his other children and fifty to his mother Nibsonît, by means of which she lived comfortably in her old age, and left an annuity for maintaining worship at her tomb. He built upon the remainder of the land a magnificent villa, of which he has considerately left us the description. The boundary wall formed a square of 350 feet on each face, and consequently contained a superficies of 122,500 square feet. The well-built dwelling-house, completely furnished with all the necessities of life, was surrounded by ornamental and fruit-bearing trees,--the common palm, the nebbek, fig trees, and acacias; several ponds, neatly bordered with greenery, afforded a habitat for aquatic birds; trellised vines, according to custom, ran in front of the house, and two plots of ground, planted with vines in full bearing, amply supplied the owner with wine every year.

This plan is taken from a Theban tomb of the XVIIIth
dynasty; but it corresponds exactly with the description
which Amten has left us of his villa.

It was there, doubtless, that Amten ended his days in peace and quietude of mind. The tableland whereon the Sphinx has watched for so many centuries was then crowned by no pyramids, but mastabas of fine white stone rose here and there from out of the sand: that in which the mummy of Amten was to be enclosed was situated not far from the modern village of Abûsîr, on the confines of the nome of the Haunch, and almost in sight of the mansion in which his declining years were spent.*

* The site of Amten’s manorial mansion is nowhere mentioned
in the inscriptions; but the custom of the Egyptians to
construct their tombs as near as possible to the places
where they resided, leads me to consider it as almost
certain that we ought to look for its site in the Memphite
plain, in the vicinity of the town of Abûsîr, but in a
northern direction, so as to keep within the territory of
the Letopolite nome, where Amten governed in the name of the
king.

The number of persons of obscure origin, who in this manner had risen in a few years to the highest honours, and died governors of provinces or ministers of Pharaoh, must have been considerable. Their descendants followed in their fathers’ footsteps, until the day came when royal favour or an advantageous marriage secured them the possession of an hereditary fief, and transformed the son or grandson of a prosperous scribe into a feudal lord. It was from people of this class, and from the children of the Pharaoh, that the nobility was mostly recruited. In the Delta, where the authority of the Pharaoh was almost everywhere directly felt, the power of the nobility was weakened and much curtailed; in Middle Egypt it gained ground, and became stronger and stronger in proportion as one advanced southward. The nobles held the principalities of the Gazelle, of the Hare, of the Serpent Mountain, of Akhmîm, of Thinis, of Qasr-es-Sayad, of El-Kab, of Aswan, and doubtless others of which we shall some day discover the monuments.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Gayet.

They accepted without difficulty the fiction according to which Pharaoh claimed to be absolute master of the soil, and ceded to his subjects only the usufruct of their fiefs; but apart from the admission of the principle, each lord proclaimed himself sovereign in his own domain, and exercised in it, on a small scale, complete royal authority.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
Bey. The tomb of Api was discovered at Saqqâra in 1884. It
had been pulled down in ancient times, and a new tomb built
on its ruins, about the time of the XIIth dynasty; all that
remains of it is now in the museum at Gîzeh.