Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [19]
The Egyptians were not foolish enough to think that all this well-being, order, and justice were given naturally and without effort. No, these benefits could not be achieved without constant human attention to the details of life. For instance, though reliable enough to make the Egyptians complacent, the river could be mischievous. The annual flood could fail or be insufficient to meet the needs of the people. The river had to be carefully and painstakingly controlled by elaborate irrigation channels. In addition the Nile was filled with terrible dangers: snakes, vermin, disease, hippopotami, and crocodiles. These dangers had to be controlled by force or appeased with various exorcisms and offerings. Agricultural advantages could best be maximized by strong authority to supervise irrigation, dike and canal building, and city planning. Ankh had to be earned by appeasement of the gods and by regulation. Consequently leaders served in both sacral and military roles. “Good order” or “justice,” again called ma’at, was both a gift from the gods and the result of good government. It had to be earned by each Egyptian, by upholding justice and right dealing, thus putting oneself in perfect harmony with the forces of nature.
Ma’at was preeminently the responsibility of the pharaoh, the king of Egypt as well as its god on earth. The title “pharaoh” is a kind of polite euphemism, to avoid saying anything directly to the king, much as we say “Your Majesty.” It literally means “the great house”; the term was a synecdoche, like “the White House,” used today to stand for the executive branch of the American government.
Another way of describing the pharaoh was as the shepherd of his people. The concept of the king as a benevolent herdsman made it necessary for him to dispense ma’at, good order, which was related to the proper conduct of life. If ma’at were interrupted, it was a sure sign that the divinity was displeased. So the king had to make sure that the administration of his country was properly done, just as herds had to be properly maintained. The pharaoh was the feeder of the people, just as the shepherd was feeder of his flock.
Physically and culturally, the Valley of the Nile breaks into the narrow trough of the Nile Valley-Upper Egypt-and the spreading delta of Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt has ties to the desert and to Africa; Lower Egypt faces out toward the Mediterranean Sea and Asia. Separated from the rest of the world by protective mountain ranges to the east and west, these two kingdoms are also separated from each other very effectively by rapids or cataracts. The name for Egypt in Hebrew is Mitzrayim—literally, “the two Egypts.” In fact, the two Egyptian dialects were different enough to produce the constant refrain: “It was confusing, as if a man of the Delta were suddenly to speak to a man from Elephantine.”4 This saying reflects that the first and most important of the five cataracts separates the two kingdoms near Elephantine, though all of them are serious boundaries, forcing portages and delaying trade, communication, and military control. The earliest kings, of which Pharaoh Narmer is the most famous, were responsible for unifying the country. The so-called Narmer Palette displays many symbolic representations of the unification of the two countries, including the depiction of two snakes intertwined, perhaps engendering offspring.
Thereafter, the unification of the two kingdoms is seen in virtually every aspect of the pharaoh’s symbology. Pharaoh united in his person both Upper and Lower Egypt as stable dynastic kingship in Egypt was achieved with the union of the two parts of the valley. This uniting was a creative force for Egypt. Pharaoh was the descendant and holder of the military force that united the two kingdoms. Pharaoh’s bureaucracy and the cults he supported kept that unity strong.
Pharaoh’s life was also symbolic of his role