Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [134]
Up to this time the priesthoods had done well for themselves. A document called the Papyrus Harris, written at the end of the reign of Ramses III, lists the extent of the temple property. We are not sure whether the fantastic figures indicated only the gifts of Ramses to the gods, or the total amounts, including his donations; but in either case the holdings of the ecclesiastical foundations must have been enormous. Estimates range from 2 percent of the people of Egypt and 15 percent of the land, to 20 percent of the people and almost one-third of the total acreage. The figures would not be so formidable if the wealth had been equally divided; Egypt had so many gods and so many temples that the grand total would have been safely fragmented. But the great gods of Egypt held the lion’s share of the wealth, and the greatest of them all, Amon-Re of Thebes, was mightiest in temporal terms as well. One scholar has estimated that Amon alone owned one-fifteenth of the population and one-eleventh of the land.
The last kings of the Twentieth Dynasty are a dreary roll of Ramses—eight more of them. The events of their reigns are equally dreary. Asia, as a field of conquest, was closed to Egypt, and Ramses VI was the last king to work the mines in Sinai. At home, the stain of decay spread and deepened. The necropolis workers of Thebes, the men who built and maintained the tombs on the West Bank, went on strike on numerous occasions, demanding the pay that was overdue them. Each time the responsible officials met them with soothing words and promises that were never, or inadequately, fulfilled.
The priests were no less venal than their counterparts in the civil bureaucracy. Indeed, the distinction between civil and religious functions was far from sharp, and a man might hold offices in the temple and in the court simultaneously. But if he had to choose between the two, the ser vice of the gods was preferable. As far back as the Eighteenth Dynasty the convenient omniscience of historians allowed us to utter dire predictions of the danger of the trend that Papyrus Harris illustrates so vividly. We were able to view the generosity of Thutmose III and his successors to their patron god as a portent because we knew what was going to happen. It has been suggested that there was an element of political expediency in Akhenaton’s religious experiment, if not in Akhenaton himself. However, this interpretation necessitates the assumption that someone possessed a remarkable degree of insight into a situation that had not, at that time, taken on the shape it was to assume later, and which was probably never defined in such clear-cut terms. The conception of church and state as separate, rival entities was antithetical to the Egyptian worldview.
What ever the causes of the heresy, the results did not weaken Amon but gave him renewed strength. With the progressive debility of the state, and the succession of feeble pharaohs clinging to the name of Ramses as to a talisman, the power of Amon continued to wax.
The last Ramses, number eleven, marks the end of the Twentieth Dynasty. Egypt was in bad shape by then, impoverished and torn by what was essentially civil war. It ended with the country again divided, Ramses XI being allowed to retain the titles of king and control of the north, while the high priest of Amon controlled the south. By this time even Amon-Re must have been feeling the pinch. Presumably the temples still owned a great portion of the country, but no longer did tribute from abroad enrich the gods. However, there was one