Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [39]
Egyptologists sometimes play a game called “Pick Your Period.” Of the three broadly defined major periods of Egyptian history, some prefer the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties for their luxury, cosmopolitanism, and sophistication. Others vote for the Middle Kingdom because of its social advances; Egypt then showed the nearest approach to our favorite ideals of democracy and social welfare. But a good-size school of thought vaunts the triumphs of the Old Kingdom. At this time, they say, the real bases of Egyptian culture were laid. Later periods used them, altering them only slightly and not always for the better. Old Kingdom sculpture appeals to the classicist and the purist; and in architecture, what form could be more simple and more satisfying than the pyramid? We have already considered the achievements of medical science, and medicine was not the only profession that had been developed at this early time. Here is an excerpt from a mortuary document of a Fourth Dynasty official who was establishing the endowment of his tomb in the proper legal form:
Whatsoever mortuary priest of the endowment shall institute legal proceedings against his fellow, and he shall make a writ of his claim against the mortuary priest, by which he forfeits the portion in his possession; the lands, people and everything shall be taken from him which I gave to him for making mortuary offerings to me therewith. It shall be conveyed back to him because of not instituting proceedings before the officials concerning the lands, people and everything which I conveyed to the mortuary priests.
I don’t know what a lawyer might think of this document, but to me it has all the sophistication and legalistic detail that we could expect to find in a modern will. In its way, it testifies to the complexity of the society of which it was a product just as vividly, if less beautifully, than does the wonderful Fourth Dynasty sculpture.
CHILDREN OF RE
Sun gods are popular in polytheistic cultures, for the solar orb is one of the most conspicuous of natural objects. Its effects are equally conspicuous and very important to primitive peoples; before the discovery of fire the sun furnished the sole source of both heat and light, and its dawning banished the dangers and demons of darkness. It could also wither crops and blast humans with deadly heat; obviously it was a power to be conciliated. The Egyptian sun god, most commonly known as Re, was always an important deity. But during the Fifth Dynasty something happened to give him even greater preeminence, so that he became Top God of Egypt.
Unfortunately we have only the scantiest scraps of evidence on which to base the theory that a religious coup d’état took place, and almost no knowledge of how it came about. We know that at this time the title “Son of Re” became a standard part of the royal titulary, and that the kings of the Fifth Dynasty erected huge sun temples more impressive than their tombs. And we have a popular tale that gives an allegorical version of the triumphs of Re. So let us consider the story of King Khufu and the Magicians.
Once upon a time it happened that the great king Khufu found himself suffering from a painful royal disease: boredom. So he summoned his sons and commanded that they entertain him, each with a tale of wonder or of magic. The first tale is lost; it dealt with events during the reign of Djoser of the early Third Dynasty.
The second story was told by Prince Khafre, who informed his father that the events he would narrate took place under Nebka, another Third Dynasty king. Khafre’s was a moral tale about an adulterous wife who was married to a magician—not the easiest type to deceive. When he found out about his wife’s duplicity, the magician fashioned a crocodile out of wax and threw it into the river as his wife’s lover came to bathe. Immediately it became a real