An ordinary Egyptian did not often have to contemplate his pharaoh, if he ever appeared to the people. Pharaoh was a mysterious creature, distant, but no less significant than the omnipresent Egyptian gods. Was he for his subjects a formidable and merciful earthly god, an object of worship? Pharaoh meant even more to the Egyptians than the gods. Contemporaries characterized the pharaohs as "divine rulers of the land of Kemet."
The essence of Pharaoh was earthly and at the same time divine, therefore he was considered an intermediary between people and gods. In his earthly life, the pharaoh personified the god Horus, and after death he was transformed into Osiris. Its purpose was to support Maat (a complex concept that combined the goddess of justice and at the same time the entire world order) and destroy Isfet, that is, chaos and injustice. These tasks, of course, were able to carry out not ordinary people, but only extraordinary, divine beings. Therefore, the pharaohs built magnificent temples and brought valuable gifts to the gods.
The death of the pharaoh always led his subjects to fear and confusion. No pharaoh - no foundations. There is no one to maintain world order, no one to overcome the impending chaos! For 90 days, the entire great power was in mourning. Scribes' schools were closed, courts did not work, no one inflicted court proceedings or reprisals, officials stopped their studies, merchants did not bring goods to the market. Life froze, the world collapsed, the sun was dim. But, fortunately, usually the rightful heir - the embodiment of light and life - entered the empty throne, the coronation ceremony was held, and order was restored. The new pharaoh again symbolically united Upper and Lower Egypt, life went on.
The desire of the pharaohs to fulfill their destiny was very strong. They wanted to reach Maat so that after death they would not be punished for unworthy actions in the earthly field, in order to gain eternal life in the afterlife. This desire was so strong that often the pharaohs, who most likely did not take part in any battle, are represented in the inscriptions and reliefs, at their will, as invincible warriors. On the sarcophagi of many pharaohs there is an image of battle scenes, and the pharaohs themselves appear in the form of great triumphants, trampling on their enemies, drawn in the form of small and insignificant figures.
This does not always mean that the pharaoh was a great commander and made many victorious military campaigns. Historians have found out that during the reign of many of these "great warriors" in reality there were no wars, simply the Pharaoh really wanted him to be captured in the form of a brave conqueror of all evil.
In the monuments of Ancient Egypt, many signs and finds, if taken literally, can lead to misconceptions. The names and titles of the pharaohs are also sometimes deciphered with great difficulty.
Five titles of Pharaoh
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Starting from the XI dynasty of the Middle Kingdom, the pharaoh at the coronation chose five titles, or throne names. These names of the throne (the title of the pharaoh) were not accidental, they indicated the intentions of the pharaoh, the future deeds of the ruler - what he wants to accomplish during his reign. In addition, in the list of throne names there was an indication of the god, who was especially revered and important for this pharaoh.
The first was called "the name of Horus", which emphasized the role of the pharaoh as the earthly embodiment of the god Horus. The second name - "the name of Nebti", or "the name of both mistresses" - emphasized that the pharaoh is the ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt. The goddess Nehbet, who was depicted as a kite on the coat of arms, was considered the patroness of Upper Egypt, and Wadget - who was represented as a cobra - was the patroness of Lower Egypt. The third name is "the golden name of Horus." Its meaning has not been precisely established. The fourth is the throne name of the ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt, in which the unity of the two parts of the country was emphasized. The fifth name was considered the personal name of the pharaoh, given to him at the time of birth, provided with the necessary indication of his divine origin - the son of Ra.
In science, the pharaohs are most often called by the first, fourth and fifth names. All names were denoted with the corresponding hieroglyphs, and a long row was obtained. It is difficult to remember listing all the names of the pharaoh. The personal name of the pharaoh, given to him at birth, is only a narrow circle of confidants and relatives. After the coronation, when the pharaoh received all his names, he was not called by name at all. On reliefs and picturesque images, the name of the pharaoh was placed inside a cartouche - an oval frame, by which scientists immediately determine that it is a name.
In the religious worldview of the ancient Egyptians, the name was very important for life after death. Cartridges with the names of the hated pharaohs were chopped off the stone slabs of sarcophagi, temples and tombs. People were forbidden to pronounce their names.
The priest-historian Manetho calls the king Menes the first pharaoh. According to ancient inscriptions, he was the king of Upper Egypt and was called Narmer or Aha. This king united the Upper and Lower kingdoms into a single state under his rule and for the first time put on a white and red double crown. After him, several more kings of the First Dynasty ruled - the successors of Horus (the falcon god).
The mention of the ruler Menes as the ancestor of the ancient Egyptian kings is repeated in the writings of Greek and Roman historians, but it should not be ruled out that this is a legendary figure - a generalized image of the founding king and leader-commander. It is believed that Menes (Aha) was born in Upper Egypt, in the city of Tin. According to Herodotus, King Menes carried out extensive earthworks to build a fortress, which became the later city of Memphis - the residence of the pharaoh and the capital of the ancient Egyptian state.
He built a temple to the local god Ptah to the south of the fortress and for the first time performed symbolic rituals of combining papyrus (symbol of the North) and lotus (symbol of the South). King Menes crowned himself with a double red and white crown, symbolizing the eternal unity of Upper and Lower Egypt. In a solemn procession, he walked around the sanctuary and the fortress. Such a coronation ceremony has become traditional, and this is how all Egyptian pharaohs began to do this when they ascended the throne.
In the text, which is carved on a stone stele in the temple of the god Amun in Thebes, it is said about the "cursed Menes", during whose reign the Egyptian people lived poorly, while he himself was drowning in bliss and luxury. From other inscriptions it follows that King Menes established new cults and the order of temple rituals.
Diodorus recounted the legend of how King Menes was hunting in Fayyum, and he was attacked by his own dogs. The resourceful Menes jumped from the shore into the lake, and there a Nile crocodile swam, who put him on his back and ferried him to the other side. In memory of his miraculous salvation, King Menes built a city on this place, and dedicated the lake to a crocodile. Diodorus also says that the king built himself a pyramid (although the pyramid was invented by the vizier Imhotep four centuries later) and that this wise ruler taught his people to offer prayers to the gods and live like humans. This statement, perhaps, is a vague echo of the activities of an energetic ruler in a country in which feuds and bloody feuds raged for a long time.
According to the quotation from Manetho, cited by African, the great king Menes died in the 63rd year of his reign from wounds that he received while hunting hippos. Hippopotamus hunting was a favorite pastime of the Egyptian pharaohs, so such a tragic outcome seems quite plausible, although, most likely, this is the same legend as crossing the lake with the help of a friendly crocodile. Although Menes is considered the first pharaoh of a unified Ancient Egypt, he is still a figure more legendary than historical. It is unlikely that historians will ever be able to get more reliable information about this mysterious person.
Djoser the Magnificent (Necherihet, Tosorfros at Manetho), who ruled around 2635 - 2611 BC. e., - the second pharaoh of the III dynasty and the era of the Old Kingdom. Inscriptions on a stone slab near Aswan report a 7-year drought during the reign of Pharaoh Djoser and a terrible famine that struck the country. The wise Djoser presented the island of Philae to the priests of the goddess Isis, and the island of Elephantine to the priests of the god Khnum. The all-powerful gods took pity on the Egyptians, and the drought ended.
Djoser established his power in the Sinai Peninsula, where they mined turquoise and copper ore. He established the new border of Egypt on the first threshold on the Nile. His military campaigns brought many slaves to Egypt, which were useful in the construction of monumental buildings, primarily the step pyramid, which glorified Djoser over the centuries much more than his military victories and territorial gains.
The famous step pyramid of Djoser and the complex of temple structures were erected by a wonderful builder, a talented architect and an outstanding scientist Imhotep, who was the vizier (chati) and high priest of the god Ra under Djoser. Presumably, Imhotep himself invented the pyramidal shape of the building. He built three more smaller mastabas over the rectangular stone mastaba of the pharaoh, and a four-stage pyramid turned out, which was eventually built up to six steps, so that the pyramid reached a height of 61 m. Djoser's pyramid is considered to be the first stone structure of Ancient Egypt.
The Pyramid of Djoser was built as a family tomb for his entire family. Later, only the pharaohs were buried in the pyramids, not their relatives. In the pyramid of Djoser there was a place for all his wives and children. There were 11 burial chambers in the spacious building. The pyramid has survived to this day, only it has become lower by a few meters.
The tomb of the pharaoh himself was not located in one of the burial chambers inside the pyramid, but was carved into the rock under the pyramid's foundation. For this purpose, a square shaft with an area of about 7 meters and a depth of 27.45 meters was drilled into the rock. At the bottom, a tomb was built from granite slabs brought from Upper Egypt. A hole was provided in the roof of the tomb for storing the mummy. After the burial, the roof was covered with a granite slab weighing 3.5 tons. The entrance to the mine was located far beyond the pyramid, in a narrow tunnel to the north of it. The tunnel led deep down under the pyramid and ended in a shaft. This underground passage and shaft up to the granite roof were covered with rubble.
From a large central well, underground corridors ran in all directions. The walls of some of them were covered with blue tiles imitating reed mats - they resembled light partitions in the palace of the pharaoh. The total length of the underground passages was at least a kilometer. All the tunnels carved into the rock, with their unexpected bends and dead ends, led in the end to many caches, where there were thousands of stone vases and jugs, carved from alabaster and porphyry, a very hard stone, difficult to work with. Some vessels are inscribed with the names of Pharaoh Djoser and his predecessors.
An ensemble of stone buildings was grouped around the stepped pyramid. Previously, a wall was built around the tomb of the pharaoh, inside of which sacrifices were made. In the layout of the entire memorial complex, Imhotep showed real innovation and scope: he built a stone wall about 10 meters high and 1650 meters long. There were 15 gates in the wall, while only one gate was real, all the rest were false. Inside the fortress, Imhotep erected stone buildings faced with carved limestone slabs. Such decoration of the external walls of buildings in Egypt is nowhere else.
Some of the reliefs on the walls may have been associated with the Sed festival - a ritual so ancient that its content has long been forgotten. On the wall of one of the tunnels in the rock under the fence of the pyramids, a stone relief has been preserved, representing the running Pharaoh Djoser in a double crown. The fast running was supposedly part of the ceremony, that is, the pharaoh showed his strength and endurance, which were necessary for the ruler of the country.
In addition to the pyramid in Saqqara, in Bet Hallaf, in the southern part of the necropolis in Abydos, a huge symbolic tomb was built on the orders of Djoser. The brick mastaba was 100 meters long and 10 meters high. A long staircase led to an underground room divided by partitions into 18 rooms, one of which was a burial chamber.
For how many years Djoser ruled, it is not known exactly, all the dates of reign are conjectural, in any case, it was the golden age of Ancient Egypt. Under Pharaoh Djoser, the construction of the famous Egyptian pyramids began, and the first Egyptian solar calendar was drawn up.
Amenemhat III Nemaatra (in Greek sources - Lahares) was the son of Pharaoh Senusret III. During his reign, the power of the pharaoh was stronger than under any other pharaoh in the era of the Middle Kingdom. Scholars have noticed that under Amenemhat III, no luxurious tombs of nomarchs were built. This means that he managed to create a support among the new nobility, who had emerged from the officials and the military, and to a large extent limit the power of the nomarchs. Military campaigns under Amenemhat III were relatively few, because the borders of Egypt were established and reliably fortified under his predecessors. But in the inscriptions relating to his reign, there are still indications of the "defeat of Nubia" and "the opening of the countries of Asia."
The reign of Amenemhat III is marked by intense creative activity. He improved the arrangement of the Egyptian settlements in the Sinai, took care of the water supply and provided Sinai with constant protection. These measures have borne fruit soon: ore production in copper mines has increased, and the development of turquoise deposits has become more profitable.
Despite the long-term reign of Amenemhat III, very few inscriptions remain of him. But in all the records, reviews of this pharaoh are favorable.
Under Amenemhat III, large irrigation works were completed in the Fayum oasis, which had begun long before his reign. Under Amenemkhet III, a huge embankment (43.5 km long) was erected to drain most of the Fayum oasis and make it suitable for agriculture. From the writings of Greek authors it is known that the Egyptians built sluices and dams, with the help of which excess water from the Nile flood was diverted to the Fayum reservoir (for the Greeks - Lake Meridov).
Modern calculations show that in this way it was possible to store enough water to double the flow in the river downstream of Fayum during the low water level in the Nile for 100 days.
On the drained land of the Fayum oasis, the city of Crocodilopolis (or Arsinoe) and a temple dedicated to the local crocodile god Sobek (or Sebek) were built. On the northern border of the drained part of the oasis, two massive pedestals in the form of truncated pyramids, more than 6 m high, were installed. On the pedestals were huge (11.7 m) statues of Amenemkhet III, carved from yellow quartzite. During the flood of the Nile, the pedestals sometimes almost completely went under the water, and the statues protruded directly from the water - unshakable, massive, majestic.
In the same place in Fayum, Amenemhat III created an interesting stone structure that aroused admiration among the Greeks. The Greeks called this vast building with numerous corridors and halls the Labyrinth. The labyrinth actually had impressive dimensions: length - 305 m, width - 244 m. It consisted of 3,000 rooms, including 1,500 underground rooms. The Greek geographer Strobon wrote that the ceiling of each room was made of solid stone, and all corridors were covered with polished stone slabs of unusually large sizes, and neither wood nor other materials were used in the construction - only stone. The building, which made an indelible impression on Greek travelers, was probably built as the funeral temple of Amenemhat III.
It is possible to assume that the Labyrinth had a different purpose, and in each room there should have been statues of numerous gods - common Egyptian and local nomads. A single sanctuary for all could serve the spiritual unification of the people of all Egypt under the rule of the ruling dynasty. Only fragments of the reliefs that adorned the walls of the building and several pieces of broken columns have survived from the Labyrinth Temple.
Amenemhat III built two pyramids for himself. This happened very rarely: after the reign of Sneferu in the era of the Old Kingdom, none of the Egyptian pharaohs built two pyramids for themselves at once. One pyramid of Amenemkhet III was built in Dakhshur from adobe bricks. Granite was used only to strengthen the ceilings of the chambers and for the pyramidion - a pyramidal stone that crowned the top of the pyramid. In this pyramid, Pharaoh commanded to make two entrances.
One of them was traditionally located on the northern side of the pyramid and led into a maze of corridors that ended in a dead end. The second entrance was arranged in the southeast corner and also led into a long labyrinth, but along the corridors of this labyrinth it was possible to get down to the burial chamber with a red sarcophagus. Amenemkhet III was not buried in this pyramid. Near her, the tomb of another pharaoh was found, possibly from the next XIII dynasty. Why the pharaoh did not use a pyramid that was completely ready, built especially for him, remains a mystery.
The second pyramid of Amenemhat III was built in Hawar. This pyramid was located in the center of the newly founded royal necropolis, of which the famous Labyrinth may have been a part. Now only a flattened clay cone with a diameter of about 100 m and a height of 20 m remains of it. The entrance to the burial chamber was located on the southern side of the pyramid. The camera itself is superbly made and is a fine example of ancient Egyptian architectural traditions.
The spacious burial chamber is hewn from a solid block of solid yellow quartzite weighing more than 100 tons. The walls are 60 cm thick. The quartzite lid is 1.2 m thick and weighs about 45 tons. The chamber is covered with a gable roof made of two limestone blocks weighing 50 tons each. … The chamber contains two sarcophagi. Judging by the inscriptions, Amenemhet III himself was buried in one, and his daughter Ptahnefru in the other. A small pyramid next to the main one was intended for the daughter. Amenemhat III ruled for about 45 years and, like his father, left behind a series of wonderful sculptural portraits of fine work.
V. Pimenova