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This is an exploration of Ancient Egypt. It is the story of a civilization that was ordered by the gods and ruled by kings who were gods in death. It is also the story of Egypt today, which is a reflection of that ancient civilization. The following has been pulled together as background to a personal voyage to that ancient world that was cut short by a terrorist attack at the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut in Luxor on November 18, 1997. This attack by individuals we label as "terrorists" illustrates much in the story of Egypt from it's ancient times to the present. The story of Egypt is that of a struggle for Egypt itself free of foreign influence and for fairness to the people of Egypt. There have been many forms of government in history. The Egyptian Pharoahs were some of the most successful rulers of all time if measured by longevity. Rulers such as the great Rameses II were lords of the land with great success when people were happy and content. Governments that are successful rule people when life is lived with a measure of happiness. The struggle of all governments is to provide a life for people that ensures this measure of happiness. This is the struggle of all civilizations.
There are several aspects of Ancient Egypt that we should explore outright. The first is the sense of Divine Kingship. Divine Kingship is a concept that views a ruler as an incarnation, manifestation, mediator, or agent of the sacred world. Divine Kingship can be viewed as a natural outgrowth of societal changes in complex societies in context of chiefdom and state dynamics. It is a political and religious form of organization that repeatedly developed in cultures all over the world.
The Divine Kingship typically emerges as a result of the development of hierarchical structure. Chief who declare their leadership through kin descent become focused on control of land and resources. As a result, they seek to gain political advantage. Their position in a descent hierarchy enables them to call upon ancestors for assistance. Clan rank typically can be associated with associations of spiritual powers. This fusion of the political and social worlds with the religious world is assumed to be ordered and logical. As a result, it is relatively easy to make a claim of Divine Kingship with ability to communicate with the spiritual and ancestral world. Hierarchical structure would then evolve logically from the chiefdom into a Divine Kingship as population growth increased and the need for greater political authority and control developed. The issue becomes one of how much control and how far does it reach.
Various types of sacred kingship have prevailed in ancient cultures. There are three basic characteristics of sacred kings:
(1) they are the receptacle of supernatural or divine power;
(2) they descend from divine or semidivine rulers; and
(3) they are agents or mediators of the sacred.
Societies view their rulers or chiefs as inheritors of the community's magical power. The ruler's power may be both malevolent and beneficial, and it is believed to be essential in all dimensions of communal life, particularly in agriculture where the ruler's influence overthe weather and the land's fertility ensure the harvest necessary for survival.The supernatural powers of the chief may also protect the community from enemies and calamities and so maintain welfare and order. In this sense, the power of the divine king is based on their ability to foresee the unknown
In other societies, particularly those of ancient
China, the Middle East, and South America, the ruler was identified with
a particular god or as a god himself. The kings of ancient Egypt and Persia
and the ruler of the Hittites were regarded as incarnations of the sun-god;
the Egyptian king was also identified with the sky-god, as was the emperor
of China who drew his authority from the "Mandate from Heaven".
However, the god-king was usually considered an individual deity independent
of all others he also can be regarded as the son of a god, an idea found
in the cultures such as Japan, Peru (Incas), Mesopotamia, and the Greek
and Roman world. The queen mother may then be referred to as mother of god.
Finally, a king or ruler may become deified after his death, but this transformation
appears more akin to ancestor worship than to sacred kingship in its fullest
sense.
Sacred kingship often are viewed as ruler mediators or executive agents of a god if they are not gods themselves outright. In this sense, it is the institution of kingship, more than an individual ruler, that bears the mark of the sacred. The deity remains the true lord, while the king seeks to do the will of this god in the community; the king is the link between god and man, the spiritual and the material. In Ancient Egypt, the Pharoah's task was to maintain Ma'at or cosmic order and to keep the world from falling into chaos.
All types of sacred kingship share a number of basic functions that the
king must fulfill to varying degrees depending on the society and culture.
The king's role as bearer of magical power and his influence over the weather,
fertility, and health are clear. In a sense, the king will be regarded as
more or less the good shepherd who feeds and cares for his flock. Protecting
the community from enemies is another crucial function of many sacred kings
who, as warlords, attempt to use their divine knowledge and power to make
strategic decisions and successfully carry out the proper course of action.This
is particularly clear in the Mayan world where supernatural spirit companions
such as jaguars played an important role as sources of powerand influence.
Divine kings may often be a seer or priest in a religious sense. They will
function to mediate or divine through oracles, dreams, or prophecies that
are believed to hold the divine commands of the Gods themselves. In many
cultures, however, the priestly office and its ritual may be entrusted to
a special priestly class, although the sacred king is rarely excluded from
it. Because the king is believed to be in contact with the sacred, his judicial
authority is generally recognized. The ruler may mediate disputes and protect
the individual's rights, establishing laws to ensure a stable balance ofpower
in the community. The king's ability to maintain social order has sometimes
been extended to the cosmic order, which is thought to be influencedby the
sacred ruler's earthly actions; conversely, the king can be held responsible
for disrupting the cosmos and so causing natural calamities and misfortune.
Now lets turn to another issue. What exactly is Ancient Egypt?