His many titles convey the same impression, of a man who knew himself to be one of the most important individuals in the country. In addition to his roles as courtier and Elder of the Palace, Hemiunu also held a number of significant religious offices, including priest of Bastet (cat-goddess), priest of Shesmetet (lioness-goddess), priest of the panther-goddess, priest of the Ram of Mendes, Keeper of the Apis (sacred bull of Memphis), Keeper of the White Bull, and High Priest of Thoth. This last was particularly appropriate since Thoth was the god of wisdom and writing, essential requirements for the Egyptian bureaucrat. We may perhaps glimpse one of Hemiunu’s private interests in his unusual title Director of Music of the South and the North. But there is no doubting his principal offices, which were the reason for his exceptional prominence: Overseer of Royal Scribes (in other words, head of the civil service) and Overseer of All Construction Projects of the King.
The building of the Great Pyramid, and the subsequent clearance of the associated ramps and other project infrastructure, is thought to have been accomplished within a period of twenty years. It is therefore possible that Hemiunu saw the project through from inception to completion. The kudos and personal satisfaction which this undertaking of a lifetime must have brought him can be seen in the other remarkable piece of work which he directed, a sculpture of exceptional workmanship which was found in the statue-chamber of his tomb. Originally painted, with inlaid eyes made from gold and rock-crystal, and hieroglyphic inscriptions on the base rendered in coloured paste, the statue shows Hemiunu seated, wearing a short kilt tied at the waist with a knot. The most striking feature of the sculpture is Hemiunu’s corpulence. His breasts and chest sag under their own weight, while his enormous belly crushes his navel. By comparison with his obese frame, his head looks strangely small. In a country where most of the population survived on subsistence rations, to be fat was a marker of wealth and privilege, for it demonstrated the ability to indulge, to eat more than was absolutely necessary, and to avoid hard manual labour. Hemiunu’s masterful direction of the greatest construction project in history brought him commensurately great personal rewards.
12 | Perniankhu
C
OURT DWARF
Throughout history, royal courts have had their jesters, individuals tasked with entertaining the king and members of his family. In ancient Egypt, the favoured candidates for these entertainers were ‘little people’, either pygmies from sub-Saharan Africa or native Egyptians suffering from dwarfism. Perniankhu was one such court dwarf who lived during the 4th Dynasty.
The Egyptians showed no obvious prejudice against people of restricted growth. Indeed, because the role of court dwarf involved unusually close and private access to the person of the king, such individuals were – like court jesters in medieval Europe – often highly respected and honoured members of the royal entourage, if not close confidants of the monarch. Seneb, perhaps a relative of Perniankhu, was a priest of Khufu and Djedefra as well as Director of Dwarfs in Charge of Dressing [the sovereign], and was appointed tutor to the king’s son, reflecting the trust placed in him by the royal family. Perniankhu, ‘the king’s dwarf who delights his lord every day’, likewise achieved prestige and wealth, reflected both in his burial in the great western cemetery at Giza and in his tomb statue.
The basalt sculpture of Perniankhu is a minor masterpiece of Old Kingdom art. It shows him wearing a short white kilt fastened with a black belt, and the short, curled, shoulder-length wig fashionable in the 4th Dynasty. His upper body is strong and muscular, but his lower body shows clear signs of deformity. His legs are short and bowed, his ankles exceptionally thick, and his feet flat. His left knee is also different from his right, suggesting either injury or congenital deformity. Nevertheless, Perniankhu is shown with two unambiguous symbols of authority: a sceptre in his right hand and a long staff in his left. These regalia, reserved for officials of high status, indicate that he must have been successful in his career, an early example of an enduring tradition of court dwarfs.
13 | Ptahshepses
R
OYAL SON
-
IN
-
LAW
All power in ancient Egypt derived from the king. That was certainly the theory throughout pharaonic history; at the height of the Pyramid Age, it was also the practice. Although the highest ranks of the administration had been opened up to persons of non-royal birth in the 4th Dynasty, the most powerful offices of state were undoubtedly appointed by the king in person. Proximity to the monarch’s inner circle therefore brought with it a far greater chance of preferment. This is illustrated particularly well by the life and career of Ptahshepses, whose tomb at Abusir is the largest private funerary monument of the Old Kingdom.
Little is known of Ptahshepses’ origins, but his court career had evidently been successful enough at a relatively early stage for him to commission a tomb in the 5th Dynasty royal necropolis. It was furnished with several decorated chambers inside the limestone superstructure, but was still relatively modest by the standards of the time. Ptahshepses may already have been employed in royal building projects – one of his subsequent appointments was Overseer of All the King’s Works – and he clearly had knowledge of the building techniques used in the king’s pyramid and its associated structures, for he employed some of them in his own monument. Hence, the roof of the burial chamber in his tomb was constructed from four pairs of huge stone slabs, just like those used to seal the burial-chamber in a royal pyramid. This was an innovation in private tomb architecture, and Ptahshepses’ monument marked a turning-point in the development of the Old Kingdom tomb.
A major turning-point in his own life occurred when he married the lady Khamerernebty, a priestess of Hathor Lady of the Sycamore, sole king’s ornament and, most significantly, daughter of the reigning king Niuserra. As the monarch’s son-in-law, Ptahshepses now found himself in the innermost circle at court, with intimate access to the ultimate source of power. This is reflected in several of his titles, including Favourite of His Lord, Servant of the Throne, Director of the Palace, Keeper of the Diadem and the three related epithets ‘privy to the secret of the House of Morning’, ‘privy to the secret of the god’s word’ and ‘privy to his lord’s secret in all his places’. His new status prompted a major enlargement of his funerary monument, with the addition of a chapel with niches for statues, fronted by a grand entrance with two limestone columns in the shape of lotus bundles.
At the same time, a change in the decoration inside the tomb may hint at an aspect of Ptahshepses’ private life that is otherwise kept well hidden. The careful erasure throughout the tomb of the figure and name of his eldest son seems to indicate a deliberate act of disinheritance. This may have been because the eldest son was the offspring of an earlier marriage and, following Ptahshepses’ union with the king’s daughter, his children from his new, royal wife were given precedence. He certainly portrays himself as a family man, surrounded by at least seven sons and two daughters.
As Ptahshepses’ influence and authority grew, he began to surround himself with his own ‘court’ in miniature. This included companions, scribes, barbers, a steward and a hairdresser; a particularly favoured attendant was his doctor. Ptahshepses must have struck an imposing figure in his long skirt and broad beaded collar, holding a staff of office, particularly when he was carried from place to place in his shaded palanquin, borne by sixteen men, with his other retainers following on behind. His wife Khamerernebty was adorned with a glittering array of jewelry about her neck, wrists and ankles, her status emphasized by her long, heavy wig reaching down to the middle of her back.
The culmination of Ptahshepses’ career came with his appointment as Vizier, an office combining the duties of Chief Justice as well as Prime Minister. This promotion to the head of the Egyptian government was marked by a second, even grander, programme of enlargements to his tomb at Abusir. His finished monument measured a staggering 80 by 107 m (262 by 351 ft), and required yet another new entrance: a portico with two lotiform columns reaching 6 m (20 ft) in height. With its gleaming walls of white limestone, Ptahshepses’ monument must have dominated the burial-ground at Abusir, as it still does today: a permanent and fitting memorial to the grandest of nobles.
14 | Pepiankh
C
ENTENARIAN OFFICIAL
Not many people live to see their 100th birthday, even in modern, affluent, medically advanced western societies. In ancient Egypt, where the average life expectancy was probably between thirty and thirty-six, it would have been highly unusual to reach the age of sixty. Only two kings, Pepi II (no. 20) and Ramesses II (no. 70), are known to have reached their eighties. But one man, Pepiankh-the-Middle, surpassed them all: for, if we are to believe his autobiographical inscription, he was ancient Egypt’s only attested centenarian.
Pepiankh must have been born in the early 6th Dynasty, at Cusae (ancient Qus, modern el-Qusiya) in Middle Egypt, to a powerful local family. His record-breaking longevity was, it seems, matched by his plethora of titles and epithets, for by the end of his career, he had amassed a truly staggering collection, even by the status-obsessed and bombastic standards of the time. Pepiankh was a member of the elite, high official, councillor, Keeper of Nekhen and Headman of Nekheb (all purely honorary titles, denoting rank); his administrative titles included Chief Justice and Vizier, Chief Scribe of the Royal Tablet, Royal Seal-Bearer, Attendant of the Apis, Spokesman of Every Resident of Pe, Overseer of the Two Granaries, Overseer of the Two Purification Rooms, Overseer of the Storehouse, Senior Administrator, Scribe of the Royal Tablet of the Court, God’s Seal-Bearer, and, curiously, draughtsman; in the religious sphere he was Chief Priest of Hathor Lady of Qus, Chief Lector-Priest (responsible for composing and guarding sacred texts) and Sem-Priest (officiant at funerary rites); while at court, he gloried in the status of Sole Companion, Lector-Priest, Overseer of Upper Egypt in the Middle Nomes, Royal Chamberlain, Staff of Commoners, Pillar of Kenmut, Priest of Maat, ‘privy to the secret of every royal command’, and ‘favourite of the king in every place of his’.
Clearly, not all these titles can have translated into executive roles, and Pepiankh himself indicated which of them were his principal offices: ‘I passed all the time that I spent in the function of a magistrate, while doing good and saying what is wished, in order to gain good repute with the god.’ Like all successful individuals in ancient Egypt, Pepiankh knew only too well which palms to grease, since promotion depended as much on keeping in with the powerful as it did upon ability. In his administration of justice, keeping the parties happy was evidently his primary concern – ‘I have judged two parties so as to content them, for I knew that is what the god wants’ – but equally important was protecting his own reputation: ‘As for anything said against me before the magistrates, I came out of it safely, while it fell on the accusers; I was cleared of it before the magistrates, for they had spoken against me in slander.’ Here we see the real motivation of men like Pepiankh with moderately influential positions: to retain their power and defend their privileges against those who sought to supplant them.
Like most provincial officials of the time, Pepiankh combined administrative duties with service in the local temple: ‘I spent a great part of this time as Chief Priest of Hathor, Lady of Qus, entering unto Hathor, Lady of Qus, to see her and to perform her ceremonial with my hands.’ He clearly attributed his long life to the benevolence of his goddess: ‘All things succeeded with me because I was a priest of Hathor, Lady of Qus, and because I protected the goddess to her satisfaction.’
For the successful Egyptian, it was important to make proper preparations for burial since there was always the hope that life’s rewards would be continued in the afterlife. Hence, Pepiankh gave careful consideration to his funeral arrangements and had his tomb constructed on virgin ground, ‘in a clean place, in a good place, wherein no work had been done [previously]’. Obsession with rank and status; piety to one’s local god; concern for the afterlife: Pepiankh embodied the typical preoccupations of an ancient Egyptian, but did so in the course of a wholly atypical lifespan.
15 | Unas
T
HE ENIGMATIC MONARCH
‘Unas is he who eats men, feeds on gods…
Unas eats their magic, swallows their spirits:
Their big ones are for his morning meal,
Their middle ones for his evening meal,
Their little ones for his night meal,
And the oldest males and females for his fuel.’
These chilling verses are among several hundred inscribed on the walls of the inner chambers of the pyramid of Unas at Saqqara. Collectively, they are known as the Pyramid Texts, the oldest surviving body of religious literature from ancient Egypt. The language and imagery of some utterances suggest that they date back many centuries, perhaps even to the dawn of Egyptian history. Others were surely composed anew at the end of the 5th Dynasty. We may assume that spells, incantations and prayers played a part at all royal funerals and in all royal mortuary cults. Yet the idea of inscribing them permanently on the walls of the king’s tomb, to stand for eternity, was an innovation of the reign of Unas.
Like the underlying meaning of the so-called Cannibal Hymn, quoted above, Unas remains an enigma and a paradox. He called his pyramid ‘The Places of Unas are Perfection’, yet it fell into such decay that it attracted the attention of Prince Khaemwaset (no. 72), who restored it in the 19th Dynasty. Unas was revered long after his death, yet during his lifetime he seems to have been sensitive to his own uncertain ancestry, taking pains to associate himself with some of his most illustrious forebears by building his pyramid directly above the tomb of Hetepsekhemwy, founder of the 2nd Dynasty, and in a diagonal line with the pyramids of Djoser (founder of the 3rd) and Userkaf (founder of the 5th).
