Moreover, Unas’s reign is poorly documented, and even its length is uncertain. At least three viziers held office under him, suggesting a lengthy period as monarch. Later historians allotted him between thirty and thirty-three years, and he seems to have been on the throne long enough to celebrate a sed- (jubilee) festival, since the decorative programme of his pyramid temple includes scenes of Unas enthroned, receiving gifts from the gods and the personifications of Egypt’s nomes (districts), quintessential elements of a sed-festival. An excerpt from the Pyramid Texts in Unas’s pyramid gives a vivid description of how the king would have appeared at such important occasions:
‘His panther skin is on him,
His staff in his arm, his sceptre in his hand.’
Despite the lack of historical inscriptions from his reign, the decoration of his pyramid causeway includes a wealth of scenes, at least some of which must relate to actual events. But here, too, it is difficult to disentangle illusion and reality. A scene of Unas slaying a defeated Libyan chief turns out to have been copied, detail by detail, from an earlier monument of the 5th Dynasty. It probably represents a standardized scene, part of the ritual of kingship. By contrast, an isolated block showing a battle between Egyptian troops and an army of Asiatics appears for the first time, suggesting that it may record a real military encounter. It may be confirmed by isolated figures of bearded Asiatics that occur elsewhere on the Unas causeway; and two fragments inscribed with the king’s name have been found at the port of Byblos on the Lebanese coast which served as Egypt’s gateway to the natural resources of the Levant.
More straightforward are the scenes which depict human activities or the natural world, such as a marketplace busy with customers and merchants, metalworkers, farm labourers gathering figs and honey or harvesting grain, and a hunt in the desert. Perhaps the most famous scenes from the causeway are, fittingly for Unas and his reign, also the most enigmatic. These are the harrowing images of famine: a man on the verge of death is supported by his emaciated wife, while a male friend grips his arm; a woman desperate for food eats the lice from her own head; a little boy with the distended belly of starvation begs a woman for food. There can be little doubt that these record the mental and physical anguish of famine victims, yet there are no inscriptions to identify the starving people. It is scarcely conceivable that they are native Egyptians, since the whole purpose of art in a funerary context was to immortalize the desired state of affairs. Perhaps they are desert tribespeople, their parlous state shown in order to emphasize the wretchedness of those living beyond the rule of the Egyptian king. The mystery of these haunting scenes remains.
The site chosen by Unas for his pyramid was not only symbolically aligned with the monuments of earlier dynastic founders. It also made use of existing natural features, the causeway following the route of a long wadi and the valley temple sited on the shore of a lake at the foot of the escarpment. The embellishment of the causeway walls certainly broke new ground, and so did the treatment of the chambers beneath the pyramid, which were the first since the reign of Djoser to be decorated. Around the sarcophagus, the walls of the burial-chamber were lined with white alabaster, grooved and painted to resemble an enclosure made from a wooden frame and reed matting, representing the archetypal shrine in ancient Egyptian religious thought. With the coffin painted black to symbolize the earth and the ceiling studded with golden stars against a dark blue background to mimic the night sky, Unas had conceived his final resting-place as a microcosm of the universe. Around him, the texts carved and painted blue – the colour of the watery abyss of the underworld – were designed to assist his resurrection from the earth and his safe passage into the heavens to live for ever as ‘an indestructible spirit’.
The carving of the utterances in stone was designed, above all, to obviate reliance on mortuary priests; yet, Unas’s mortuary cult lasted well into the Middle Kingdom: a final contradiction in the life of this most enigmatic of kings. It is just possible that all the paradoxes were intentional, a veil behind which the man of mysterious origins could hide. As one of his Pyramid Texts succinctly put it: ‘Unas is the master of cunning.’
16 | Metjetji
C
OURTIER
,
PATRON
,
AESTHETE
The Old Kingdom private tombs at Saqqara are some of the most beautiful monuments to have survived from ancient Egypt. Their detailed, lively decoration bears witness to the skill and sophistication of Egyptian artists, and to the discernment and patronage of those high officials granted the privilege of a burial in the necropolis of the capital city, Memphis. One such official was Metjetji, who served at court at the end of the 5th Dynasty. Although his career was neither unusual nor particularly remarkable, the quality of the decoration from his tomb is exceptionally fine. He thus serves as an exemplar of the bureaucrat-patron at the height of the Pyramid Age.
Metjetji was a family man, with four sons – Ptahhotep, Khuensobek, Sabuptah and Ihy – and a daughter, Iretsobek. Not unexpectedly, two of their names honour Ptah, patron deity of Memphis, the city where Metjetji lived and worked. However, the fact that he named one son and one daughter in honour of Sobek, crocodile god of the Fayum, suggests a family connection with this region. As well as being a proud father, he was also a loyal son to his parents. According to Egyptian custom, he oversaw their burial and requested a coffin for them from the royal workshops. His request was granted, a sign of his standing at court where he had risen to the rank of Overseer of the Office of the Palace Tenants. He also held the rank of Liege of the King of the Great Palace, member of the elite, high official and district administrator. Put more simply, he was ‘honoured by Unas [king at the time], his master’.
A man of means, Metjetji had his own estates, and would go out to receive the produce from them wearing sandals and a feline pelt partly covering his kilt and apron. Indeed, one of his additional duties at court was Chief Keeper of Fabrics, and he seems to have had something of a penchant for fine clothing. In his tomb, he is shown wearing a kilt with a pleated apron, bracelets, a broad bead collar, and a long wig with fine locks partly covering his ears. He had a fashionably short beard and must have been quite the model of a well-dressed noble. His other leisure pursuits, as befitted a person of his rank and status, included playing board games and listening to musical concerts. He also had a spotted greyhound as a pet, which his son Ihy looked after while Metjetji was on official business.
An elegant tomb with well-executed decoration was an essential accoutrement for a high official, not only proclaiming his status during his lifetime but, crucially, guaranteeing that it would continue into the afterlife. Metjetji’s tomb was adorned with mural paintings as well as reliefs, and it must have been a costly affair; but he was at pains to stress that he had been a good and generous employer to the workers, and had paid them from his own wealth: ‘As for all those who built for me this tomb, I paid them after they had performed the work here, with the copper that was an endowment from my personal property. I gave them clothes and provided their nourishment with the bread and beer from my personal property, and they praised God for me because of it.’
Modesty was not a quality valued by ancient Egyptian officialdom. On his false door – in front of which priests and visitors would present the offerings in the mortuary cult – Metjetji had himself depicted eight times, more often than not holding a long staff emblematic of authority. Among the offerings listed on the false door are the usual bread, beer, meat, fowl, alabaster and linen, but also green and black eye-paint. Once again, we catch a glimpse of Metjetji the aesthete. His appreciation of sophistication is summed up in his wish for the afterlife: ‘to walk on the beautiful roads of the West and enjoy a perfect burial in the necropolis.’ He certainly achieved the latter and, it may be hoped, the former as well.
17 | Mereruka
G
RAND VIZIER
‘I was a great one of the king’ says the high official Mereruka at the beginning of his autobiographical inscription; and there could be no better summary of his privileged position. For Mereruka owed his wealth and status entirely to his sovereign, Teti, having married the king’s eldest daughter, Watetkhethor, also known as Seshseshet. When another of Teti’s sons-in-law, Kagemni, retired as vizier, it was Mereruka who assumed this most important office at the head of the Egyptian government. The vizierate combined courtly, administrative and judicial functions in a single person. Moreover, it brought with it a host of other responsibilities and dignities, ranging from honorary governorships of important localities to responsibility for the king’s pyramid complex and mortuary estate. Mereruka thus found himself with a central role in almost every sphere of Egyptian life. In religious affairs, he was a lector-priest, responsible for reciting spells and incantations during acts of worship. In government, he headed all departments as vizier while also holding his own portfolio as Overseer of All the King’s Works. He was Overseer of the Six Great Mansions (Chief Justice) and honorary administrator of Dep (Buto, modern Tell el-Fara‘in), an ancient, northwestern Delta town of great sacred significance. As Teti’s most trusted official, Mereruka was also in charge of the most important royal project of all, the king’s mortuary complex. This involved overseeing both the estate that would supply Teti’s mortuary cult in perpetuity and supervising the priests and tenants of the pyramid town, together with the construction of the pyramid itself, called ‘Teti is enduring of places’.
Despite a heavy raft of responsibilities, life as a high official was not without its compensations. A host of servants tended to Mereruka’s every need. Rather than having to walk, he was borne in a carrying-chair while attendants looked after his pets (two dogs and a monkey). In his leisure time, he enjoyed playing the board-game senet (‘passing’) and painting. A scene in Mereruka’s tomb shows him seated at an easel, painting a representation of the seasons, depicted in human form. He was evidently a man of cultured and refined tastes. These are reflected not just in the decoration of his tomb, but in the structure itself. As befitted the most powerful commoner in the land, it was the largest private tomb of its time, and, indeed, was destined to remain the largest in the Saqqara necropolis. Comprising thirty-two rooms, it included separate annexes for Mereruka’s wife and eldest son (the latter given the loyal name Meri-Teti, ‘beloved of Teti’). At the centre of the tomb was a magnificent hall of six columns, with a funerary statue of Mereruka standing before an offering table.
The customary scenes of craftsmen at work were accompanied by other, more bizarre, images of life in 6th Dynasty Egypt. It was common enough to include depictions of animal husbandry in a tomb, since this magically guaranteed supplies of meat in the afterlife, should the actual offerings deposited with the grave goods be destroyed. In Mereruka’s tomb, however, we gain unexpected insights into the short-lived attempts by 6th Dynasty farmers to domesticate exotic animals: scenes show attendants force-feeding hyenas to fatten them for the table, while semi-tame antelopes feed from mangers. The cuisine of Teti’s court was apparently rather rarified.
Away from all this sophistication, Mereruka was a proud son, husband, brother and father. Known to his closest relatives and friends as plain Meri, he took pride in his extended family: his mother Nedjetemipet, his princess wife, his nine brothers and at least four sons. All found a place in the decoration of his great monument for eternity, the tomb he had built right next to the pyramid of his father-in-law and monarch. Having achieved high office, Mereruka was determined to remain within the king’s inner circle forever. He may have been a commoner by birth, but by marrying well, he had ensured a glorious afterlife for himself and his entire family.
18 | Weni
R
OYAL FACTOTUM
The exercise of power was a highly flexible affair in ancient Egypt. Authority was rarely if ever wielded in a single defined post in the modern sense of a ‘job’. Rather, an individual might be expected to carry out a wide range of responsibilities within a single career. Royal authority to act was what mattered, not relevant experience in a specific area. Few individuals illustrate this flexibility better than Weni, whose long and distinguished career, described in detail on his cenotaph, spanned the first three reigns of the 6th Dynasty.
Under King Teti, Weni was, in his own words, ‘a headband-wearing youth’. His parentage and background are not known, but already he was marked out for a career in the administration, holding the junior post of storehouse custodian. He then received his first promotion, to Inspector of Palace Tenants, another office connected with economic matters. Significantly, this new appointment brought Weni closer to the day-to-day running of the royal palace. He was being groomed for the king’s personal service.
With the death of Teti and the accession of Pepi I, Weni might have feared that his career would stall, but the outcome was quite the reverse. He was promoted again, and this time to the office of Overseer of the Robing Room, a position which gave him regular and intimate access to the king. Weni’s enhanced status at court was recognized with the rank of companion and he was also made Inspector of Priests of Pepi I’s pyramid town. Soon, his loyal service to the monarch was rewarded with further responsibility of a sensitive judicial nature: hearing legal cases ‘alone with the Chief Judge and Vizier, concerning all kinds of secrets’. In particular, Weni was appointed to represent the king in cases concerning the royal harem. This was to stand him in good stead later in his career.
Weni’s rapid rise through the ranks of the administration brought with it substantial material benefits. Like all successful Egyptians in mid-career, he was already making provision for his burial and mortuary cult. Using his special access to the king, he successfully petitioned for the privilege of a stone sarcophagus, something usually reserved for members of the royal family. It was transported ‘in a royal barge together with its lid, a doorway, a lintel, two jambs and a libation-table by a company of sailors under the command of a royal seal-bearer’. This show of royal favour must have been a signal honour.
Promotion followed promotion, as Weni was appointed Overseer, rather than merely Inspector, of Palace Tenants, and raised to the rank of sole companion. His main duties were connected with royal ceremonial, and involved guarding, escorting and attending the king on the occasion of audiences and visits. Like monarchs throughout the ages, Egyptian kings were susceptible to plots and palace coups, very often hatched in the harem which housed the women and children of the royal family. Indeed, it was in this institution that one of Pepi I’s wives plotted against him. When the conspiracy was uncovered, Weni was deputed to hear and try the charge, alone and in secret: a powerful demonstration of the great trust placed in him by the king.
Weni’s next commission was altogether different. The ‘sand-dwellers’ of western Asia – the nomadic tribespeople of the Sinai – were rebelling against Egyptian authority and threatening security on the country’s northeastern border. So Weni was sent to put down the insurgency, with an army of Egyptian conscripts, bolstered by mercenaries from Nubia and the bordering desert regions, under his command. He led the army through the Delta to engage the sand-dwellers in their desert homeland. In a classic pincer movement, half of the Egyptian army was ferried by boat, landing in the enemy’s rear, while the other half travelled overland to launch a frontal attack. Weni’s strategic skill resulted in a famous victory, but it was not to last: he boasted – somewhat shallowly – of being sent on four more occasions to attack the sand-dwellers, each time they rebelled.
After a string of onerous military postings, Weni could perhaps have looked forward to a quieter end to his career. But the death of Pepi I changed everything. As a tried and trusted courtier, Weni was appointed Chamberlain of the Palace and Sandal-Bearer to the new king, Merenra. He was also made Governor of Upper Egypt, the first commoner to hold this post.
Weni’s strategic abilities, honed in battle against the sand-dwellers, were now deployed in a civilian context, to transport large stone blocks for Merenra’s pyramid from the quarries at Ibhat (a site in Lower Nubia) and Elephantine (ancient Abu). A single expedition to both quarry sites was unprecedented, but with the aid of six barges and three tow-boats, Weni brought it to a successful conclusion. His reward was to be sent on another similar assignment: transporting an alabaster altar for the king’s pyramid from the quarries at Hatnub, in a specially constructed barge of acacia wood, measuring 60 cubits long by 30 cubits wide (31.4 by 15.7 m, 103 by 511⁄2 ft). What made the undertaking even more difficult was that it took place in the summer season, when the river level was low. None the less, Weni boasts of having accomplished the entire operation in a matter of seventeen days.
For the final mission of his career, he was able to deploy the skills he had acquired in some of his previous military and operational roles. His task was two-fold. First, he had to supervise the construction of three barges and four tow-boats, to bring more granite for the king’s pyramid from Elephantine. Second, he was put in charge of digging five canals in Upper Egypt, perhaps to aid the passage of the huge boats and their heavy cargo. Not only was the work finished satisfactorily, Weni also adds: ‘Indeed, I made a saving for the Palace with all these five canals.’
His comment is telling, and more revealing of his inner nature than the preceding description of his half-century-long career. For, despite his illustrious succession of senior judicial, military and civilian appointments, something of the young storehouse custodian still shines through this bean-counting remark.
19 | Harkhuf
