Like all Egyptians, Meketra was concerned to ensure an eternal supply of commodities for his afterlife. His tomb models therefore included two female offering bearers, and scale models of food and craft production, each activity contained within a walled room. They provide our best source of evidence for Middle Kingdom technology, embracing spinning and weaving, carpentry, butchery, the baking of bread and brewing of beer, and the storage of grain. In daily life, such activities may have taken place in workshops surrounding Meketra’s house in Thebes.
The house itself is represented by two models which give us an indication of the sophistication and comfort enjoyed by a government official under Mentuhotep II. The street façade of Meketra’s house presented a tall, plastered wall; at its centre was the main entrance, comprising a decorative fretwork or moulded panel above double doors. A single door to the right may have been the entrance for servants and deliveries. A tall, latticed window on the other side would have allowed ventilation into the house, while minimizing the influx of dust and dirt from the street. In Meketra’s models, the inner rooms of the residence have been reduced to a single thickness of wood, in order to emphasize the house’s finest feature: a walled garden with rows of sycamore-fig trees surrounding a rectangular pool. This would have provided Meketra and his family with shade throughout the day, while permanent water was particularly desirable in the dry heat of an Egyptian town. A portico of columns shaded the garden front of the house, offering a gentle transition between interior and exterior spaces. Life in 11th Dynasty Thebes didn’t come much better than this. For Meketra, the material rewards of high office were considerable.
29 | Amenemhat I
V
ICTIM OF A COURT CONSPIRACY
Mentuhotep II had changed the course of Egyptian history, bringing an end to the fragmentation of the First Intermediate Period and inaugurating a new era of strong, central government, the Middle Kingdom. But his own descendants were not to enjoy the fruits of reunification for very long. Both Mentuhotep II’s successors had brief reigns; with the death of his second successor, Mentuhotep IV, the 11th Dynasty royal line came to an end. The family that had ruled Thebes since the dying days of the Old Kingdom found itself without a male heir. To whom would the throne now pass?
There were always powerful men at the Egyptian court, and the most influential in the brief reign of Mentuhotep IV was the member of the elite, Mayor of the City, Vizier, Overseer of the King’s Works and royal favourite Amenemhat. His early career is known primarily from a series of four inscriptions carved deep in the eastern desert, on the rock face of the siltstone quarries in the Wadi Hammamat. Amenemhat led an expedition in the second year of Mentuhotep IV’s reign, to quarry and bring back a block of the precious green-black stone for the king’s sarcophagus. And Amenemhat made sure that the entire undertaking was recorded in unusual detail at the quarry site, giving himself full credit for the mission’s success.
The next time a powerful man called Amenemhat is encountered, he is king of Egypt in succession to Mentuhotep IV. Although court documents never equated the two Amenemhats as one and the same person, there can be little doubt that the Vizier and royal favourite exploited his position at court to seize the throne when it fell vacant. But that was merely the first hurdle in the path to power. The problem with usurpation was that it tore the veil of divinity and mystery that normally protected the office of kingship, revealing it for what it was: a source of unrivalled authority and wealth that occasionally, and often in unpredictable circumstances, came within the grasp of ambitious men. Amenemhat clearly had both ambition and resolution to act; but having seized power, he had to move swiftly and decisively to impose his personal authority on Egypt, and legitimize his new dynasty.
His most explicit statement to this effect was the establishment of a new capital city for his government, named – to prove a point – Amenemhat-Itj-Tawy, ‘Amenemhat seizes the Two Lands’. Probably located close to the modern settlement of Lisht, it was to remain the principal royal residence for the next four centuries. By relocating the centre of administration from Thebes to the apex of the Delta, where it had been throughout the Old Kingdom, the new king was deliberately associating himself with his illustrious forebears of the Pyramid Age: here was a renaissance ruler intent upon restoring Egypt to its former glory. To reinforce this message, he ordered work to commence on his funerary monument, the first full-scale royal pyramid to be built in Egypt for 300 years. Moreover, Amenemhat took unusual steps to give his own complex legitimacy and potency by embedding within its structure blocks taken from the Giza monuments of Khufu, greatest of all pyramid-builders (no. 10).
The other great construction project of Amenemhat’s reign marked a decisive shift, not in domestic affairs, but in foreign policy. Since the late Old Kingdom, Egypt had faced a persistent irritant on its northeastern border in the shape of the ‘sand-dwellers’. These semi-nomadic tribes-people of the Sinai peninsula and southern Palestine launched periodic attacks on Egyptian trade caravans, disrupting the economic activity that kept the royal court supplied with prestige commodities such as timber, oil and wine. Occasional military campaigns, such as those led by Weni (no. 18) in the 6th Dynasty, served to reassert Egyptian hegemony. But now, the nature of the threat was changing. The fertile fields of the Nile Delta were attracting a steady flow of those same tribespeople from the harsher environments of the Levant. If allowed to continue unchecked, large-scale migration of foreigners into Egypt would threaten the country’s stability. So Amenemhat commanded a great defensive fortification, known as ‘the Walls of the Ruler’, to be built the entire length of Egypt’s northeastern frontier. For 200 years, it succeeded in its purpose, keeping the Two Lands relatively secure from undue foreign influence.
This combination – of confidence in a new age, coupled with insecurity about threats from within and without – is the paradox at the heart of Amenemhat and his reign. He inaugurated the greatest flowering of literature in ancient Egypt’s long history, the true mark of a renaissance ruler; but the newly composed texts were largely propagandistic in nature, designed above all to legitimize the dynasty. Amenemhat’s desire to establish himself as rightful king even extended to rewriting history. Hence, one of the greatest compositions of his reign was the Prophecy of Neferti, a mythical work in which social upheaval and widespread disorder were banished by a ‘saviour’ called Ameny (a shortened form of the king’s own name). In promoting Amenemhat as reunifier of his country, this account conveniently passed over Mentuhotep II and his two successors.
The literature of the 12th Dynasty has become famous for its concentration on the theme of ‘national distress’, in which the proper disposition of society is disrupted or reversed. This reflected not so much an abiding memory of the First Intermediate Period and the civil war between south and north as a deep-seated unease within the court of Amenemhat and his successors. Despite the fiction expounded in texts and monuments, Egypt had changed irrevocably since the end of the Old Kingdom. The previous certainties had gone forever. Royal authority now depended as much on coercion and political manoeuvering as it did on the concept of divinity. To bolster the chances of his new royal line remaining on the throne, Amenemhat instituted a radical new policy to mark the twentieth anniversary of his accession: he had his son and heir, Senusret, crowned king to reign alongside him.
Yet, in the end, after a reign of thirty years the dubious manner of Amenemhat’s accession came back to haunt him. Those closest to the king, who had seen him gain power through naked ambition rather than royal kinship thought they might try something similar. A band of assassins attacked Amenemhat while he was asleep in the royal apartments. He awoke to find swords brandished against him. Helpless without his palace guard, he succumbed to the attackers. But his shrewd policy of co-regency worked as intended, ensuring a relatively trouble-free assumption of sole power by his son Senusret I. Amenemhat’s greatest legacy was thus to give his descendants the security of office that he himself had so earnestly desired, but which eluded him to the last.
30 | Hekanakht
F
ARMER AND LETTER WRITER
Occasionally, very occasionally, we catch glimpses – through the barrage of official propaganda and religious texts that dominate the ancient Egyptian written record – of unadorned reality, of raw feelings and the complexities of human relationships. Perhaps the most famous examples of texts ‘from daily life’ are the letters written home by a farmer, Hekanakht, in the early years of the Middle Kingdom.
At the time he wrote, Hekanakht was probably in his mid to late thirties, distinctly middle-aged in ancient Egyptian terms. He was already married for the second time (of which, more below) and was master of a large household of relatives and dependants. He must have been fairly well educated by the standards of the age, certainly literate enough to write some or all of his own letters; he resorted to employing a professional scribe only when something more formal was required.
Although his chief occupation – and preoccupation – was farming, Hekanakht had an important role as ka-servant (mortuary priest) in the cult of Ipi, a Vizier under Mentuhotep II. Ipi’s tomb was at Thebes, and Hekanakht’s duties required him to spend extended periods of time in ‘the southern city’, a long way from his home in the settlement of Nebsyt (‘sidder grove’), close to the Fayum region and Memphis. To judge from the name of Hekanakht’s youngest son, (Mer-)Sneferu, the family may have lived in the vicinity of the 4th Dynasty pyramids of King Sneferu at Dahshur.
It was during one of his sojourns in Thebes, between the autumn of year 5 (of Amenemhat I?) and the summer of year 7, that Hekanakht wrote many of his letters home. They are dominated by economic matters, ranging from the collection of debts to the distribution of grain, reflecting his worries about leaving his farming interests in the hands of others. His tone is concerned, but also impatient and hectoring: ‘Take great care! Watch over my seed-corn! Look after all my property! Look, I count you responsible for it. Take great care with all my property!’ In particular, Hekanakht, a man with a keen business sense, was anxious to ensure that his steward, Merisu, made the necessary and timely preparations for the coming agricultural year: not siphoning off any of the grain held in reserve to pay the rent on a parcel of farm land; investigating the possibility of renting additional land if the circumstances looked favourable; and so forth. Despite his relatively humble status in the ancient Egyptian social hierarchy, Hekanakht was evidently quite a successful farmer. Indeed, he had financial dealings with at least twenty-eight different individuals. Sixteen of them farmed land in the same region, called Perhaa. One of these, Herunefer, was a moderately high-ranking employee of the state, and by far the most exalted of Hekanakht’s acquaintances.
Besides interactions with business colleagues and neighbours, Hekanakht’s personal relationships were dominated by the members of his large household. In addition to three unnamed servants, his relatives and dependants numbered eighteen. They included his foreman, Nakht; the household steward, Merisu; the household scribe, Sihathor; a field-hand in charge of the family’s cattle, Sinebniut; Hekanakht’s mother, Ipi; a senior female relative, Hetepet; a younger brother, Inpu; a son by a previous marriage, Sneferu; a younger sister or daughter by a previous marriage, Sitniut; two daughters by Hekanakht’s second marriage, Nefret and Sitwerut; and the new wife herself, Iutenhab, also known as Hetepet. Hekanakht demonstrated the typically reverent attitude of an Egyptian man to his mother, sending her particular greetings and reassuring her ‘Don’t worry about me. Look, I’m well and alive.’ He also betrayed more than a touch of favouritism towards his son Sneferu, telling his other relatives: ‘Whatever he wants, you shall make him content with what he wants.’
Most of the household members were probably in their teens or twenties, and the atmosphere seems to have been both competitive and febrile. With such a large number of people living under one roof, it is not surprising that tensions came to the surface from time to time. Their principal cause was the attitude of Hekanakht’s other relatives to his new wife, herself only in her twenties. He clearly felt that, in his absence, the others were ganging up on the new arrival. Believing that one of his female servants, Senen, had behaved particularly badly towards Iutenhab, Hekanakht had the unfortunate girl promptly dismissed. He then threw this back at his family, accusing them of not protecting the wife against the maid’s malice because they regarded the former as a slut and a parvenu: ‘Shall you not respect my new wife?!’ he wrote, in a tone of exasperation.
There was clearly more to Hekanakht’s domestic arrangements than meets the eye, even reading between the lines of his numerous letters home. So intriguing is the relationship between his new wife, the servant girl and the other family members that Agatha Christie took it as the basis of her murder mystery novel, Death Comes As The End. Whether the simmering resentment in a small farmstead in Nebsyt in the twentieth century BC led to parricide we shall never know; but it certainly sheds a fascinating and curiously familiar light on ordinary family life in ancient Egypt.
31 | Sarenput
P
RINCE OF
E
LEPHANTINE
The rise of a new dynasty provided opportunities for men of humble origins but possessing talent and ambition to achieve high office. The accession to sole power of Senusret I, in the dramatic circumstances of his father’s assassination, gave particular impetus to the promotion of outsiders, since the best way for the king to ensure the loyalty of his officials was to surround himself with men who owed him everything. One such man was Sarenput (I), appointed nomarch (provincial governor) and prince of Elephantine (ancient Abu) early in Senusret I’s reign.
Of Sarenput’s father we know nothing, but the name shared by his mother and wife, Sat-tjeni, suggests that one or both women may have come from the town of This (ancient Tjeni) in northern Upper Egypt. Like most couples of the time, Sarenput and Sat-tjeni had a large family: three sons, all named Heqaib, and two daughters, one named Satethetep in honour of the local goddess of Elephantine and the younger named Sat-tjeni after her mother and grandmother. In the account of his life, Sarenput is silent about his early career, but shows no such reticence about the honours bestowed on him by Senusret I. His promotion was as striking as it was swift: from nowhere, he became at once a member of the elite, high official, Royal Seal-Bearer, sole companion, and Overseer of Priests of Satet Lady of Elephantine. He also held the office of Overseer of Priests of Khnum, the principal god of the First Cataract region, and boasted of officiating in the temple on the great festival day.
As regional governor of Ta-Sety, the southernmost province of Egypt, Sarenput had significant economic duties. He was responsible for the supervision of settlements and the collection of taxes in Egyptian-controlled Lower Nubia: he was, in his own words, ‘the one to whom the produce of the Medjay is reported, namely the tribute of the princes of the deserts’. He was also closely involved in any military expeditions sent from Egypt into Nubia, since Elephantine was the point of departure for such campaigns. Sarenput was therefore, without hyperbole, ‘a possessor of the king’s secrets in the army, hearing what is heard, who(se name) is upon the signet-rings in all matters of foreign countries in the royal apartments’. As prince of Elephantine, he also had special responsibility for all shipping through the First Cataract in his capacity as ‘great overseer of ships in the palace’. It was probably no overstatement to say that ‘he who sails and he who lands are under his control’. Much of the traffic from Nubia to Egypt and vice-versa was trade-related, and Sarenput boasted of ‘furnishing the treasuries through the towns of Ta-Sety’.
Loyalty to the king was Sarenput’s guiding principle in life: ‘I was one straightforward in the royal presence, void of falsehood… I was his servant near to his heart, doing what his lord loves.’ Such devoted service – ‘guiding the god to all that is good’ – was rewarded with a shower of gifts from the palace: ‘When His Person proceeded to overthrow vile Kush, His Person caused to be brought to me a bull, uncooked. As for all that was done in Elephantine, His Person caused to be brought to me the flank or the hind-quarters of a bull, and a dish filled with all kinds of good things, with five geese uncooked upon it; and four men carried it to me.’ It may have been a paltry gift by the standards of the Egyptian court, but Sarenput evidently took rather exaggerated pride in this token of royal favour, as only someone newly promoted to high office could.
A far more significant gift was a magnificent tomb cut into the cliff-face overlooking the River Nile and the island of Elephantine. As Sarenput explained, ‘His Person exalted me in the land: I was distinguished beyond the (other) princes of the nomes. I (reversed) the customs of antiquity; it was caused that I should reach heaven in a moment.’ The tomb in question was destined to be the most sumptuous built in the area to date: ‘I appointed craftsmen to the work in my tomb, and His Person praised me on account of it very greatly and very often in the presence of the courtiers and of the Lady of the Land.’
A spacious rock-cut forecourt gave access to the tomb chambers through a doorway of white marble. The burial itself was furnished with ‘every requisite’ from the royal workshops as a further reward for loyal service. The walls were decorated with fine reliefs, and dominating everything were Sarenput’s autobiographical inscriptions – the same text, repeated twice, word for word – just in case posterity should forget his meteoric rise from obscurity. As for the hereafter, Sarenput confidently looked forward to an eternal afterlife in the celestial realm: ‘My head pierced the sky, I grazed the bodies of the stars, I danced like the planets.’ Not a bad ending for a self-made man.
32 | Hapdjefa
P
ROVINCIAL GOVERNOR WITH A LEGAL MINDSET
Ancient Egyptians went to great lengths to ensure that the basic necessities of life would be provided to them, unhindered, in an eternal afterlife. Tomb paintings of offering bearers, or, more fundamentally, of bakers and brewers at work, served this purpose; so did tomb models, in three dimensions; so, too, did the offering formula itself, inscribed on the false-door or funerary stela, promising bread, beer and other supplies for the spirit of the deceased, should the actual commodities, buried in the tomb, be exhausted or destroyed. These multiple insurance policies were built into the very fabric of Egyptian funerary practices, because the worst fate of all was to die another death. Failure to survive the afterlife through lack of proper provision would result in total annihilation.
Hapdjefa, nomarch (provincial governor) of Asyut (ancient Sawty) in the reign of Senusret I, took preparations for his afterlife to a new extreme. Inscribed in pride of place on the east wall (facing the sunrise) of the great hall of his rock-cut tomb at Asyut are a series of ten contracts. With legalistic precision, they specify the arrangements that, Hapdjefa hoped, would ensure regular supplies for his mortuary cult after his death. As well as detailing a complex web of interrelated transactions, they also shed fascinating light on the political and social conditions of the period, and on what it meant to be a nomarch in early 12th Dynasty Egypt.
During the civil war between the Herakleopolitan 9th/10th Dynasty and the Theban 11th, Asyut had been on the northern side. Once the Thebans emerged victorious, they set about appointing new governors in those regions that had been loyal to their enemies. Hapdjefa was a direct successor, and perhaps a descendant, of the pro-Theban nomarch installed to govern Asyut at the end of the First Intermediate Period. He was certainly a high-ranking member of the royal administration, with the usual titles: member of the elite, high official, Royal Seal-Bearer, and sole companion. He also had economic responsibilities as Overseer of the Two Granaries, and in typical Egyptian fashion combined civil office with religious duties in his local temples: he was a priest of Hor-Anubis as well as Overseer of Priests of Wepwawet Lord of Sawty. He was married twice, to women called Senu and Wepa, and had a daughter whom he named Idny after his mother.
