As nomarch, Hapdjefa owned two types of property and had three sources of income. There was the land (and its revenue) which he had inherited in a private capacity from his father – his paternal estate. This he could use and bequeath, in turn, as he wished. There was also the land which he owned by virtue of his office – his ‘nomarch’s estate’. He could not dispose of this since it was not his personal property; any arrangement which he made concerning this land and its income was valid only so long as his successors chose to recognize it. Finally, as a senior priest in the local cult, Hapdjefa was entitled to a certain proportion of the temple revenue and offerings, calculated as a number of days per year. His mortuary contracts involve both types of land, all three sources of income, and four distinct sections of Egyptian society: the nomarch himself, his subordinate officials, citizens, and the serfs who toiled in the fields.
The first contract stipulates that the local priests will provide white bread in return for a share of a bull from the temple. In the second contract, the priests’ recompense for providing bread is grain from the nomarch’s estate. The third contract involves the temple itself providing bread and beer in exchange for a portion of Hapdjefa’s temple revenue: a curiously self-cancelling arrangement. The fourth contract binds the priests to provide yet more white bread in return for fuel, beer and bread of their own. And so the arrangements continue, with temple officials and priests, to guarantee the provision of bread, beer, meat and candle-wicks in exchange for temple revenue, land and grain. In the ninth and tenth contracts, Hapdjefa intended to ensure not only the provisions for his mortuary cult, but also their delivery to his tomb-chapel: the overseers of the necropolis and another necropolis official would guarantee both, in exchange for land and meat, two of the most valuable commodities at the nomarch’s disposal.
Seldom can an Egyptian have made such elaborate preparation for his afterlife, but it was ultimately to no avail. When Hapdjefa’s tomb was excavated in the 1880s, it was found plundered, like those of his less obsessive contemporaries. Its (useless) mortuary contracts were the only point of interest.
33 | Khnumhotep
H
EREDITARY NOBLE
The First Intermediate Period witnessed the emergence of strong, local identities and cultural traditions which survived into the early Middle Kingdom. Politically, too, the 11th and early 12th Dynasties were characterized by powerful provincial governors, the nomarchs, who surrounded themselves with miniature courts and ruled their districts often without overt reference to the king. The ‘era of the nomarchs’ is most spectacularly attested at the site of Beni Hasan in the central Nile Valley, where the governors of the Oryx-nome (the sixteenth province of Upper Egypt) built their lavish rock-cut tombs in a spectacular location overlooking the river. One of these tomb owners, Khnumhotep, has left us a particularly detailed picture of the relations between the central monarchy and the nomarchs over four generations during the first half of the 12th Dynasty.
Khnumhotep reached adulthood and enjoyed the pinnacle of his career during the reigns of Amenemhat II and Senusret II, but his family’s involvement in local politics went back much further, to the beginning of the dynasty. His grandfather, the first Khnumhotep, had been appointed governor of the Oryx-nome by Amenemhat I as part of the new dynasty’s programme to consolidate its power throughout Egypt. The nomarch’s authority extended over both banks of the Nile and included the important regional centre of Menat-Khufu. Khnumhotep-the-first was able to strengthen the family’s influence still further by marrying off his daughter to Nehri, vizier and governor of the royal residence city of Itj-tawy. As for Khnumhotep’s two sons, each inherited in due course a portion of their father’s domain. The elder son Amenemhat succeeded as nomarch while the younger son Nakht received the town governorship of Menat-Khufu. When Nakht died without issue, in the nineteenth year of the reign of Amenemhat II, the governorship of Menat-Khufu duly passed to his sister’s son, Khnumhotep-the-second.
The second Khnumhotep acknowledged the importance of his descent, on his mother’s and his father’s side: ‘This my chief nobility is my birth.’ He secured the family position by making a strategic alliance of his own, marrying the eldest daughter of the neighbouring nomarch. By this means, Khnumhotep’s own sons, Nakht and Khnumhotep-the-third, stood to inherit the governorship of the Jackal and Oryx-nomes respectively.
The highlight of Khnumhotep’s two-decades-long career as governor of Menat-Khufu and of the adjoining eastern highlands was the visit, in the sixth year of the reign of Senusret II, of a trading party of Asiatics from the land of Shu (in present-day Israel/Palestine). Led by their chief, Abisha, the visitors included women and children as well as men; the main commodity they brought to the Nile Valley for exchange was galena, the lead sulphide ore much prized by the ancient Egyptians as the principal ingredient in mesdemet (black eye-paint). What they took back to their own land in return is not recorded, but the peaceful nature of their reception at Menat-Khufu indicates a two-way trading arrangement between equal parties.
Khnumhotep’s other notable achievement – and one for which Egyptologists have cause to be especially thankful – was to leave behind a lavish architectural legacy. In Menat-Khufu he carried out several projects:
‘I made a monument in the midst of my city; I built a colonnaded hall which I found in ruins; I erected it with columns anew; inscribed with my own name. I perpetuated the name of my father upon them. I recorded my deeds upon every monument.’
At Beni Hasan, he built his own rock-cut tomb ‘that he might perpetuate his name forever, that he might perpetuate the name of his official staff, the excellent ones who were in his household’. Khnumhotep’s magnanimity towards his employees extended to giving credit (in the form of an inscription) to the architect who built the tomb. It is thus one of very few monuments from ancient Egypt whose builder is known by name. Khnumhotep also took great pains to restore the tombs of earlier nomarchs: ‘I kept alive the name of my fathers which I found obliterated upon the doorways, making them legible in form, accurate in reading. Behold it is an excellent son who restores the name of the ancestors.’ Of course, Khnumhotep’s motive was not entirely altruistic: his entire career and social position had depended upon his inheritance as ‘Nehri’s son, born of a nomarch’s daughter’; and his continued standing in the eyes of posterity would depend on preserving his ancestor’s monuments as much as on his own achievements. In ancient Egypt, inherited status made demands as well as conferring benefits.
34 | Ikhernofret
W
ITNESS OF THE
O
SIRIS MYSTERIES
During the Middle Kingdom, Abydos (ancient Abdju) was the most important religious site in Egypt and a place of pilgrimage for thousands of worshippers. They came to pay homage to Osiris, god of the underworld, whose own resurrection offered the promise of rebirth to his followers. Abdju was the site of an important temple of Osiris (where he was associated with the local jackal god Khentiamentiu) and of a tomb believed to be the god’s own burial-place. The sacred spaces and buildings of Abdju thus mirrored the central elements of the Osiris myth: his kingship on earth, his death, and his rebirth to eternal life.
Once a year, Abdju was the stage for a lavish festival which re-enacted these mythical events: the ‘mysteries of Osiris’. But the Osiris story was so potent, and its annual performance so laden with symbolism, that the mysteries were rarely described. Fortunately, however, one account, albeit veiled, has survived. It is doubly fortuitous that its author, Ikhernofret, was probably the individual best placed to provide a description.
Ikhernofret lived in the Memphite region during the reign of Senusret III. In common with other sons of the nobility, he grew up in the royal palace as a foster-child of the king (presumably Senusret II), and attended lessons with the heir to the throne. His close relationship with the royal family was reflected in his early promotion: he received the courtly rank of companion when he was only twenty-six years old. When his childhood friend and playmate became king as Senusret III, Ikhernofret found himself one of his sovereign’s most trusted officials. He garnered titles and responsibilities, rising swiftly to become a member of the elite, high official, Royal Seal-Bearer, sole companion, Overseer of the Two Gold Houses, Overseer of the Two Silver Houses, and Chief Seal-Bearer to the King. His career was based predominantly in the royal treasury, looking after the income which supported the court and its projects, and administering economic affairs on behalf of the king. But of this work we know little.
By contrast, one brief episode in Ikhernofret’s life occupied a central place in his autobiographical inscription. The trust placed in him by Senusret III led to a unique commission, one that was to take Ikhernofret to the very heart of Egyptian religious life. The king had just returned from a victorious campaign in Nubia, and brought back with him considerable quantities of gold as booty. As part of his continuing contract with the gods, Senusret III decided to allocate some of this treasure to the cult of Osiris; more specifically, he ordered that the god’s sacred image, housed in the temple at Abydos, should be adorned anew with gold. Ikhernofret was charged with carrying out this special assignment. The king’s words were clear: ‘Now My Person sends you to do this because My Person knows that no one could do it but you.’
Ikhernofret therefore set sail from the royal residence at Itj-tawy, bound for Abydos, to act in the king’s place as ‘his beloved son’. On arrival at the sacred site, he set to work diligently. The annual Osiris mysteries were about to take place, and there was much to do. First, he supervised the construction and decoration of the god’s bark-shrine, the portable boat which conveyed the cult image. The materials employed were the costliest available: gold, silver, lapis lazuli, bronze, cedar and another precious aromatic timber known as sesenedjem. Second, Ikhernofret saw to it that the shrines of the various gods attending upon Osiris-Khentiamentiu during the festival were renewed and refurbished. Third – and here the punctiliousness of the treasury official shines through – he led a thorough appraisal and re-training of the priests themselves: ‘I made the hour-priests diligent at their tasks… I made them know the ritual of every day and of the feasts of the beginnings of the seasons.’ Fourth, he oversaw the adornment of the neshmet-bark, the boat that would play a central role in the ceremonies to come. All that remained was to prepare the cult statue of the god himself. Under Ikhernofret’s watchful eye, it was decked out with lapis lazuli, turquoise, electrum and ‘all costly stones’. Finally, in his office as stolist and ‘master of secrets’ (in other words, one permitted access to the divine presence), he clothed the image of Osiris with the god’s royal regalia.
Everything was set for the celebrations to begin. To reflect the three elements of the Osiris myth (kingship, death and rebirth), the mysteries comprised three separate processions in which the god’s statue was transported between his temple and tomb amid staged scenes of fighting. In the first act, the god appeared as a living ruler. As master of ceremonies, Ikhernofret took the role of Wepwawet (‘the opener of the ways’), the jackal god who went before Osiris as his herald. The central part of the drama re-enacted the death, rebirth and funeral of Osiris. A ‘Great Procession’ escorted the god’s image, enclosed in a special boat-shrine to the holy place called Peqer. This was the site of the ‘tomb of Osiris’ (in fact the burial-place of the 1st Dynasty king Djer). The final act was the procession back to the temple, in which the reborn god returned to his ‘house’. Ikhernofret followed the image back into the sanctuary and purified it: the Osiris mysteries had been brought to a successful conclusion for another year.
He was understandably proud of his achievements, and determined – like all pious Egyptians of the time – to gain permanent favour from Osiris. So Ikhernofret built a small chapel on the ‘Terrace of the Great God’, the banks lining the main processional route from the temple to Peqer. A presence here would allow him to participate vicariously in the sacred rites, each and every year. Inside his chapel, Ikhernofret erected a stela, showing him seated at an offering table with members of his family; the accompanying text gave a lengthy account of his involvement in the Osiris mysteries. But his piety did not end there. In a gesture of solidarity, he also allowed his close friends and work colleagues to put up their own stelae in his chapel: the promise of resurrection offered by Osiris was for everyone.
35 | Senusret III
L
ORD OF
N
UBIA
In the Classical world that followed the demise of the pharaohs, a popular legend was told about ‘high Sesostris’, an heroic and archetypal Egyptian ruler who built great monuments, won decisive military victories and gave his country new laws. On one level, it simply reflected the ideal of Egyptian kingship, projected onto a single figure. But there was also a real man behind the myth: Senusret III (Sesostris in Greek), fifth king of the 12th Dynasty. He was, indeed, a ruler who imposed his will on the country more effectively than most of its monarchs.
The fourth-century BC historian Manetho noted that Senusret III was unusually and impressively tall: four cubits, three palms and two fingers, to be precise (6 ft 6 in or 1.98 m). If true, he would have cut an imposing figure that would have given him a natural air of authority. Whatever his physical stature, Senusret certainly displayed a commanding personality. Early in his reign, he set about reforming the administration of Egypt. The result was to recentralize power in the hands of the king and his closest advisers. Senusret reorganized his realm into three, large administrative units (the Delta, Upper Egypt as far south as Hierakonpolis, and Elephantine together with Lower Nubia), each governed by a council of elders reporting to a vizier. This effectively ended the regional autonomy that had characterized the early 12th Dynasty.
The decline of the nomarchs and the corresponding elevation of the king was eloquently expressed in a cycle of hymns, probably composed to be sung in front of statues of Senusret III:
‘Hail to you, Khakaura, our Horus, Divine of Form!
Land’s protector who widens its borders,
Who smites foreign countries with his crown,
Who holds the Two Lands in his arms’ embrace.’
This same monarchical authority was to be reflected in Senusret III’s pyramid complex at Dahshur which was surrounded by a large court cemetery, so that the king’s closest officials might accompany him in death as they had in life.
If Senusret III’s domestic programme was ambitious, it paled into insignificance by comparison with his military and territorial achievements in Nubia. Early in his reign, he signalled his intention towards Egypt’s southern dependencies by reopening the channel around the First Cataract at Aswan that had originally been excavated by Pepi I and Merenra in the 6th Dynasty. Senusret dredged it to remove the accumulated silt of centuries, widened and deepened it: all to allow his warships swift and unimpeded access to Nubia. Further repairs to the channel in his eighth year on the throne were the prelude to a devastating campaign, the first of four that the king unleashed over the next decade. They were planned with military precision: temporary campaign palaces were built for Senusret and his commanders, at the well-defended sites of Kor and Uronarti in the Second Cataract region. The army’s supply chain from Egypt was reinforced by a series of fortified granaries, the largest at Askut sited on a virtually impregnable island in the middle of the Nile. The campaigns themselves were prosecuted with unyielding ferocity. Senusret showed no mercy to his adversaries: ‘I carried off their women, I carried off their subjects, went forth to their wells, smote their bulls; I reaped their grain and set fire to it.’ Resistance was futile in the face of such overwhelming force.
The underlying reason for these campaigns was to safeguard Egypt’s access to trade routes and the valuable mineral resources of the Nubian deserts. To this end, conquest was backed up by a comprehensive programme of military occupation via a series of fortresses in the Second Cataract region. Senusret III’s forts fulfilled the practical objective of border and customs control, marking Egypt’s new southern frontier and regulating the movement of people and commodities. At the same time, the forts had a psychological purpose: they were a deliberate show of force, a display of Egyptian military and administrative power, directed at the land that lay beyond the Second Cataract, the Kingdom of Kush. This new power on the Upper Nile was a growing danger to Egypt and Egyptian interests in Nubia. Despite the belittling tone directed towards Kush in official Egyptian texts, it is clear that the threat was keenly felt. The massive fortifications were Senusret III’s decisive response, and were designed as a defensive grouping.
