RIEST OF
A
MUN
By the middle of the 18th Dynasty, the great temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak had become the most important religious foundation in Egypt. A favoured focus of royal patronage, it was an institution of enormous wealth, with estates throughout the country. The person in overall charge of Karnak, the First Prophet of Amun, was hence one of the most influential individuals in the land. During the reign of Thutmose III, the post was held by Menkheperraseneb, whose lavishly decorated Theban tomb gives an idea of what it meant to be ‘superintendent of the priests of Upper and Lower Egypt, administrator of the two thrones of the god, superintendent of advanced offices, superintendent of the double treasuries of gold and silver, superintendent of the temple of Thes-khau-amun, set over the mysteries of the Two Goddesses, first prophet of Amun.’
Menkheperraseneb’s very name – ‘Menkheperra (i.e. Thutmose III) is healthy’ – signalled his family’s tradition of loyal service to the ruling family. His mother Taiunet had been a royal nurse, while his grandmother had grown up in the palace as a foster-sister of the king (probably the young Thutmose I). The womenfolk of Menkheperraseneb’s family thus had strong connections with the royal household, and this proximity to the ultimate source of power no doubt played an important part in Menkheperraseneb’s promotion. Rising to the office of Second Prophet, Menkheperraseneb began to prepare a tomb, to celebrate his social position. When he landed the top job in the Theban religious hierarchy, he abandoned this monument in favour of an even more lavish burial in a yet more prestigious location.
As head of the Karnak priesthood, the First Prophet of Amun was ultimately responsible for ensuring the smooth running of the temple and the correct performance of its rituals. Especially important were those carried out on auspicious dates in the calendar; and none was more significant than the New Year’s festival. For Menkheperraseneb, one of the proudest moments of his life was being presented with a bouquet of flowers by the king, ‘after performing rites acceptable to Amun-Ra in his festival of Djeserakhet at his appearances… on his voyage of the beginning of the year’. Naturally, Menkheperraseneb was also concerned with architectural additions to Karnak, and took a keen interest in the king’s building projects:
‘I was witness how His Person erected many obelisks and flagstaffs to his father Amun. I was one who satisfied the king by the direction of the work on his monuments. I did this without any meanness of spirit and was praised on account of it.’
However, it was the economic administration of Karnak that seems to have occupied most of the First Prophet’s time. Menkheperraseneb’s duties included inspecting the herds and flocks of Amun; presiding over the delivery of agricultural revenues due to the temple from its estates throughout Egypt; receiving tribute from the other subordinate temples under his jurisdiction; and overseeing the restocking of Karnak’s granaries at harvest time. He also supervised the receipt of more precious materials, notably ‘the gold of the deserts of Coptos, and the gold of vile Kush as the annual tax’. Supplies of precious metals and stones were also offered by the superintendent of the gold(-bearing) deserts of Coptos, who prostrated himself before Menkheperraseneb in an act of obeisance to one of the highest officials in Egypt.
All these precious materials were ultimately destined for the workshops attached to the temple of Amun-Ra. They employed the finest craftsmen in the land, to create rare and beautiful objects for the temple itself and the royal household. As First Prophet, Menkheperraseneb was responsible for inspecting the workshops, overseeing the manufacture of chariots, temple furniture and similar valuable products. To add to such home-produced luxuries, Menkheperraseneb also received tribute from the recently conquered territories of the Egyptian empire in the Near East. One of his most memorable duties was to introduce a large delegation of foreign representatives, bearing rare and exotic goods: Minoans from Crete, in their colourful fringed garments, carrying elaborate rhyta (drinking cups) in the form of animal heads; Syrians bringing bears; Hittites from Anatolia, and the chiefs of Tunip and Kadesh bringing weapons and precious metals. Thutmose III’s court was colourful and cosmopolitan, and Menkheperraseneb’s position gave him a central place in the affairs and pageants of the state.
47 | Rekhmira
P
RIME
M
INISTER OF
U
PPER
E
GYPT
Egypt in the New Kingdom was a highly centralized state, and at the nexus of the entire government apparatus was one man, the Vizier. The office of Vizier had come into being in the 3rd Dynasty or earlier, as a response to the need to mobilize the people and resources of the entire country for large royal construction projects, notably the pyramids. The tripartite title conventionally translated as ‘vizier’, taity zab tjaty, emphasized the courtly, judicial and administrative roles which the office combined. However, it would be difficult to reconstruct the precise nature of the office were it not for a single source from the mid-18th Dynasty: the Theban tomb of the southern Vizier Rekhmira. His detailed inscriptions provide the fullest and most important evidence for the vizierate, and indeed the functioning of the Egyptian government as a whole, at the height of the country’s imperial power.
Rekhmira did not achieve the highest office in the land by accident. He came from a high-ranking family, and succeeded his grandfather Aametju and his uncle User as southern Vizier. This gave him responsibility for Upper Egypt, stretching from the First Cataract in the south to Asyut in the north. In this region, his power was absolute: in his own words, ‘I was a noble, second (only) to the king.’ His appointment, like those of all high officials, was confirmed by the king in person at the royal residence. Thutmose III’s speech on the occasion was not, however, confined to the usual grandiloquent phrases. At its heart was an exhortation to Rekhmira to act wisely and justly, in accordance with the principles of Maat:
‘Take heed to thyself, for the hall of the vizier; be watchful over all that is done therein… It is an abomination of the god to show partiality. This is the teaching: you shall treat in the same fashion him who is known to you and him who is not known to you, him who is near and him who is far away.’
Egyptian civilization was founded upon the concepts of truth, righteousness and correct behaviour, and the Vizier was their guarantor in practice.
At the heart of Rekhmira’s duties was his daily audience. It was a long-standing principle of Egyptian government that any person, irrespective of social standing, could seek redress or justice from the Vizier himself. Each day, therefore, petitioners would line up outside the Vizier’s hall, waiting to make their supplications. When their turn came, they were ushered into Rekhmira’s presence. The great man himself sat with his high officials in front of him, the Master of the Privy Chamber on his right and the Receiver of Income on his left; scribes were on hand to record the details and outcome of each petition. The precise arrangements for the audience were spelled out in the Vizier’s official rubric: ‘He shall sit upon a chair, with a rug upon the floor and a dais upon it, a cushion under his back, a cushion under his feet… a baton at his hand; the forty leather-rolls shall be open before him.’ These leather rolls were probably legal documents, records of statutes and previous judgments to which the Vizier could refer when making his decisions.
To supplement this daily audience, Rekhmira also made a point of getting out and about among the populace, ‘going forth over the land every morning… to hear the matters of the people… not preferring the great above the humble’. He would lean on his staff in the shade of a tree while his scribes went back and forth, receiving and registering petitions. Because the temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak was a major powerhouse of the Upper Egyptian economy, Rekhmira was closely involved with this institution as well. His tours of inspection took in the daily offerings, the monuments themselves, the craftsmen in the temple workshops, and the sculptors and builders at work on new construction projects.
Equally important were his responsibilities as head of government. He was effectively Commissioner of Police, Minister for the Armed Forces, Minister of Agriculture, Interior Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, and Prime Minister, all rolled into one. Each day, Rekhmira received reports from the head of the treasury, from the other major offices of state, and from the garrisons: ‘Let every office, from first to last, proceed to the hall of the Vizier, to take counsel with him.’ The outgoings and income of the royal residence were reported to him, and dues were brought to him from his local officials. His diverse responsibilities included sealing all property deeds, fixing land and district boundaries (crucial in an agricultural society), staffing the garrison of the residence, levying troops to accompany the king on royal progresses, giving regulations to the Army Council, guaranteeing the water supply, overseeing the work of town councils, procuring supplies of timber, inspecting taxes, and even determining the onset of the annual inundation and the beginning of the calendar year. Having received information from every department of government, and especially from the Treasury, Rekhmira relayed this to the king at a daily conference. Although the king was head of state, it was the Vizier who had the job of translating royal commands into government policy.
The crucial relationship between monarch and Vizier lay at the heart of the Egyptian governmental machine. It is easy to imagine, therefore, how nervous Rekhmira must have been when the king who had appointed him, Thutmose III, died and was succeeded by his son Amenhotep II. On hearing the news, Rekhmira set sail immediately downriver to the royal residence town of Hatsekhem in Lower Egypt, to meet the new king and present him, as tradition demanded, with his royal insignia. The audience passed successfully, and Rekhmira returned home to Thebes triumphant, having been confirmed in office.
Despite the detailed narration of his career on the walls of his magnificent funerary monument, the conclusion of Rekhmira’s story remains an enigma. His images were systematically mutilated, perhaps suggesting disgrace, his tomb had no burial-chamber, and his final resting-place is unknown.
48 | Dedi
G
OVERNOR OF THE
W
ESTERN
D
ESERT
The deserts to the west of Thebes played a crucial role in the politics and security of Upper Egypt. During the unification of the country in the late predynastic period and the civil war of the First Intermediate Period the desert routes across the Qena bend proved vital for military operations. In the wars against the Hyksos, too, the area had played an important role, allowing the Hyksos and the Kushites to forge an alliance under the noses of the Egyptians. The 18th Dynasty kings had therefore learned from bitter experience that failure to control the deserts could threaten national security. They put in place a system of surveillance and control designed to prevent any further risks.
In the latter part of the reign of Thutmose III and the early years of his successor, Amenhotep II, the Governor of the Western Desert was a man named Dedi. His primary responsibility was the security of ‘the back door’ to Egypt. He had at his disposal a militia, composed of Nubian recruits and native Egyptians. They maintained a permanent and active presence throughout the western desert, using watchtowers and guard posts to carry out their surveillance operations. More elaborate manoeuvres would also take place from time to time, involving a large detachment of soldiers accompanied by a standard bearer. The aim seems to have been to mount a deliberate show of force as a warning to any potential trouble-makers.
Dedi’s other, related role was as government envoy to the tribes of the western desert. Although the semi-nomadic peoples of the Sahara were most populous and visible further south, in Nubia, their seasonal migrations and trading activities in the oases brought them as far north as Thebes on a periodic basis. It was in Egypt’s interests to monitor such movements closely, maintaining peaceful relations while leaving no doubt about Egyptian military dominance. This delicate diplomatic balancing act fell to Dedi. The absence of any significant confrontation during his tenure suggests that he performed his role effectively and diligently.
49 | Qenamun
B
OMBASTIC CHIEF STEWARD
