Old Kingdom

Narmer's capital was at Memphis, located very near modern Cairo. It was at the juncture of the Delta and Upper Egypt, allowing him and his successors to keep a watchful eye on both parts of his kingdom, for sepa­ratism was still a factor. His realm was basically a land of villages rather than large cities. Those towns that did exist were administrative centers or religious sites.

Once established, Egyptian life lent itself to centralization. To supervise the irrigation of the land and to oversee the storage of the grain crop was essen­tial to avoid famine, the greatest threat to the growing Egyptian population of

about 4,000,000 people. Rebellions and revolutions severely disturbed the se­renity that dominated the consciousness of the average Egyptian.

The Old Kingdom is that period of history that dates from about 2770 to 2200 ВС. During that time it has been customary to trace the several dynasties that held power. Later periods are known as the Middle and fi­nally the New Kingdom, or Empire.

Egypt's unique rule of a single individual over hundreds of square miles received further confirmation when the pharaoh, or his advisors, came up with the idea that he must be a god. Whether the pharaoh believed this himself is unknown, but in their search for security the men and women of Egypt apparently accepted this view of him. It was a very consoling thought that one of the gods, not an ordinary human, guided the destiny of the nation and kept the world from falling back into chaos.

Egypt in contrast to Mesopotamia, had very few law codes, since it was always possible to appeal to the living god. In Egypt the pharaoh's will was divine law.

Pharaoh could be any god that he wanted. One tomb text has it, "What is the King of Upper and Lower Egypt? He is a god by whose dealings one lives, the father and mother of all men alone, by himself, without equal." During the Old Kingdom he alone was immortal and therefore de­served a lavish funeral.

The notion that pharaoh was god obviously put him in a unique posi­tion in the nation's class structure. Most pharaohs kept large harems, where the queen mother ruled supreme. In their palaces they collected artifacts from all over the eastern Mediterranean, prestige goods that confirmed their importance.

The next step below the royal family consisted of the officials who served the pharaoh in multiple ways. The most important was an official who bore the titles Overseer of the Palace and Sealbearer of Lower Egypt.

All officials served at the pleasure of the pharaoh. They lived in spa­cious homes and to the extent possible filled them with expensive furni­ture. A garden and pool helped break the monotonous brown of the hot season.

Both men and women dressed in tightly woven cotton garments and decorated themselves in jewelry. Children wore no clothes at all until reaching 12 years of age. Egyptians used a wide range of cosmetics. People wore dark eye makeup under their eyes to deflect the sun's glare. At banquets women put perfumed cones on their heads that melted as the evening progressed, giving off a pleasant odor.

Wives generally were given an equal status with their husbands. They conducted their own businesses and owned land in their own names, but they were denied entry into the class of administrators. In case of divorce, one third of the property went to the wife.

Titled office holders proliferated during the fifth and sixth dynasties. On the walls of their tombs, they were careful to make sure that their im­portance was noted. Governors of outlying provinces did their part to be noticed in hopes of a promotion to court. Although pharaoh himself was a god, he had to share his divinity with a large group of other gods and god­desses in the Egyptian pantheon. Therefore, the priests and priestesses who served in the temples of these divinities held a special role paralleling that of the pharaoh's civil officials.

The Egyptian middle class, composed of lesser officials, private land­owners, artisans, scribes, and army personnel, occupied their own niche. The vast majority of Egyptians, the peasant class, did not enjoy an easy life. Their day was spent from dawn to dusk working in the fields of their masters or watching over their animals. Pay was a scant portion of the har­vest, hardly enough to feed their families.

The peasant's work — building canals, digging wells, sewing and reap­ing the crops — made Egypt wealthy. At times of high flood when the Nile crested 2 yards above normal, all the peasant's work was undone and had to be started over.

There were few slaves in Egypt, for in the Old Kingdom, military ex­peditions outside the country were infrequent. Without prisoners of war, a reservoir of slaves could not form. Men, women, and children of the peas­ant class worked together planting, tilling, and harvesting the crops.

Egypt depended on farming for its great wealth in the Old Kingdom. Trade outside Egypt was minimal, for the pharaoh's government kept a monopoly on what little export business existed. Scenes of farming, more than any other subject, are pictured on tomb walls.

New Kingdom

Ahmose learned from the Hyksos how to use the weapons that they had introduced into Egypt. What he intended, once the Hyksos power was broken, was to make Egypt a military force that should be reckoned with in the future. Egyptian nobles were expected to fill his officer corps, and a standing army of recruits gave Egypt an opportunity to initiate a period of empire-building.

The result was a series of campaigns against Nubia in the south, now Sudan, and Palestine and Syria to the northeast. For the first time in history, an Egyptian army camped on the banks of the Euphrates.

About 1490 ВС an Egyptian woman ruled in her own name, but as a king, not a queen. Her statues show her wearing the ceremonial beard of the pharaohs. This was Hatshepsut, who was both the daughter of one pha­raoh and the wife of another. The Egyptian royal family, contrary to the fear of incest in other cultures, favored marriage with close kin. Apparently this kept the royal blood from dilution.

Hatshepsut ruled efficiently, and several times personally led the army in combat. Her tomb at Deir el-Bahri is one of the New Kingdom's finest pieces of architecture. By the time of her death, pyramids were no longer in fashion.

Her son, Thotmes III, pharaoh from 1490 to 1468 ВС was constantly at war, for the Syrian border defied all efforts to make it stable. At Megid-do, the key fortress in Palestine, Thotmes won a great victory.