About

The king and ideology: administration, art, and writing

In cosmogonical terms, Egyptian society consisted of a descending hierarchy of the gods, the king, the blessed dead, and humanity (by which was understood chiefly the Egyptians). Of these groups, only the king was single, and hence he was individually more prominent than any of the others. A text that summarizes the king’s role states that he “is on earth for ever and ever, judging mankind and propitiating the gods, and setting order [maʿat, a central concept] in place of disorder. He gives offerings to the gods and mortuary offerings to the spirits [the blessed dead].” The king was imbued with divine essence, but not in any simple or unqualified sense. His divinity accrued to him from his office and was reaffirmed through rituals, but it was vastly inferior to that of major gods; he was god rather than man by virtue of his potential, which was immeasurably greater than that of any human being. To humanity, he manifested the gods on earth, a conception that was elaborated in a complex web of metaphor and doctrine; less directly, he represented humanity to the gods. The text quoted above also gives great prominence to the dead, who were the object of a cult for the living and who could intervene in human affairs; in many periods the chief visible expenditure and focus of display of nonroyal individuals, as of the king, was on provision for the tomb and the next world. Egyptian kings are commonly called pharaohs, following the usage of the Bible. The term pharaoh, however, is derived from the Egyptian per ʿaa (“great estate”) and dates to the designation of the royal palace as an institution. This term for palace was used increasingly from about 1400 BCE as a way of referring to the living king; in earlier times it was rare.

Ancient Egypt | History, Government, Culture, Map, & Facts. (2024, 15 abril). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Egypt/The-king-and-ideology-administration-art-and-writing