Divine Kingship and the Egyptian Political
System. II
Early Periods
1.
In the iconography and architecture of the predynastic period and into
the first two dynasties we see the gradual evolution of the ideological complex
that identified the king with supernatural authority and immortality. As noted previously, this belief probably
evolved from the very common acceptance in non-complex societies that certain
individuals possessed “gifts” that enabled them to commune with the
supernatural ancestral and natural spirits on behalf of the community and to
cure illnesses.
2.
In Upper Egypt common shamanism was identified with the attributes of
leadership as the region gradually developed a distinctively hierarchical
social system, becoming divine kinship by the dawning of the dynastic
periods. By this time, given his unique
qualities, the king was seen as sole arbiter of the fate of the land, combining
secular centralized authority over all institutions of government, and
spiritual authority as divinity who ensured the Nile waters and the
supernatural support of the local divinities.
3.
Through this same period on the more formal religious level we see the
evolution of this shamanistic divinity from being identified with one of the
important competing Upper Egyptian towns, thus one among many rulers and
divinities, to a single divine ruler, a process that paralleled the political
and geographical unification of Egypt.
Gradually all other local divinities were incorporated into the
coalescing religious complex that gave the king his specific divine place
relative to other gods who likewise transformed from local competing divinities
to distant members of the divine pantheon whose liaison with the daily world
was the king.
4.
By the 3rd Dynasty with the architectural and ideological
innovations of Netjerikhet we see for the first time through archaeology and
texts, the consolidation of this long-evolving belief system into a regularized
theology. However, as noted above,
given that the roots of this 3rd Dynasty theology reach far back
into the predynastic period, it is most probably that other simpler versions,
manifested in the palette iconography and earlier mortuary architecture existed
but are not as well identified in the record.
1.
Following the time of King Netjerikhet and certainly by the Old Kingdom
the Heliopolis Cult increasingly identified the king with the Creator God Atum
or Re - the Sun. It for the first time
organized the now-consolidated pantheon of divinities into a divine order
explained by the Creation Myth that both explained the origin and order of the
cosmos and identified the king with the transcendental power of the life-giving
sun to rule over all aspects of the Egyptian human experience. This development marked the change in
perception of the king from an immortal ruler to a divine cosmic force.
2.
The Cosmos was personified by nine deities and their relationships - the
Ennead. In the Heliopolis Sun Cult the
Creator God (Atum the Sun) was emphasized together with the cosmic forces that
he brought into being. A minor part of
the Cult deals with the more human connections through the last descendants of
Atum (the gods Seth and Osiris, and the goddesses Isis and Nepthys). These latter were to become much more
prominent in the later Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom.
5.
Re in the Heliopolan cult was a manifestation of the earlier Creator god
Ptah. The Heliopolan theology states
that Ptah created the cosmos on the primordial mound (pyramid) that had arisen
in Heliopolis from earlier Chaos. Atum-Re created two further deities Shu (Air
and Void) and Tefnut (Moisture). These
in turn created two further Gods - Geb (Earth) and Nut (Sky). Shu (Air and Void) interposed himself
between Geb and Nut, separating earth and sky.
However, every evening he lowered the goddess onto the earth god
ensuring fertility and procreating of two pairs of other deities - the gods
Seth and Osiris, and the goddesses Isis and Nepthys.
6.
Thus by identification with Atum the King became an integral part of the
existence of the Egyptian world. He in
the most transcendental sense was responsible on earth for its creation,
maintenance and constant renewal through the converging forces of the cosmos.
This was a distant, transcendental aspect to the king's divinity. In the
immediately subsequent period a further development of this myth added a more
immediate identification of the king with the daily existence of Egypt.
Later Old Kingdom Ideology and the
Memphite Theology
1.
In the later Old Kingdom period a development of the earlier Creation
myth completed the King's divine character by explaining his direct connection
with the origins of Egyptian society and his ongoing centrality to its
continued existence, placing him even more squarely at the center of cosmic and
social universes.
2.
In the later Old Kingdom (5th Dynasty: 2465-2323 BC) the
so-called Pyramid Texts help us understand the continuing theological evolution
associated with divine kingship. On the
archaeological level pyramid chambers were painted with the representations of
the Ennead and narrate the full story of the mythical divine origins of the
Egyptian cosmos and its human connections in what is known as the Memphite
Theology.
3.
The Memphite Theology, while retaining the king's identity with the sun,
emphasizes another form of the creator.
Ptah, the creator God of Upper Egypt, is the central cosmic figure. He creates Shu and Tenet as in the
Heliopolis Cult, but at Abydos the earlier capital of Upper Egypt. This mythically recalls the primacy of Upper
Egypt in the creation of the Egyptian state.
4. The Memphite Theology goes beyond the
earlier story in relating the role of the children of Nut (Sky) and Geb (Earth)
in the origins of Egypt and uses this expanded element to articulate
cosmological creation with human statecraft through the person of the divine
Egyptian king.
5. Seth kills his brother Osiris by drowning him in the Nile in Upper
Egypt. However, as a god he cannot
die. This is rather a metaphor for the
Nile absorbing the life-giving force of the dead God. In turn Osiris is thereby identified fully with the life-giving
force of the Nile.
6.
Osiris floats down the Nile to Lower Egypt where his sisters Isis and
Nepthys find him. They represent the
Two Lands who are connected through the passage of the god from Upper to Lower
Egypt, uniting them and explaining the conquest of the south by the north.
7. Isis's embrace releases the vitalizing
power of Osiris, which impregnates her, and she bears the god Horus.
8. Osiris is then buried at Memphis on the
Nile and the conjunction of the two lands.
Memphis becomes his and Egypt's sacred capital, his life-giving presence
(and that of the Nile with which he is identified) creating the great fertility
of the Delta as the granary of Egypt. In is thus understandable that, while
Upper Egyptian cities have prestige because of their roles in the origins of
Egypt and other cities become prominent because of later political
developments, it is Memphis that becomes the coronation place of 31 dynasties
of kings over 3000 years, symbolizing their inheritance of the power of Osiris.
9.
Horus avenges his father by fighting Seth and bringing conflict to
earth. They are separated by the earth
god Geb and Seth is placed in Upper Egypt and remains its principal divinity,
reflecting the greater antiquity of Seth as an Upper Egyptian local god. Horus
is given principal authority in the Lower Egypt.
10. Subsequently, Geb awards Horus,
first-born of the first-borne Osiris, dominion over the whole land as Egyptian
King and Pharaoh even though Seth remains important in the South. Horus embodies
the authority of his father Osiris the life giver of Egypt, of his father Geb -
the earth, and of his ultimate ancestor Ptah the creator. He is thus the living
ruler but divine heir in real time of the Ennead gods of the cosmos.
11. Thus, when each king dies, Horus
transforms into his father the dead god Osiris, while the new king in turn
emerges from the vitalizing force of Osiris to be the new Horus Pharaoh of
Egypt. This repeats the death-life
cycle of Osiris and Isis with its conjunction of death and life and creation of
renewal (Horus). Thus life and death repeat in an endless cycle that
continually renews the land of Egypt in the person of the divine king who is at
the same time cosmic focus and creator of the land and society.
12.
Thus with the Memphite Theology the king was an ancestral chief, a
national divinity (Osiris-Horus), and a transcendental divinity (Ra),
connecting in his own person all of the elements of the supernatural and human
social universe.
The New Kingdom and the Cult of Amun
1.
The New Kingdom kings adopted the Amun cult as the central component of
state ideology as a modification of the concept of divine origin.
2.
Amun was probably a local deity of Thebes, home of the 18th
dynasty kings, in earlier periods, but was transformed in the New Kingdom to
Amun-Ra the sun god, taking on the solar manifestations of Ra and also
incorporating many other divine forms.
3. Amun-Re was regarded as King of the
Gods and stood at the center of a major state cult whose rituals identified the
king with the divine sun and the source of the universal fecundity that derived
from it.
4.
Divine birth of the king now took an aspect additional to the
Horus-Osiris transformation. He was now
regarded as being the product of union between his royal mother and Amun.
5.
A complex of elaborate temples was constructed at Thebes as the location
of the state rituals that centered on the Amun cult. Thebes thus became the ritual center of state ideology although
Memphis remained the political capital (except in the Amarna Period). At Karnak, Thebes, temples dedicated to Amun
at Karnak, Thebes, to Amun’s consort, Mut, and to his son Khonsu, together with
the Luxor temple, the site of the ritual union between the king and Amun, and
the mortuary temples west of the river, formed a great sacred/ritual “estate”
where religious processions and royal festivals were held.
6.
Central to the cult was the union of the king with his divine essence
(his ka) in the Luxor Temple. This
union with Amun, source of divinity, annually reconstituted the reality of the
divine king and perpetuated his power and that of Egyptian kingship.