The Nile and the God-King

The Greek historian and traveler Herodotus called Egypt the “gift of the Nile,” and no other single geographical factor had such a fundamental and profound impact on Egyptian life, society, and history as this river (Map 2.2). The Nile flooded once a year for a period of several months, bringing fertile soil and moisture for farming. In contrast to the violent and destructive floods of the Tigris and Euphrates, Nile floods were relatively gentle, and Egyptians praised the Nile primarily as a creative and comforting force:

Hail to thee, O Nile, that issues from the earth and comes to keep Egypt alive! . . .

He that waters the meadows which Ra created,

He that makes to drink the desert . . .

He who makes barley and brings emmer [wheat] into being . . .

He who brings grass into being for the cattle . . .

He who makes every beloved tree to grow . . .

O Nile, verdant art thou, who makest man and cattle to live.2

Through the fertility of the Nile and their own hard work, Egyptians produced an annual agricultural surplus, which in turn sustained a growing and prosperous population. The Nile also unified Egypt, serving as a highway that promoted easy communication.

The political power structures that developed in Egypt came to be linked with the Nile. Somehow the idea developed that a single individual, a king, was responsible for the rise and fall of the Nile. The king came to be viewed as a descendant of the gods and thus a god himself. This belief came about before the development of writing in Egypt, so the precise details of its origins have been lost. Political unification most likely proceeded slowly, but stories told about early kings highlighted one who had united Upper Egypt — the upstream valley in the south — and Lower Egypt — the delta area of the Nile that empties into the Mediterranean Sea — into a single kingdom around 3100 B.C.E. Historians later divided Egyptian history into dynasties, or families, of kings, and more recently into periods with distinctive characteristics (see Thematic Chronology, below). The political unification of Egypt in the Archaic Period (3100–2660 B.C.E.) ushered in the period known as the Old Kingdom (2660–2180 B.C.E.), an era of prosperity, artistic flowering, and the evolution of religious beliefs.

PERIODS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY

PERIOD DATES SIGNIFICANT EVENTS
Archaic 3100–2660 B.C.E. Unification of Egypt
Old Kingdom 2660–2180 B.C.E. Construction of the pyramids
First Intermediate 2180–2080 B.C.E. Political chaos
Middle Kingdom 2080–1640 B.C.E. Recovery and political stability
Second Intermediate 1640–1570 B.C.E. Hyksos migrations; struggles for power
New Kingdom 1570–1070 B.C.E. Creation of an Egyptian empire; growth in wealth
Third Intermediate 1100–653 B.C.E. Political fragmentation and conquest by outsiders
Table 2.1: PERIODS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY

The focal point of religious and political life in the Old Kingdom was the king, who commanded the wealth, resources, and people of Egypt. The king’s surroundings had to be worthy of a god, and only a magnificent palace was suitable for his home; in fact, the word pharaoh, which during the New Kingdom (1570–1070 B.C.E.) came to be used for the king, originally meant “great house.” Just as the kings occupied a great house in life, so they reposed in great pyramids after death. Built during the Old Kingdom, these massive stone tombs contained all the things needed by the king in his afterlife and also symbolized the king’s power and his connection with the sun-god.

Like the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians were polytheistic, worshipping many gods of all types, some mightier than others. They developed complex ideas of their gods that reflected the world around them, and these views changed over the many centuries of Egyptian history as gods took on new attributes and often merged with one another. During the Old Kingdom, Egyptians considered the sun-god Ra the creator of life. Much later, during the New Kingdom (see “Migrations, Revivals, and Collapse”), the pharaohs of a new dynasty favored the worship of a different sun-god, Amon, whom they described as creating the entire cosmos by his thoughts. As his cult grew, Amon came to be identified with Ra, and eventually the Egyptians combined them into one sun-god, Amon-Ra.

The Egyptians likewise developed views of an afterlife that reflected the world around them and that changed over time. During the later part of the Old Kingdom, the walls of kings’ tombs were carved with religious texts that provided spells that would bring the king back to life and help him ascend to heaven. (See “Viewpoints 2.1: Addressing the Gods in Mesopotamia and Egypt.”) Toward the end of the Old Kingdom, the tombs of powerful nobles also contained such inscriptions, an indication that more people expected to gain everlasting life. In the Middle Kingdom (2080–1640 B.C.E.), new types of spells appeared on the coffins of even more people, a further expansion in admissions to the afterlife. During the New Kingdom, a time when Egypt came into greater contact with the cultures of the Fertile Crescent, Egyptians developed even more complex ideas about the afterlife, recording these in written funerary manuscripts that have come to be known as the Book of the Dead. These texts explained that the soul left the body to become part of the divine after death and told of the god Osiris (oh-SIGH-ruhs), who died each year and was then brought back to life by his wife Isis (IGH-suhs) when the Nile flooded. Osiris eventually became king of the dead, weighing dead humans’ hearts to determine whether they had lived justly enough to deserve everlasting life. Egyptians also believed that proper funeral rituals, in which the physical body was mummified, were essential for life after death, so Osiris was assisted by Anubis, the jackal-headed god of mummification.

To ancient Egyptians, the king embodied justice and order — harmony among people, nature, and the divine. Kings did not always live up to this ideal, of course. The two parts of Egypt were difficult to hold together, and several times in Egypt’s long history there were periods of civil war and political fragmentation, which scholars term the First (2180–2080 B.C.E.) and Second (1640–1570 B.C.E.) Intermediate Periods. Yet the monarchy survived, and in each period a strong warrior-king arose to restore order and expand Egyptian power.