ABSTRACT
After the end of the Twentieth Dynasty the cancer which had been gnawing at the body of Egypt at least since the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty finally triumphed. The power which destroyed Egypt was, ironically, what might be termed ‘organised religion’, represented by the temple bureaucracies which had been accumulating power and wealth until they rivalled, if they did not exceed, the wealth and power of the Kingship. The irony lies in the belief that Egypt was the land which, more than any other, had given life to the worship of the gods as a state function, having even been ruled by an immanent divinity.
