ABSTRACT
All the numerous communities that occupied the Nile valley just before the dawn of history possessed their respective local divinity or divinities. 2 Civilization had already so far advanced that the members of each political group would have been severally engaged in agricultural, industrial, or administrative occupations. Consequently the task of performing the services which every community as a whole owed to its gods would have devolved upon, or been deliberately deputed to, a special body of men. An Egyptian priesthood, therefore, may be described as a body of men separated from the rest of the community for the service of a god. At the head of the local priesthood or priesthoods was the local chief members of whose family held all or some of the more important priestly offices.
