ABSTRACT
The Egyptians gave considerable thought to their place in the universe, but drew upon their imaginations rather than upon what could be directly observed. Their explanations lay within a world of imagined forces – gods – rather than of human founders. Yet central to this view was the line of kings (Pharaohs) who maintained the right to rule and its responsibilities. They stood in direct succession to the first rulers, who were the gods themselves. This provided a framework of legitimacy to rule, made manifest in ancient king lists (such as that at Abydos, and those of the Palermo Stone and Turin King List). Kings could not wholly escape, however, from critical evaluation, nor ideal visions of the past from fears of disorder. These were sometimes explored in lamentations vividly depicted (especially in literary texts from the Middle Kingdom, such as that written by Ipuwer). The chapter illustrates way that art and writing articulated the idea that the Egyptian state was the result of a unification of two archetypal subdivisions (‘kingdoms’) over whose simultaneously separate and unitary existence some of the gods presided (principally Horus and Seth). The perspective supplied by archaeology allows us to investigate how, in reality, a single kingdom (in effect an early state) had developed in Egypt by around 3000 bc after a long and complex political process. Amongst the sites considered are those of Nagada, Hierakonpolis, Abydos, Tell el-Fara'in (Buto) and Tell el-Farkha. That state formation in Egypt followed a course of violent territorial expansion is suggested by carved and painted motifs (including those on the Narmer Palette), which in time fed a theme of the victory of order over disorder on a cosmic scale. As the power of kings increased, so did the scale of their monumental tombs, of which a key stage is represented by the Step Pyramid at Saqqara.
