The Egyptian World by Wilkinson Toby A. H

Author:Wilkinson, Toby A. H.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-136-75376-3
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Figure 20.10 Amenhotep III venerates his own, deified, self in the temple at Soleb in Nubia. The deified king sports a nemes-headdress surmounted by a lunar disc and the ram’s horn of Amun, and is carrying the ankh and was-sceptre characteristic of deities (after Wildung, D. (1977) Egyptian Saints. Deification in Pharaonic Egypt, fig. 4, New York: New York University Press).

Certainly, there were differing positions. From the Middle Kingdom, following the uprooting of social values in the First Intermediate Period, there is evidence that admits to the mortality and fallibility of the king. At the same time, authors were able to compose (sometimes rather disrespectful) stories about the actual (that is, non-ritual) lives of kings, even if these were generally fictional. A particularly striking example is the Tale of King Neferkara (probably Pepi II of the 6th Dynasty) and his homosexual relationship with one of his generals, Sasenet (Parkinson 1997: 288–89). In the aftermath of the Amarna ‘revolution’ and later, during the rule of various foreign dynasties in Egypt, the Egyptian elite increasingly directed their attention and expectations to the gods, and away from the now conspicuously imperfect king, in a process that is mirrored in the diminished respect shown to the Egyptian king and court in neighbouring countries (Rössler-Köhler 1991; Baines 1995a: 33–42). The famous Tale of Wenamun (Lichtheim 1976: 224–30), set at the end of the 20th Dynasty, bears eloquent witness to the changed situation.

Formally, however, Egypt adhered to its time-honoured ideology of kingship until the end of pharaonic history, and beyond.

NOTES

1 There, reference is made to humans as the ‘living images’ of the king, implying, in turn, his likeness with the gods according to the Egyptian belief that men are images of the creatorgod (e.g. Parkinson 1997: 206 M I.9). The largely anthropomorphic representations of Egyptian gods – if often sporting animal heads – underscore this outward similarity.

2 Potentially as early as Aha, to judge from an ivory label from the tomb of queen Neithhotep (the mother of Aha?). See, e.g., Spencer 1993: 63 fig. 42; discussion in Wilkinson 1999: 203–4.

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