Kingship in Ancient Egypt
What is a king in Ancient Egypt?
There are several Ancient Egyptian words for king: nswt and ity are perhaps the most
common. The Ancient Egyptian word for kingship is nsyt. In Ancient Egyptian lists of words
('onomastica'), kings are a separate category of beings. The character of kingship doubtless
changed considerably over the three thousand years of Ancient Egyptian history, but there are
some constant features:
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from the First Dynasty to the Roman Period (about 3000BC-AD300), the king of
Egypt is called Horus (god of order and celestial power), and has a separate 'Horus
name', identifying him as a unique manifestation of that god
from the Fourth Dynasty to the Roman Period (about 2600BC-AD300), the king of
Egypt is called 'son of Ra' - for most of that period, the phrase 'son of Ra' is a
prominent title placed before the name that the king was given when he was born
the king of Egypt had a special set of names and titles - by the Middle Kingdom (about
2025-1700 BC) there were five: Horus name, name '(of) the Two Goddesses', HorusGold name, title nswt bity (dual king) with another name taken at accession to the
throne (throne name), and son of Ra title with birth name
the throne name and birth name were each written in a special motif, an oval with flat
end-line - this was called Sn 'ring' in Egyptian, and seems to correspond to the
description of king and sun-god as ruling all that the sun-disk encircles in hieroglyphic
inscriptions - early Egyptologists gave the name 'cartouche' to the motif
UC 14335 the goddess Nekhbet as a vulture offers a Sn 'ring' to the name of king Senusret II
(written in a cartouche)
The king is by nature divine - he is Horus, and offspring of Ra. However, he is also inhabiting
a human body, and is therefore mortal. This duality of divine character and mortal constraints
is the essence of Egyptian kingship.
The king is also distinguished by the crowns he wears, and by other items of dress, among
which the most prominent include the following:
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the Double Crown, comprising Red Crown (first attested as a motif on a pot sherd
from Naqada in southern Upper Egypt, dating to the Naqada Period) and White Crown
- the two crowns seem to be designed to form a unit, the White Crown slotting into the
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Red Crown and being held in place by its distinctive frontal coil; the first monument
on which a king is shown wearing both crowns is the siltstone cosmetic palette of king
Narmer (depicted on one side of the palette wearing the White Crown, and on the
other side wearing the Red Crown); some deities wear one or other of these crowns,
but they are not worn by the human subjects of the king
the headcloth of kingship, in Egyptian 'nemes'
an adaptation of a close-fitting cap, the Blue Crown (sometimes called 'War Crown' in
earlier literature, but more research is needed on the precise meaning of all crowns
relative to one another and to their contexts)
the long straight-edged beard, distinct from a shorter beard worn by officials and a
tubular beard with curling rounded end worn by gods
pleated kilt with ornate frontal panel, in Egyptian 'shendyt'
Depictions of the king often show a rearing cobra at the brow (in Egyptian iart 'the rising
goddess', source of the term uraeus often used in Egyptology); the rearing cobra also protects
the sun-god, and appears on the solar disk worn by goddesses. This is another feature
reinforcing the solar character of Ancient Egyptian kingship.
'red crown'
'white
crown'
king's head
with a
king with
nemes 'blue crown'
headdress
The Divine Birth Cycle in Egyptian art
How literally should the title 'son of Ra' be interpreted? In the temple built for queen
Hatshepsut as king at Deir el-Bahri, on the West Bank at Thebes (about 1450 BC), there is a
cycle of figurative scenes narrating the divine birth of the king. The same sequence of scenes
is found for the birth of king Amenhotep III in the temple of Amun at Luxor (about 1375 BC),
and again in temples of the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, where the birth of the god Horus is
the subject. This Cycle of Divine Birth shows the creator-god Amun-Ra taking the form of a
human man to impregnate the woman chosen to give birth to the future king: she is the human
vessel within which the purely divine seed of the creator can grow. Thoth, god of knowledge
and writing, appears to the woman to reveal that she is to give birth to the son of the creator.
In addition to these formal royal depictions, there is an earlier informal version in a literary
narrative cycle preserved in one copy on a papyrus (Papyrus Westcar, now in the Egyptian
Museum, Berlin). The copy dates to the Second Intermediate Period (about 1600 BC); the
composition is in a late form of the Middle Egyptian phase of the language, indicating a date
of composition in the late Middle Kingdom (about 2025-1700 BC) or Second Intermediate
Period (1850-1600 BC). The tale relates the birth of three Fifth Dynasty kings to a woman
named Ruddjedet, wife of a priest of Ra in Lower Egypt, during the reign of the Fourth
Dynasty king Khufu; the birth is assisted by the goddesses Isis, Nephthys and Heqet, with the
god Khnum as their porter.
What are the implications of this narrative?
1. the king is the same substance as the creator - he is not human, but divine
2. there is no such thing as 'royal blood' or a royal family as we might understand it there is only the direct descent from the sun-god
3. human women are not easily 'sons of Ra' - the sun-god is male, and so his offspring is
most naturally also male; nevertheless, there are several cases in Egyptian history
where a woman claimed kingship, most notably Hatshepsut, but also Sobekneferu in
the Twelfth Dynasty (1800BC) and Tausret in the Nineteenth Dynasty (shortly before
1200 BC)
4. although the king is regularly male, all others in close connection with kingship are
female - it is human women who come into direct physical contact with the sun-god to
produce the next king, and with the reigning king as his wife; therefore 'king's mother'
and 'king's wife' are all-important religious positions in court, higher than 'king's
daughter' and 'king's son' - there is no king's father, as that is the sun-god, but, where
the sun-god chooses a woman who is not wife of the reigning king, her husband is
given the title 'god's father when the child becomes king
Questioning the divinity of the king
Although there seems never to have been any expression of opposition to the belief in the
divinity of the king, the mortality of the human body occupied by the king during his reign on
earth provided opportunities for attitudes other than reverence. These find expression
principally in literature: narrative tales may depict a king with qualities at variance with
behavioural norms (Sneferu as lascivious, and Khufu as over-zealous in his quest for
knowledge, both in the Tales from the Court of King Khufu, on Papyrus Westcar), and the
Teaching of King Amenemhat I seems to describe the murder of the king.
In the limited data on political history, event by event, there are indications of strife at court,
and attempted or successful plots against the reigning king:
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a group of documents on papyrus indicate that king Ramesses III was the victim of a
conspiracy involving members of court
from ancient Greek historiographical sources for the Twenty-sixth Dynasty it is known
that Ahmose II (Amasis) usurped the throne from Wahibre (Apries)
Such events seem not to have disrupted the structure of kingship and belief in the divinity of
the king: human beings have unlimited capacity for adaptation, and devout believers are able
to destroy what seems, externally, central to the belief system.
What does a king have to do in ancient Egypt?
There is no ancient Egyptian treatise on kingship, but one religious composition, first attested
from the New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC), but perhaps composed earlier, includes a
passage explaining the principal functions in Egyptian terms (Assmann 1970):
'Ra has placed the king on the earth of the living for ever and eternity
to judge between men
to make the gods content,
to make what is Right happen,
to annihilate what is Wrong,
to offer divine offerings to the gods
and voice offerings to the blessed dead.'
This ethical and ritual definition of kingship is of exceptional importance, but it is inevitably
partial, notably in concealing beneath the phrase 'to make what is Right happen, to annihilate
what is Wrong' the economic and military aspects of control. These economic and military
aspects are more prominent in other ancient writings about kingship, above all the annals. An
early and unusually detailed example is a fragmentary inscription of Amenemhat II from
Memphis, preserved on at least two reused blocks, one recorded in an excavation by W M F
Petrie, and a much larger segment first recognised in modern times by W K Simpson. The
events at the royal court are documented in chronological sequence, though without
specifying month and year dates. The larger block preserves the following entries (see the
preliminary report by Altenmüller/Moussa 1991):
Summary:
(1) Income
Arrival of foreign delegations: 14-15, 19
Trading and mining expeditions: 8 (and 9?), 16, 21
Military expeditions: (9?), 10, 20
Other activity by the king: 22
(2) Expenditure
Offerings and cult: 1-7, 11-13, 17-18, 24-29
Distribution of income: 23
More detailed breakdown, line by line (the division into entries is not always the same as that
in the interpretation by
Altenmüller/Moussa 1991):
Item 1: establishment of offerings (line 1, mainly lost)
Item 2: establishment of daily cult and festival cult offerings (line 2, mainly lost)
Item 3: 'offering to the dual king Kheperkara in the lake of ...' (lines 2-3? part lost: 'lake' is a
broad term that may refer to an irrigated estate here; Kheperkara is the throne-name of
Senusret I; it is not certain that the items offered from the pr-nswt 'king's domain' are part of
the same entry, or separate)
Item 4: offerings from the wine-production centre on days 25 and 26 of a month in the season
of flood (perhaps the fourth month of that season, as days 25 and 26 are the festival of Sokar,
one of the most important in the ancient Egyptian religious calendar) (line 4)
Item 5: 'giving the house to its lord in the temple ...' ('giving the house to its lord' is the name
of the ceremony for founding a temple; it is possible that this is part of the same series of
entries in the preceding lines, involving the establishment of a cult for Senusret I, perhaps in
the Fayum) (line 4)
Item 6: 'following the acacia-wood statue of Nubkaura' (Nubkaura is the throne-name of
Amenemhat II; the following lines include a reference to 'the chest of giving the house to its
lord, with its full equipment', indicating that this is a continuation of the previous item) (lines
5-6, perhaps including more than one item)
Item 7: 'offering divine offerings when they are set up' (presumably the one-off offerings
made at the installation of the objects cited in item 6) (line 7)
Item 8: 'despatching an expedition to Khenty-she' (Khenty-she means 'the one in front of the
lake', and has the mountain-land determinative used for foreign lands - it has been identified
as Lebanon from the products brought back by the expedition, recorded later in the
inscription) (line 7)
Item 9: recruiting manpower (unclear whether this refers to item 8 or item 10, or another need
for manpower) (line 8)
Item 10: 'despatching an expedition with an overseer of troops to destroy Syrian Iwa [...]' (the
place-name has not been identified with certainty) (line 8)
Item 11: donation of cult equipment from the pr-nswt 'king's domain' to the cult of the god
Mont in Iun(y) (Armant) and Djert(y) (Tod), each receiving a vessel of 'Asiatic copper' (it is
not clear which other items in line 9 go to the Mont cult) (line 9 and lower end of line 10)
Item 12: 'following the goddess [..] to her temple in Wadi Natrun' (probably part of the next
entry) (line 10)
Item 13: 'making a wood statue of the overseer of Wadi Natrun dwellers Ameny permitted (?)
to him in Djefa-Amenemhat' (the place-name Djefa-Amenemhat has the hieroglyphic
determinatives pyramid and town, and is probably therefore a settlement, small or large, near
the pyramid of Amenemhat II at Dahshur) (line 10)
Item 14: arrival of deputation from Kush and Webat-sepet (Nubian Nile Valley and desert
valleys), and record of the produce brought by them (lines 11-12)
Item 15: 'arrival in obeisance of the children of rulers of Syria, bringing with them...'
(followed by list of produce) (lines 12-13)
Item 16: 'return of the expedition despatched to the terrace of turquoise, bringing with them...'
(followed by list of produce, including types of object not found in Sinai, the turquoise
source) (lines 13-14)
Item 17: 'setting up a birth window' and related items in Djefa-Amenemhat (the place-name
Djefa-Amenemhat here has the hieroglyphic determinative pyramid without the town, and is
probably therefore the pyramid or pyramid-complex of Amenemhat II at Dahshur) (line 14)
Item 18: installing architectural elements 'in the temple of the dual king Kheperkara which is
in the Landing-stage of Senusret in the region of the Ways of Horus' (Kheperkara is the throne
name of Senusret I; the ways of Horus are the land routes from the eastern Delta across
northern Sinai to western Asia) (line 15)
Item 19: 'arrival in obeisance of the prospectors of Tjempau, bringing with them...' (followed
by list of produce) (Tjempau has not been identified) (line 15)
Item 20: '[return of the expedition and overseer of] troops despatched to destroy Iwai and to
destroy Iasy; number of living captives brought back from those two hill-lands - 1554'
(followed by list of produce) (Iwai and Iasy have not been identified; Iwai is presumably the
same as the land named Iwa in Syria in item 10 - this would be the return of that expedition)
(lines 16-18)
Item 21: 'return of the expedition despatched to Khentyshe in two boats, bringing with them...'
(followed by list of produce, and specification of the distribution of some part of the total) (for
Khentyshe, see the entry for the despatch of this expedition, Item 8 above) (lines 18-23)
Item 22: 'resting of the king in the southern Fayum, Lake of Kheperkara; weaving by His
Majesty of a net of 12 cubits in span length with his courtiers' (followed by account of a catch
as foretold by the king; for the Lake and Kheperkara, see Item 3 above) (lines 23-25)
Item 23: 'giving favour (consisting of) estate-workers, fields, gold, cloth, all good things in
great quantity, to the overseer of troops Ameny and to the soldiers who returned from
destroying Iwai and Iasy' and to other groups (passage partly destroyed, but apparently all on
distribution, including to the cults of deities) (lines 25-27)
Between lines 27 and 28 is a thicker vertical emerging from the head of a kneeling deity with
arms raised, probably the hieroglyph for year on the head of the personification of eternity.
Line 28 contains the titulary of king Amenemhat II with the epithets 'beloved of Atum lord of
Iunu (Heliopolis)' and 'given life like Ra eternally', followed by the name of the goddess
Seshat 'Writing' and two small figures, one named ir 'action', the name of the other lost
(perhaps, as in later New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC) examples, 'action' and hearing')
This is probably the end of one year of entries; the number of the regnal year might have been
written at the top of the column, now lost.
Item 24: broken entry involving the ritual of 'giving the house to its lord' and ritual equipment
(compare Item 5, above) (line 29)
Item 25: 'following Sobek lord of Rewamhu to the temple of Sobek lord of Rewamhu' and
reference to ritual equipment (line 29)
Item 26: broken entry with reference to a province named after a bull (in the Delta?) and
(same entry?) a deity in Ipetsut (Karnak) and Mont (lines 29-30)
Item 27: 'following a [.. and] gold image of Nubkaura to the temple of Amun in Ipetsut' and
reference to ritual equipment (line 30)
Item 28: 'following [...] and Nephthys in the double-sceptre province; giving the house to its
lord [...]' with reference to ritual equipment (line 31)
Item 29: broken entry referring to donation of fields to provide daily and festival offerings for
the god Igay in the double-sceptre province (lines 32-33?)
The last lines at the left of the block are more extensively damaged; the lower edge of line 36
mentions the god Seth in the town Wenes, and, as this cult seems related to the cult of Igay in
the double-sceptre province, the donations to cults in that province may have taken up all of
lines 28 to 36. Of lines 37 to 41, very little remains.
The cult of the reigning King in ancient Egypt
Like the Emperors of early imperial Rome, ancient Egyptian kings received formal worship
during their lifetimes. However, they were mortal: this creates a duality, of divine eternal
kingship and mortal body in human form.
Temples to the cult of the king at the burial place
At the burial place of each king, there is a place for the worship of that king, attested in
architecture at least from the First Dynasty to the New Kingdom (about 3000-1070 BC).
Examples:
First Dynasty,
Second
Dynasty
Old Kingdom
Middle
Kingdom
New Kingdom
pyramid
variations on
cult enclosures
complex for
the theme of temples of kings on
for each king
the cult of each the pyramid
the West Bank at
buried at
king, as at
complex, as at
Thebes
Abydos
Meydum
Lahun
Additional temples to the cult of the king
Other places of worship for the king would have included the palace, and secondary chapels
in the precincts of temples to deities; in some reigns there were also major temples for the
king constructed at several places in addition to the focus of the eternal cult at the burial
place, most strikingly for Amenhotep III and Ramesses II.
Example of a chapel for the cult of the king (Hwt-nswt) in the precinct of the local main deity
(Koptos) and a kingship temple connected with a palace (Gurob):
chapel of
temple for the
Nubkheperra
cult of
Intef at Koptos Thutmose III
The lifespan of a temple to the cult of the king
Such temples would have had lives of varying length: there is evidence that the cult might be
maintained, but the economic resources diminished, a century or two after the death of the
king, as George Reisner found in his excavation of the temples in the pyramid complex of
Menkaura at Gizeh. Each new king would have concentrated the resources of the land on their
own cult, once the predecessor had been buried: therefore the cult probably enjoyed its peak
during the lifetime of the reigning king, and its resources in land, equipment and sculpture
were probably already being diverted in the immediately following reign.
Hymns to the King
An important literary expression of kingship cult is the Hymn to the King (in Egyptian dwA
nswt). Many examples survive from the New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC), and there are
depictions of such worship in the form of an official kneeling with arms raised before the
name of the king; an example found at Memphis and dating to the reign of Saamun (Twentyfirst Dynasty) is accompanied by a hieroglyphic inscription giving the phrase dwA nswt.
The ancient Egyptian expression of kingship seems not to distinguish in essence between the
cult of the living and the cult of the dead king: in both stages of existence, this is the divine
king. Therefore the depictions and inscriptions concerning the cult of the king cannot
necessarily be dated directly from their contents. W. M. F. Petrie retrieved from the town site
near Lahun a papyrus bearing hymns to King Senusret III; these are the earliest such hymns
preserved in manuscript form. Their contents do not reveal whether they were to be sung in
the presence, or lifetime, of the king, or in a festival or ritual involving the statues of that king
in the temple for the cult of his father Senusret II at Lahun.
compare: Cult of kings after their death: the success stories