{"id":14619,"date":"2022-05-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistoryrevealed\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=14619"},"modified":"2022-05-16T10:25:47","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T08:25:47","slug":"everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-egyptian-pharaohs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistoryrevealed\/2022\/05\/05\/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-egyptian-pharaohs\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything you wanted to know about Egyptian pharaohs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Q&A: EGYPTIAN PHARAOHS<\/span><\/h4>\n\n

Everything you wanted to know about Egyptian pharaohs<\/span><\/h2>\n\n

Professor Joyce Tyldesley <\/strong>answers key questions about Egypt\u2019s ancient rulers and the power they wielded<\/p>\n\n

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A cosmetics palette depicts Narmer (far left<\/em>), the first pharaoh of unified Egypt, parading by the beheaded remains of his enemies, seen to the far right of the scene <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Q: <\/span>What does the word \u2018pharaoh\u2019 mean and when was it first used?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A:<\/span> <\/strong>It comes from the ancient Egyptian for \u2018great house\u2019, but what it actually means is \u2018king\u2019. And it\u2019s a word that today we use to describe ancient kings of Egypt, but the Egyptians themselves didn\u2019t always use it.<\/p>\n\n

Q:<\/span> When did the era of the Egyptian pharaohs begin?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A:<\/span> <\/strong>The first person we can really say ruled all of Egypt was Narmer in about 3100 BC. Before that, the land we now know as Egypt was made up of independent cities and satellite communities along the Nile and in the Nile Delta. So, the era of the pharaohs can really be seen to have begun with political unification of the country and continued to the reign of Cleopatra, who died in 30 BC. And there was never any real determination to break away from having a king, or pharaoh, of Egypt during this time.<\/p>\n\n

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Even the afterlife was ruled by a king. Here, a copy of a wall painting shows Sety I (r1294-1279 BC) opening the door for Osiris, lord of the dead<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Q:<\/span> How many pharaohs ruled Egypt between c3100 BC and 30 BC?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A: <\/span><\/strong>It\u2019s very difficult to tell. For some periods, we have really good records, but for other periods we don\u2019t have any records at all, so it\u2019s very hard to trace king after king. What\u2019s more, during the times when Egypt was split into two separate kingdoms, there were two rival pharaohs on the throne at the same time, which also confuses things. And there were also occasions when kings ruled together, as well as regencies. But I would say there were probably at least 300 pharaohs during this period, possibly more, although they were not all from the same family line.<\/p>\n\n

Q:<\/span> Why did the pharaonic era last so long?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A:<\/span> <\/strong>I think it\u2019s because the pharaohs told everybody that they were indispensable and were the only people in Egypt who could communicate with the gods. The gods were everything to the ancient Egyptians, so if you can convince the people that you are the one person who can talk to them and keep them happy, then it\u2019s <\/span>very unlikely that they will try and get rid of you. We do know of pharaohs who were assassinated, such as Ramesses III in 1153 BC, but it didn\u2019t happen very often. And there was never a move to replace a king with a democratic system of rule. I think the ancient Egyptians just couldn\u2019t imagine life without a pharaoh; even their afterlife was ruled by a king \u2013 Osiris.<\/p>\n\n

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The sarcophagus lid of Ramesses III, who was assassinated in 1155 BC as part of a plot led by his secondary wife, Tiye, who wanted to place her eldest son on the throne <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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Hatshepsut\u2019s mortuary temple survives at Deir el-Bahri, despite concerted efforts to erase traces of her rule by her successor, Thutmose III<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Q:<\/span> How did ancient Egyptians feel about being ruled by a female pharaoh?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A:<\/span> <\/strong>It was decided, right at the start of the dynastic age, that it was possible for a woman to rule Egypt, but it wasn\u2019t considered an ideal situation. It was preferable for rule to pass from pharaoh to son, or to another male who had been adopted and who had assumed the role of son. But occasionally, where there was no obvious male successor, it was necessary for a woman to rule. This only happened a few times, and during their reigns, female pharaohs were accepted. Hatshepsut, for example, who is the female pharaoh most people know about, was on the throne for about 20 years and Egypt seems to have flourished during her reign. But after she had died, she wasn\u2019t looked upon so kindly and was pretty much cut out of history by her successor. If it wasn\u2019t for her magnificent temple at Deir el-Bahri, we wouldn\u2019t know much about her. But during their actual reigns, people didn\u2019t seem to have a problem with being ruled by a female pharaoh.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Once you had been crowned king, it didn\u2019t matter who you were before; the act of being crowned meant that you would be acceptable to the people from that point onwards. There was no going back once you\u2019d been proclaimed king. This is why we tend to use the title \u2018female pharaoh\u2019 or \u2018female king\u2019 rather than \u2018queen\u2019, which has very different meanings when used in a modern, English context. When we\u2019re discussing ancient Egypt, we\u2019re not just talking about a strong ruling queen, we\u2019re talking about a woman who has taken that extra step and become the king.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt was decided that it was possible for a woman to rule Egypt, but it wasn\u2019t considered ideal\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

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A seated statue of Hatshepsut, the famous female pharaoh whose two-decade rule saw ancient Egypt flourish<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Q:<\/span> What training did future pharaohs have to undertake?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A:<\/span> <\/strong>It\u2019s difficult to know for sure, but we do have some indications; we know that some kings were trained in military arts, for example. Tutankhamun had writing palettes in his tomb, so we think that he was trained in reading and writing as well. And it seems that there was a system of tutors who were attached to the royal palace. The problem was, though, that no one was ever certain who the next king would be because there were such high child mortality rates in those days.<\/span> Several sons born to the king and queen would probably have been trained in the same way, and then eventually one of them would succeed to the throne. And it wasn\u2019t necessarily the eldest son, because he might die before he got to the throne. Tutankhamun probably had an elder brother, but he was trained just in case. And as it turned out, it was he who came to the throne.<\/p>\n\n

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A bust of Tutankhamun (left<\/em>), found inside the boy king\u2019s tomb \u2013 possibly used as a mannequin to display his clothes or jewellery; Tutankhamun was also interred alongside a writing palette and reed case, suggesting he was literate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Q: <\/span>How did royal marriages work?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A:<\/span> <\/strong>Most \u2018ordinary\u2019 Egyptians during the dynastic age only had one husband or wife at a time. But the royal family was different, and the pharaoh had many wives, one of whom was his chief wife. It was his children with the chief wife who usually continued the royal line. In addition, pharaohs also had harems of wives, among them foreign-born princesses who were sent to Egypt to marry the pharaoh and create a bond with their home country. Interestingly, there\u2019s no evidence that Egyptian princesses married outside Egypt, probably because Egypt was the dominant nation at the time. We even have letters from foreign kings pleading to be sent an Egyptian bride as a sort of reciprocal bride for the sister or daughter that they had sent to Egypt. But it just didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n\n

There were also Egyptian-born women in the pharaoh\u2019s harem, who, it\u2019s to be assumed, were just picked because the king wanted to marry them. We\u2019re absolutely certain that pharaohs married their sisters and half-sisters, so there might well have been some of the king\u2019s sisters in his harem as well. But sibling marriages weren\u2019t compulsory: Tutankhamun, for example, married his sister or half-sister, but his father, Akhenaten, didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n

There are several theories about why a pharaoh might have chosen to marry his sister. One is that it cut down the number of relations the king had, since he wouldn\u2019t have any in-laws; there would be no rival family vying for the throne. It also meant that the queen would be very loyal to the royal family since it would be her own as well. Plus, she could also be trained for the role from childhood.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

The first people who translated texts containing information about pharaohs marrying their sisters tended to be western, strongly Christian, scholars who were very shocked by it and sought explanations for why these marriages took place.<\/p>\n\n

They came up with a theory that the kingship, the pharaohship if you like, was passed down through royal women.<\/p>\n\n

So to become a true pharaoh of Egypt, you had to marry the heiress who carried this kingship within her. It\u2019s a theory that developed because people were so uncomfortable with the idea of intermarriage \u2013 but there were plenty of pharaohs who didn\u2019t marry their sisters and yet were perfectly successful rulers, so it\u2019s not correct.<\/p>\n\n

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The lid of a casket depicts Tutankhamun in a garden with his wife (and also sister) Ankhesenamun<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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A pillar statue of Senusret I (r1956\u20131911 BC), complete with the \u2018beard\u2019 associated with images of Egyptian pharaohs<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Q: <\/span>Why are pharaohs usually depicted with a beard?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A:<\/span> <\/strong>It\u2019s something we can see right from the start of the pharaonic age. We have images of Narmer, Egypt\u2019s first ruling pharaoh, wearing a false beard; we know it\u2019s false because it clips on and is tied to the face. Even the female pharaoh Hatshepsut is depicted wearing a false beard, so it was clearly symbolic and intended as a representation of kingship.<\/p>\n\n

Presumably on occasions when they performed rituals, pharaohs would have worn a beard, just as they would have worn a crown, and carried a crook and flail. They were all attributes of kingship and, interestingly they all continued right the way through to the end of the pharaonic age \u2013 the Egyptians never really diverged from their original ideal of kingship. It\u2019s a system that must have worked very well \u2013 even now, with most people unable to read their writing, it\u2019s not hard to pick out the figure of the pharaoh in ancient Egyptian art.<\/p>\n\n

Q:<\/span> What impact could pharaohs have on religion?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A:<\/span> <\/strong>It\u2019s important not to fall into the trap of saying that ancient Egypt had a religion. It was more like a lot of cults coexisting at the same time. There was nothing resembling a Bible or anything similar to that, and there was no religious code that you had to stick to.<\/p>\n\n

But there were state temples with state gods, and these state gods were dependent on the king for regular offerings. Obviously, the pharaoh couldn\u2019t make every offering himself, so he had priests who did it for him, but technically he was the head of every religious cult.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Ordinary Egyptians didn\u2019t have much to do with this state religion and were more likely to worship local, smaller gods and demigods in their own temples, such as gods associated with childbirth and health. The division between the state temples and the deities worshipped by the ordinary people was pretty big.<\/p>\n\n

We shouldn\u2019t assume that Egyptians worshipped at the big state temples like Karnak, because they didn\u2019t. The king went there, and so did his priests, to make offerings to the gods, but ordinary people only had contact with state gods when those gods processed out of the temples. It was the pharaoh who maintained the relationship with the gods and was responsible for keeping them happy.<\/p>\n\n

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The temples at the Abydos necropolis, where early pharaohs were buried, includes numerous painted panels. Here, an individual is shown worshipping the god Osiris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Q:<\/span> Were slaves and servants really buried alive in the pyramids alongside their deceased pharaoh, as Hollywood would often have us believe?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A: <\/span><\/strong>No. Certainly, a lot of people were involved in building the pyramids, but it was a type of national service; they were summoned from villages and towns all over Egypt. They went to the pyramid building site, worked on the pyramid for perhaps three or four months and then went home again and another batch of people came in to take their place. There was a stage before the pyramid building, right at the beginning of the dynastic age, when pharaohs were buried at a place called the Abydos. And we can see that, round the royal mudbrick tombs, there were people who seem to have been buried at the same time as the king, because the burials have the same roof.<\/p>\n\n

So, it\u2019s possible that very early in the pharaonic age, some kings were buried with retainers who might have either been killed or who killed themselves to accompany the king on his journey to the afterlife. But this was a very shortlived phenomenon and certainly, by the time you get to the age of the pyramids, there\u2019s no suggestion at all that was still happening. <\/p>\n\n

<\/div>
\n

DID YOU KNOW? <\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
WATERWAY TO GET AROUND<\/span><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The camel was not used regularly in Egypt until the very end of the dynastic age. Instead, the ancient Egyptians used donkeys as beasts of burden, as well as boats for travelling along the River Nile and its associated canals.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n

Interview: Emily Briffett <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n
Words: Charlotte Hodgman<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n
\n\n

Joyce Tyldesley <\/strong>is professor of Egyptology at the University of Manchester. Her latest book, Tutankhamun \u2013 Pharaoh, Icon, Enigma: Ten Tales of Egypt\u2019s Enduring King, <\/em>is due to be published by Headline on 27 October<\/p>\n\n

PICTURE CREDITS: GETTY IMAGES X9, ALAMY X3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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