Ancient Egyptian Administration (Handbook of Oriental Studies: Section 1; The Near and Middle East) 9004249524, 9789004249523

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Ancient Egyptian Administration

Handbook of Oriental Studies Handbuch der Orientalistik Section 1, Ancient Near East Editor-in-Chief

W.H. van Soldt (Leiden) Editors

G. Beckman (Ann Arbor) C. Leitz (Tübingen) P. Michalowski (Ann Arbor) P. Miglus (Heidelberg)

VOLUME 104

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hdo

Ancient Egyptian Administration Edited by

Juan Carlos Moreno García

Leiden  • boston 2013

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ancient Egyptian administration / edited by Juan Carlos Moreno García.    pages cm. — (Handbook of oriental studies = Handbuch der Orientalistik. Section 1, ancient Near East, ISSN 0169-9423 ; v 104)  ISBN 978-90-04-24952-3 (hardback : alk. paper)   1. Egypt—Politics and government—To 332 B.C. 2. Bureaucracy—Egypt—History. I. Moreno García, Juan Carlos, author, editor of compilation. DT85.A63 2013 932’.01—dc23

2012049894

ISSN  0169-9423 ISBN  978-90-04-24952-3 (hardback) ISBN  978-90-04-25008-6 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

To the memory of Jesús María Jiménez Jiménez (6 June 1942–5 August 1985)

contents The Study of Ancient Egyptian Administration  ...........................   Juan Carlos Moreno García The Organisation of a Nascent State: Egypt until the Beginning of the 4th Dynasty  ......................................................   Eva-Maria Engel The Central Administration of the Resources in the Old Kingdom: Departments, Treasuries, Granaries and Work Centers  . ................................................................................   Hratch Papazian The Territorial Administration of the Kingdom in the 3rd Millennium  ..............................................................................   Juan Carlos Moreno García

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Kings, Viziers, and Courtiers: Executive Power in the Third Millennium B.C.  ............................................................................. 153   Miroslav Bárta The Administration of the Royal Funerary Complexes  . ............. 177   Hana Vymazalová Balat, a Frontier Town and Its Archive  . ........................................ 197   Laure Pantalacci Setting a State Anew: The Central Administration from the End of the Old Kingdom to the End of the Middle Kingdom  ............................................................................ 215   Wolfram Grajetzki The Royal Command (wd̠-nsw): A Basic Deed of Executive Power   ............................................................................ 259   Pascal Vernus

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Nomarchs and Local Potentates: The Provincial Administration in the Middle Kingdom  ................................................................ 341   Harco Willems The Organisation of the Pharaonic Army (Old to New Kingdom)  ............................................................................... 393   Anthony Spalinger Categorisation, Classification, and Social Reality: Administrative Control and Interaction with the Population  ........................... 479   Katalin Anna Kóthay Crisis and Restructuring of the State: From the Second Intermediate Period to the Advent of the Ramesses  ............... 521   JJ Shirley The Rising Power of the House of Amun in the New Kingdom  .......................................................................................... 607   Ben Haring Coping with the Army: The Military and the State in the New Kingdom  . ............................................................................... 639   Andrea M. Gnirs The Administration of Institutional Agriculture in the New Kingdom  . ............................................................................... 719   Sally L.D. Katary A Bureaucratic Challenge? Archaeology and Administration in a Desert Environment (Second Millennium B.C.E.)  . ......... 785   John Coleman Darnell The Ramesside State  . ......................................................................... 831   Pierre Grandet Administration of the Deserts and Oases: First Millennium B.C.E.  ......................................................................... 901   David Klotz



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From Conquered to Conqueror: The Organization of Nubia in the New Kingdom and the Kushite Administration of Egypt  . .......................................................................................... 911   Robert Morkot The Saite Period: The Emergence of a Mediterranean Power  . ..... 965   Damien Agut-Labordère The ‘Other’ Administration: Patronage, Factions, and Informal Networks of Power in Ancient Egypt  . ...................... 1029   Juan Carlos Moreno García Index  .....................................................................................................   Kings and Queens  ..........................................................................  Divinities  . ........................................................................................  Individuals  .......................................................................................   Toponyms  . ......................................................................................   Egyptian Words and Selected Titles  ...........................................   Thematic Index  ...............................................................................

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The study of ancient Egyptian administration Juan Carlos Moreno García The study of ‘Egyptian administration’ during the Pharaonic period raises both a structural and a methodological problem. In the first case, it may appear to presuppose the existence of certain overarching structural principles pervading the entire history of Pharaonic Egypt, as if the basic mechanisms underlying the organization of the bureaucracy and the implementation of governmental decisions were constant and stable, with an absolute monarch at the top of the administrative hierarchy and an army of efficient, all-controlling scribes at the base. However, such an illusion risks perpetuating the myth of ‘eternal Egypt’ and its allegedly unchanging organization over the millennia, and thus providing a prêt-à-porter narrative where any historical dynamism remains dwarfed by the overwhelming continuity of the Egyptian state. However, ‘continuity’ is not synonymous with ‘similarity’, and any study of Egyptian administration should be attentive to the disruptions, innovations, changes in the balance of power, and limits in the exercise of executive power (including corruption), all of which hamper the administrative stability of any state, ancient or modern. All the more so in the case of ancient Egypt, which passed through several cycles of expansion and contraction of the state and its political apparatus, but which, quite significantly, never suffered the consolidation of any alternative, durable ‘feudal’ power capable of contesting and replacing the authority of the state when the united monarchy collapsed. This has important consequences at the methodological level. Having in mind the well-rooted image of ancient Egypt as a paradigmatic bureaucratic, almost ‘despotic’ society, it may be tempting to ascribe to its administrative structure qualities and characteristics typical of such structures in modern societies. Nevertheless, such an anachronistic approach can hardly prove appropriate in the context of a Bronze/Iron Age society. Well-defined powers, hierarchies, activities, and spheres of intervention between officials and between administrative divisions may in fact turn out to be rather illusory. Even worse, the mere fact of focusing our analysis on these alleged characteristics, and in

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so doing taking their existence for granted, risks underestimating the ­significance of key factors, like patronage, informal networks of power and authority, proximity to the king and the court, the self-interests of potentates and institutions, even the possession of individual organizational skills, which may have been decisive in the promotion of both careers and of transversal interventions, with the effect that the boundaries between hierarchies and areas of competence become blurred. The use of documents might also become rather selective and limited to certain activities (accounting, records of property and transactions, letters with instructions), while in other cases it might be less systematic or rely more heavily on oral procedures and ad hoc decisions than on formal procedures (the case of the administration of justice being the most evident case in view). Even the border between ‘public’ and ‘private’ might be rather difficult to establish, especially in the case of activities carried out by powerful dignitaries who, in some cases, mobilized their own resources in order to discharge the duties typical of the posts they held. Overlapping activities, relying on the support or the acquiescence of powerful patrons and local authorities, royal favor, duplication of channels of authority (official and informal ), corruption and bribery, are also inseparable aspects of ancient bureaucracies. Consequently, the myth of an overwhelming, exceptionally efficient, all-encompassing bureaucracy requires a considerable amount of clarification, and the same can be said for the idea of the Pharaoh and state as sources of unlimited authority and unfettered executive power. Traditional interpretations of Pharaonic history and organization have tended to over-emphasize the extent and efficiency of the royal government to the point that it appears surprisingly unique in history, thereby fuelling the enduring myth of the alleged ‘Egyptian exception’. Nevertheless, more recent historical interpretations tend to support an alternative and contrary view. From this perspective, the limits imposed by communication difficulties, deeply entrenched local powers, and dense social networks virtually impenetrable to outsiders, coupled with a relative scarcity of means and a lack of interest in local matters by the central government, should have limited the role of the state and its apparatus of power, too distant and inefficient to have any real impact on local affairs and provincial social organization. Such a view, inspired by the study of colonial experiences, may explain the conditions prevailing in dominated areas, while at the same time be wholly irrelevant to the reality within the mother countries themselves. Moreover, this view ignores the fact that the resources at the



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disposal of the state (economic, social, political, symbolic) enabled it to ­interfere with, modify, and, in the end, to shape local constituencies of elites and, consequently, to effect a shift in the local balance of power to its own advantage. Finally, what appears superficially to be loose control over subject territories may in fact turn out to be the manifestation of an astute political choice to show respect towards local elites, whose support and collaboration were essential in order to preserve the imperial structure. What results from the analysis of the scope and intensity of the ancient Egyptian administration is that it evolved within a framework consisting of genuine executive possibilities, royal initiatives, and preexisting in situ interests, sometimes instigated by self-serving institutions or divisions within the administration itself, whose members sought greater autonomy irrespective of any raison d’état. Royal decrees are a useful illustration of the strategies at stake, especially when dispositions repeatedly enacted suggest that their actual implementation met with resistance and interests reluctant to carry out the measures promoted. In other cases, the renewal of privileges and rewards granted to certain institutions by means of a succession of decrees reveals that some kind of protest, usurpation, or interference was expected or, at least, remained a latent possibility, while the actual efficiency and legitimacy that such royal orders conveyed was considered temporary and in constant need of reinforcement. It is for this reason that, from a historical point of view, reforms and royal initiatives should be analyzed within the governmental and political context and possibilities of their time. Of course, the scarcity of Egyptian sources means that such a desideratum remains almost unattainable. Yet it should nevertheless be kept in mind, and this in order to avoid granting to Pharaonic power capacities a degree of political efficacy that could be at odds with the rather limited scope for their actual implementation. To put it in another way, royal reforms and decrees did not take place in a political vacuum devoid of any form of resistance or competing interests, as if the royal will ruled absolutely and would be carried out immediately and efficiently by means of a perfect chain of command. Königsnovelle and iconography convey an ideal, unrealistic image of sovereignty surely quite different from day-to-day realities. The famous assertion by general Piankh at the end of the 20th dynasty is a good illustration of such contrast: “as for Pharaoh—life, prosperity, health—whose superior is he after all?”. As for Bay, the powerful chancellor of pharaoh Siptah, he boasted in an inscription

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about his king-making abilities: “he who put the king [on] the throne of his father”. Such a balanced approach can prove to be quite valuable in the analysis of governmental reforms, especially with the realization that they constitute invaluable evidence concerning the interests, goals, structure, and balance of power within Egyptian society at a given moment and, especially, among the ruling elite (or, at least, its dominant sectors, i.e., those which are best documented). The impact of such reforms is obvious in aspects like the allocation of resources and the structure of the elite itself (it may be useful to consider such facets as the resistance encountered by other actors in social and political life, the co-opting of emerging and formerly neglected sectors of the elite, the search for new allies, deeper intervention in areas previously ignored, etc.). Such measures had the potential to alter the global hierarchy and organization of bureaucracy significantly at any given moment, depending on the needs of the state, the limits of its authority, and the current balance of power. The language in which they were couched in the limited documentary record available (depending on the dominant cultural traditions and values at a given time) can be a significant source of trouble for modern researchers, especially if political conflict was expressed in, say, religious terms. For example, should the Amarna episode be interpreted as an exclusively religious reform and as proof of a particular royal initiative? Or, rather, should it be seen as a genuine and rare sign of deep-seated change in the interests and the balance of power between competing sectors within the ruling elite, and even between regions, expressed in new and original terms, from which only the artistic and religious results have survived? Governmental reforms thus provide a further argument against the view that ancient Egyptian administration was a monolithic, essentially unchanging structure over the centuries. Rather, a social, political, historical, and diachronic perspective is indispensable in any analysis, even within individual, well-defined historical periods like, say, the Old or the New Kingdom. Another limit to the efficiency of the bureaucracy was that the accumulation of reforms, the creation of new divisions, the incorporation of new sectors of the elite into the governmental apparatus, and the expansion of the court and its factions could lead to a gradual paralysis in decision-making and to the emergence of autonomous institutions and spheres of influence more concerned with their own immediate interests than with the effectiveness and the smooth working capacity



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of the entire system. In fact, administrative complexity could give rise to three undesired consequences in the long term. First, an increasingly dense structure of divisions, functions, and officials might slow the circulation of information, burden the chain of command, limit the capacity of reaction, and promote duplication of responsibilities, thus complicating decision-making and hindering both the exercise of authority and the implementation of administrative decisions. Second, the development of the administration could also bring about the consolidation of institutions and groups of power jealous of their own prerogatives, concerned primarily with their own institutional interests, and thus leading to the consolidation of autonomous spheres of power within the structure of the state. Finally, as the structures became denser, the interest in showing mutual respect (in order to avoid conflicts and intrusions by nearby spheres) also increased and could lead to the gradual slowing down and eventual standstill of the whole system. New divisions and new appointments would only exacerbate the problems they intended to solve. The fact of Egypt’s complex bureaucratic organization, so often considered as proof of efficiency, can thus be seen to be rather misleading and may in fact point to increasing difficulties in the exercise of power and authority. In this respect, factions and titles take on new significance. Conflicts involving the murder of the king are not infrequent in the literary and administrative records, and the cases of Teti, Amenemhat I, and Ramesses III are good examples from different periods. Also examples of usurpers, even of trials of queens, are attested in Egyptian sources, and the establishment of the 6th dynasty provides a good case in point involving trouble in the court, the incorporation of provincial magnates into the central administration, the destitution of senior palace officers and a ‘dynastic’ marriage policy linking the royal family to powerful potentates in both Memphis and the nomes. Such evidence provides for a more accurate glimpse into the realities of power and court life, with competing factions of nobles and pretenders to the throne vying for power. Nevertheless, it is also possible that, at a deeper level, such conflicts point to diverging interests among the members of the ruling elite concerning specific policies to follow. The consequences for the administration would involve strategic aspects like influencing the appointment of high dignitaries in key positions, seeking close access to the king, building networks of officials connected to key institutions, supporting certain candidates to the throne, and so on. But those very conflicts may also have involved the periodic reorganization

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of government priorities and royal policies, which necessarily left their mark on the administrative structure and in the organization of elites, but which, quite unfortunately, have left almost no trace in the ­official record. For instance, the official incorporation of provincial magnates into the administrative structure of the kingdom from the very end of the 5th dynasty on was accompanied by the development of the governmental apparatus in the nomes (creation of the function of overseer of Upper Egypt, development of the network of royal administrative and economic centers called ḥ wt), and by marriages between kings and ladies of provincial background, thus making it difficult to imagine that these events were not closely related. Another example is the Amarna episode, followed by the rise of the army as a powerful institution, the foundation of a new capital in the Eastern Delta, and the resumption of an aggressive military policy in the Levant, a policy which, at least apparently, departed from that followed by Amenhotep III and Akhenaton. As for titles, their nature has been debated, as has the distinction between ‘titles of function’ and ‘titles of rank’. Such a distinction might prove again rather misleading, suggesting as it does that titles of function involved a true cursus honorum, whereas titles of rank and honorific titles granted no real executive power. The illusion that the Pharaonic bureaucracy was an almost perfect instrument of government, and that divisions like the Double Granary or the Double Treasury worked like modern governmental departments, with precise powers and administrative hierarchies, may underlie such interpretations. In fact, it is safer to assume that titles, especially in the case of high dignitaries, only approximately convey the extent of the authority and power wielded by their holders and that a combination of the two sets of titles expresses not only the activities effectively carried out, but also the actual authority borne by their holders, their position at the court, their closeness to the king, their proximity to the most influential ruling faction of the elite, their degree of implication in court rituals and feasts, and the network of officials to which they belonged. Thus, even the most apparently banal of titles, such as ‘hairdresser of the king’, still implies a closeness to the Pharaoh that could have made their holders ideal intermediaries between the king and the inner court, and perhaps also influential in decision-making. In other cases, reliability, experience, loyalty, and appropriate family, patronage, and courtly links could have provided an official with significant administrative authority and influence well beyond the actual titles he held. In fact, it



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should be remembered that ancient Egypt was a pre-industrial monarchy, in which royal favor, proven skill, and good connections probably played a greater role than an official cursus honorum. The processions of officials depicted, for instance, in the funerary temple of Pepy II usually employ a rather limited set of courtly prestige titles in order to present their holders and to place them within the palatial ruling elite, instead of evoking the designations of their day-to-day administrative activities. Stephen Quirke has convincingly shown in his studies that certain titles corresponded to specific tasks, while others indicated a position within broad branches and areas of the administration; additional titles (like quarry titles) were used only in seasonal activities and are found nowhere else, and still others appear only in administrative papyri, but not on monuments or in the epigraphic record. The evolving meaning of individual titles must be also considered. Not only could the taste for archaism and titles no longer in use for centuries have deprived them of their original meaning and function, but so too could they be used as a source of prestige in a completely new context. They could even be employed as programmatic expressions of an ideal return to a glorious past, especially after periods of political turmoil and division. Consequently, the deliberate reintroduction of old titles conveyed the potent ideological message that an efficient state apparatus was in the process of reestablishment, so as to demonstrate that the new administrative system being put in place was the direct heir of the ordered world of the past to be imitated. This explains why some titles reappeared in the course of history, usually associated with an intentional use of archaic language and formulae, as well as with imitations of former epigraphic styles and the emulation of the art of the historical period chosen as a prestigious precedent for present times, as happened during the Saite Period. In other cases, the changes in meaning of some titles refer to completely different activities while retaining the basic sense of reliability and proximity to the king. Such is the case of the title ‘son of the king’, which marked a special courtly status in Old Kingdom times, only to be held by military officials in key localities loyal to the Theban kings during the Second Intermediate Period. Titles related to very specific tasks and divisions (say, ‘Overseer of the Granary’) may prove to be more precise but, once again, only the general administrative and governmental context provides a reliable key for understanding the scope, real activities, links to other administrative divisions, and position within the overall administrative structure of their holders at a given moment.

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Ranks, honorific titles, and court titles raise similar problems. To begin with, such a classification is a modern and rather arbitrary one, as it simply implies that it is difficult to ascribe them functionally well-defined and immediately evident tasks, for which reason they are relegated to the confused category of ‘honorific’ and ‘rank’ titles, which, it is assumed, stand in stark contrast to titles of function, which are reputedly more accurate. This, of course, could only be valid if the organization of the Egyptian court, the subtle hierarchies ranking their members alongside formal and informal channels of power and authority, even the quality and nature of the power (in a very broad sense) inherent to each specific title, were sufficiently understood. Once again, the problem of power and authority in a pre-industrial society is probably more linked to personal connections, patronage, and proximity to the king than to the display of a full array of titles and honors perhaps devoid of any real meaning. It is for this reason that the meaning of many titles is rather difficult to translate in precise terms. Thus the title ḥ ¡tj-ʿ was bestowed upon high dignitaries in Old Kingdom times, only to designate some kind of local authority towards the end of the 3rd millennium, before finally becoming a synonym of ‘mayor’, governor of a locality, during the 2nd millennium. Other titles, like jrj pʿt, convey the notion of being part of the royal family and of the high elite of the kingdom, but the precise meaning still remains shadowy. Preference for the employment of titles like smr w ʿtj ‘Unique Friend’ on many private monuments and in the scenes on royal mortuary temples, instead of other designations perhaps more glamorous from our point of view, also suggests that it nevertheless conveyed highly regarded honorific nuances, difficult for us to define precisely, but of sufficient significance for their holders to be numbered among the elite. Judging from the biographies of many dignitaries, it involved some kind of formation in the capital, in the context of the pr nzwt ‘the house of the king’, and it represented the first step towards a career of a certain importance. Not surprisingly, its display in, say, a provincial environment could be charged with a highly symbolic and honorific ethos, making it preferable to the use of other ostensibly more important titles. In other cases, Quirke has stressed that titles like h̠rj-ḥ b ‘lector-priest’, when used in provincial environments, also conveyed notions that went beyond the ritual sphere, so as to mark literacy and membership in the intelligentsia. These nuances are rather difficult to trace and define, but nevertheless played an important role in the use of titles and in the self-presentation of officials.



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But titles and officials are only one aspect of Egyptian administration, and it would be a mistake to ignore the fact that power and administrative capacities were also held by informal authorities, whose collaboration with the administration was essential for the operation of the system. Local potentates, governors of villages, ‘patrons’, ‘big men’, chiefs, and men of influence were necessary intermediaries on behalf of the crown and its agents when dealing with local affairs, like implementing orders emanating from the court to evaluate local resources, to mobilize manpower, or to quell protests or forestall potential resistance. The organization of teams of workers in Old and Middle Kingdom times reveals that, in many cases, the manpower came from the domains and districts controlled by such powerful men. In other cases, they provided the means necessary to cultivate the crown or temple fields in a given area. However, the fact that they were not members of the administration, and that in many cases they probably lacked any formal scribal training, made it difficult for them to produce written evidence or to have access to the prestige monuments and goods which symbolized the fact of being part of the ruling elite. A related problem is that the sophisticated cultural values dominant among officials and members of the court were also alien to them, especially in the local environment where they lived, worked, and exerted their influence. Thus it is quite difficult to find any trace of them in the archaeological record, as they were not buried in the cemeteries of the high elite and they did not usually own statues, decorated tombs, inscribed objects, or the kind of precious items produced by royal or highly specialized workshops and proudly displayed by dignitaries, courtiers, and high officials. But they nevertheless constituted an ‘invisible’ sub-elite, only marginally evoked in texts and, in some occasions, visible thanks to the exceptional possession of monuments usually reserved for the elite. They represented the ‘other’ administration and any study of the Egyptian administration would be incomplete without referring to them. This leads to another common assumption about ancient Pharaonic administration, the widespread use of writing and documents, as well as the existence of some kind of ‘administrative rationality’ comparable to our own. So, for instance, it has been posited that a true justice system was operative in ancient Egypt, a system which included specific divisions, appointed judges, adhered to formal procedures, and produced juridical documents. In fact nothing proves that it was the case, and what some Egyptologists call somewhat abusively

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“justice department” and “judge” corresponds, in fact, to dignitaries whose authority also enabled them to settle disputes and form courts, thus acting as ad hoc ‘judges’ and justice courts, while the so-called “justice departments” were concerned instead with a much broader set of ­administrative responsibilities, from collecting information and settling conflicts to advising. Ramesside examples, like the trial of Mose, the murder conspiracy against Ramesses III, or the investigation of the royal tomb robberies, are good illustrations of the usual procedure followed when administering justice. In other cases, the documentary record shows that officials, even queens, were taken to the vizier’s office in order to ensure that their trial be adjudicated by a trusted official and not by a formal ‘judge’. As for evidence for a widespread use of documents, as may be inferred from some inscriptions, it should be remembered that famous cases like that of Mose (and the ability of the parties involved to produce documentary proof supporting their respective claims) are perhaps exceptional because of the very particular nature of the dispute (a royal donation of land, probably being considered crown land, to a military ancestor as reward for his services, a transaction that was probably subject to careful scribal scrutiny), not because judicial archives were commonly preserved over centuries. The rarity of true contracts until later periods in Pharaonic history, as well as the fact that writing was usually restricted to transactions and records between members of the elite (like wills, jmjt-pr acts, sales of property, not to mention priestly and governmental positions, private archives, and letters), suggest that the use of documents, even within the administrative sphere, was rather selective. From this perspective it is not surprising that the wider use of writing in private ordinary activities in the 1st millennium (land leases, matrimonial contracts, wills, etc.) nevertheless continued to be rare and restricted to the elite, to the point that some of them were recorded in stone but in cursive writing (like sales of tombs, donations of fields, and people’s self-sale into serfdom). In other cases oral claims had the same value as written documents (as expressed in some clauses in abnormal hieratic and early demotic sales and leases of land, etc., referring to potential demands against the buyer). Quite significantly, legal documents involving the sale of a piece of land include not only the ‘contract’ strictly speaking but also the complete story of the field (list of previous owners, transactions, divisions of the land, etc.), with the aim of clearing up any legal doubt about the property rights of the buyer; that such practice would be later replaced, under Ptolemaic



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rule, by formalized notarial procedures (as official archive-keeping and legal validation of private transactions) reveals, in contrast, the rather elementary nature of legal confirmation in previous Pharaonic times, when contracts were primarily matters of the private sphere, with little official interference, relying heavily on oral information (like lists of witnesses). In the event of conflict, from the late 2nd millennium on, oracles, not legal procedures, were usually invoked. What is more, in those cases in which detailed administrative archives have survived in sufficient quantities (e.g., royal mortuary cults of the Old and Middle Kingdom, inventories of fields and taxes in the New Kingdom, etc.), it seems that only very specific activities involved a consistent and abundant use of documents, mainly concerning reckoning, classifying, and storing selective data (e.g., inventories, lists and records of priestly or other services, stages of boats for tax collecting, etc.), complemented by letters giving precise instructions about how to act in specific situations. As stated before, royal decrees were intended to regulate activities and implement governmental measures, often to confirm decisions enacted by former decrees. This points once more to the somewhat precarious nature of administrative decision-making, when turning directly to the king instead of invoking formerly produced documents was preferred (or necessary) in order to assert authority, to solve misinterpretations, and to confirm previous decisions. Once again, formal procedures, well defined hierarchies, spheres of authority, and domains of activity seem to a great extent to have been alien to the current Egyptian administrative organization, thus leaving plenty of scope to personal initiatives and oral agreements in an overwhelmingly illiterate world. Even the formal training and competence of scribes could be rather primitive and consist mostly of the ability to collect and record very specific pieces of information but without a thorough knowledge of writing, as the Old Kingdom archive of Balat shows. The common practice of washing papyri for their reuse, the abandonment of the diplomatic archive known as the Amarna Letters once the settlement was deserted, and the abundant discarded papyri and ostraca at Deir el-Medina, also reveal the fragile nature of true archives once the immediate utility of the documents vanished. That control and storage of information was rather selective fits well with an administrative organization where personal skill and contacts were more important than fixed hierarchies, where the circulation of information was not quite fluid, and where decentralization was inevitable because of distance, the influence of local authorities and networks

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of power, and the relatively scarce number of trained scribes (perhaps about one to two percent of the total population). Consequently, the control and management of resources was inefficient (from our contemporary perspective), but probably sufficient in a pre-modern state, where the stability of any central government depended on collaboration between the central/palatial elite and local powers and on the mutual respect of their own interests and spheres of authority. Of course, the volume of resources that the Pharaonic administration was able to mobilize was certainly impressive, but it had also to cope with well-documented practices of (at least in some cases) more-or-less tolerated corruption, abuses of power, and informal networks of power able to turn resources aside. Nevertheless the political importance of such practices is obvious. All of them represented informal channels of authority, remuneration, and redistribution of wealth, provided that they did not run counter to the fundamental economic, political, and symbolic interests of the ruling elite and the central administration (once again the case of the tomb robberies is quite representative). The tolerance towards these informal channels was probably a prerequisite for gaining the support of local authorities, of powerful factions of the elite, of local populations or, more generally, for making the system function. In a somewhat cynic way, such ‘irregular practices’ can be reinterpreted as a peculiar and probably inevitable form of reinvestment of resources greasing fidelities, alliances, and service to the king. Mentions of corruption are quite frequent in Egyptian sources, but it would be overly simplistic to regard them only in terms of inefficiency and decadence. Their importance for the continuity and stability of the kingdom, for the cohesion of the ruling elite, and for the adherence of more or less significant sectors of the population to their rulers should not be underestimated. This also made it possible to increase tax pressure when needed because, as stated before, resources incorrectly estimated in administrative accounts, diverted by rapacious agents, or simply stored up in temples and domains, were not completely inaccessible to zealous agents of the king. Thus the control and management of resources in a pre-modern state followed a logic not always comparable to that of modern (mainly) Western states. Their efficiency should then be judged not in narrow terms of (contemporary) competence and rationality, but in their contribution to the (re)establishment and stability of power in the long run. Even today, when modern technologies allow for an exhaustive measurement and control of wealth, fiscal evasion and informal economic



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activities remain common ­practices. They are often morally unjustifiable and economically irrational, but sometimes rational, even necessary, in political terms. Administration always depends on politics. And, even in modern times practical realities may differ greatly from the solemn juridical principles and practices invoked, thus making it necessary to avoid a narrow juridical perspective which has contributed, especially in the past, to the view that the Pharaonic administration was an almost perfect machinery led by specialists and inspired by the quest for the maat. Such characteristics seem more evident in light of New Kingdom documents, when temples appear as true managerial agencies, assuming administrative tasks which usually devolved to state officials. Temples administered not only their own resources but also, for instance, crown land, and employed and/or rewarded state personnel (e.g., military personnel). Such a delegation of tasks could give rise to rather intricate structures, with secondary institutions (like other temples, or even mayors and rich peasants) administering goods which formally belonged to the crown, but had been entrusted to other temples that, subsequently, put other institutions and people in charge of them. As stated above, the administrative practices and the role played by institutions changed over time and led to different possibilities, administrative structures, and, in the end, distribution of power and tasks that make it impossible to posit the existence of a single Egyptian administration having preserved a single basic structure and its organizational principles unchanged over millennia. This brief overview about the problems that arise in the study of ancient Egyptian administration would certainly be incomplete without any reference to territorial administrative units. An anachronistic perspective posits the existence of provinces as operative administrative units in the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C., and thus as precursors of the well-known nomoi structure of late 1st-millennium Egypt. However, towns and their districts, and in some cases the domains (or areas of influence) of local potentates, frequently appear in the sources as the basic units of territorial organization. Administrative and geographical units should thus be carefully distinguished in order to avoid considering, for instance, an Old Kingdom ‘great chief of a nome’ a ‘nomarch’. Perhaps such local titles simply served to enhance the prestige and denote the status of the dominant local leader, without any further administrative consideration, like, for instance, being a true ‘local governor’ with clearly defined functions and powers within

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a ‘nomarchal’ administrative structure. The authority they enjoyed in the areas under their influence made local leaders ideal intermediaries for the crown and their collaboration was in fact indispensable if the demands of the central authority were to be asserted locally. The fact that such ‘nomarchs’ were unevenly distributed both geographically and chronologically over Egypt (especially in the South) during the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C. shows that they were not part of a formal nomarchal institution. On the other hand, some local potentates extended their influence well beyond their own towns and provinces and even exerted authority in other nomes. Furthermore, the borders of some provinces appear as imprecise and ill-defined areas even in relatively late periods in Egyptian history, like the end of the 3rd millennium, especially in the Eastern Delta, the area of Fayum and Middle Egypt. Finally, highly formalized ideal and/or ritual geographical terms fulfilled a precise role in ‘religious geography’ sources from the 2nd and 1st millennium B.C., but may be of little use—and may even induce error—for an accurate description of the real landscape of a given area. To sum up, whether provinces existed as geographical units and are evoked as such in the artistic record (like the processions of ‘funerary domains’), in royal decrees, and in local titles from a very early date, their mechanical interpretation as regular, operative administrative units bears careful scrutiny and seems hardly applicable to the whole of Egypt until a very late date. Consequently, chronology pervades any analysis of the administrative organization of Pharaonic Egypt and prevents regarding its structure as a rigid, everlasting one over the centuries. Politics, the balance of power between competing sectors of the elite, even between regions, determined the possibilities as well as the limits of its sphere of intervention. And this is also true even when focusing on the territorial administration of the kingdom. That is why when the sources are apparently abundant, as in the second half of the 3rd millennium, significant administrative differences may be discerned between regions (Upper and Lower Egypt), while specific reforms sought to improve the governmental management of specific areas (like the creation of the position of Overseer of Upper Egypt), sometimes in an ephemeral way (like the ‘middle provinces’ of Old Kingdom texts), and even the titles and the scope of activities of ‘great chiefs of the nome’ within restricted areas (like southern Upper Egypt) differed greatly from one province to another. Also noteworthy is the fact that entire sectors of Egyptian society (like the urban underworld, informal occupations,



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prostitution, mobile populations in marginal areas, itinerant trade, and so on) were very unlikely to have produced documents of their own in spite of their economic and social impact. A final problem concerns the sources available. In despite of the reputation of ancient Egypt as a bureaucratic and ‘papyrus-turned’ state, the fact of the matter is that sources are relatively rare and in many cases so exceptional because of the nature of their contents or their very local origin, that in many instances it turns out rather difficult to sketch the main outlines of the administrative organization at a given moment or to flesh out the information provided by titles or by brief biographical statements. While titles and institutions may be formally attested over long periods of Egyptian history, their specific nature, scope, and meaning may vary greatly from one period to another, as part of their activities could have been transferred to new institutions or be controlled by newly appointed officials outside the very institution itself. The relationship between particular administrative activities and specific institutions may have been a rather variable one depending on a multitude of factors, thus making it difficult to ascertain the true continuity of institutions outside the simple fact that a single term continued in use over long periods. So any study of, say, the ‘vizier’, the ‘treasury’, the ‘provincial governor’, not to mention more obscure institutions like the pr-ḥ rj-wd̠b or some ephemeral ones, should take into account the overall structure at a given period in order to outline the scope of their activities within it. It may be quite tempting to use better-documented periods in order to cast some light on the less-well-documented ones in order to reconstruct the history of a title or an institution but, once again, chronology and structural changes over time warn against an indiscriminate use of sources in order to fill the gaps. The same can be said about archives. Their number is frustratingly small until the second half of the 1st millennium, even in the case of privately held sets of documents, so entire administrative institutions and sectors of activity can be only very broadly understood thanks to the combined analysis of titles, autobiographical information, monumental epigraphy, and some scattered pieces of genuine administrative documents. Bearing in mind all these considerations, especially the scanty information available, the task of devoting a volume to the study of ancient Egyptian administration may seem premature. Nevertheless, a starting point, however precarious and incomplete it may be, appears to be quite necessary in order to stimulate further research, refine problems,

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terminology, and perspectives, and to progress towards a better structural and sectorial analysis of the Egyptian administration. The absence of sufficiently detailed studies covering the main institutions and functions throughout the entire Pharaonic history persuaded me that, in many cases, what could be gained was at best an unbalanced summary if the research were to focus on a single institution (say ‘the vizirate’) or official division. Not only may the documentary gaps prove to be quite formidable, but so too may be the absence of sufficient sources and even research on specific topics, titles, and divisions, even within a single historical period, like, for instance, the New Kingdom, not to mention 1st-millennium Egypt. So I have preferred a more traditional perspective, where topics are dealt with within the main periods of Egyptian history while chapters are arranged in a chronological framework. I hope that this choice will be of some use in helping to understand the basic outlines of Egyptian administration at a given period. Also, I have chosen to focus the chapters on general themes, rather than on institutions. Such a choice has an obvious disadvantage, because of the different perspectives, qualities, and numbers of the sources and the research traditions involved in the study of each of these themes for different periods. It is not the same thing to analyze the provincial administration during the 3rd millennium, when the sources are relatively abundant, and to apprehend its main outline in the New Kingdom. Another problem, too vast to be evoked in a few lines, is what exactly should be included under the heading of ‘Egyptian administration’. As this volume should be only considered a first step towards the writing of a true administrative history of ancient Egypt, I have limited the analysis to the management of people, resources, spaces, and information from the perspective of the monarchy and its interests. In order to cope with this choice, I have organized the book into two categories of chapters. The first one is composed of ‘structural’ articles, centered on vast administrative branches, like the army, the territorial administration, and the central departments during the traditionally accepted ‘main’ periods of Egyptian history (e.g., the Old, Middle, and New Kingdom as well as the Saite period), thus making it possible for researchers to compare the basic outlines of the central administration over 2500 years. The second category concerns very specific topics, selected because of the survival of abundant documents which provide detailed insights into particular practices and institutions within a single period. The 3rd-millennium archives



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from Balat or the 2nd-millennium temple administration records are obvious candidates which deserved a thorough attention. I hope that this choice proves judicious given the issues—analytical, theoretical, and documentary—that still limit our understanding of the main outlines of Pharaonic administration. The specialists who have contributed to this volume have attempted to provide state-of-the-art descriptions in their respective domains of research.1 I thank them warmly for their work when dealing with problems and documents which still raise so many difficulties of comprehension and ­evaluation.

1  Unfortunately, the planned chapter on the administration of the Third Intermediate Period and the organizational, scribal and executive changes occurred then was never delivered by the author who had accepted to produce it.

The organisation of a nascent state: Egypt until the beginning of the 4th Dynasty Eva-Maria Engel The term “administration” evokes manifold denotations that range from (private) managing of property to function of (state) authority, meant to execute public policy through all government bodies. As entities generating hierarchy and enabling control of large territories, administrative units are of central importance to territorial states.1 It is, therefore, not surprising that administration seems to appear in Egypt approximately at the same time as writing2 and the territorial state. Sources At the time of the 4th Dynasty, the reconstructed branches of authority are: the royal palace, the temples and the huge central administration that was subdivided into different agencies: the executive and juridical branch, the branch of works and expeditions, the archives, the treasury, the granary and the provincial administration.3 During the Early Dynastic period the economic sector left most traces, whereas jurisdiction, religion and other organised parts in the life of the Nile valley’s inhabitants remain nearly invisible. This is not surprising taking into account that our knowledge is mainly based on material culture in form of tomb equipment that was the result of intensive economic activities. Traces of organisation are detectable as early as the 4th millennium B.C. The habit of equipping tombs with food supplies lead to

 B.G. Trigger, Understanding Early Civilizations (Cambridge, 2003), 207.   The introduction of writing was recently also described as “conscious court initiative”: I. Regulski, “The Origin of Writing in Relation to the Emergence of the Egyptian State”, in: Egypt at its Origins 2. Proceedings of the International Conference “Origin of the State. Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt”, Toulouse (France), 5th–8th September 2005, B. Midant-Reynes and Y. Tristant, eds. (OLA 172; Leuven, 2008), 1001–1002. 3  According to M. Baud, Famille royale et pouvoir sous l’Ancien Empire égyptien I (BdE 126/1; Cairo, 1999), 316, Fig. 31; G. Husson and D. Valbelle, L’état et les institutions en Égypte des premiers pharaons aux empereurs romains (Paris, 1992), 44. 1 2

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the ­discovery of inscriptions that were in some ways related to containers. Hardly anything can be said about the nature of the inscription issuing institution(s) itself (if the signs are really more than the above mentioned managing of private property). While the number of these sources was first (in most cases) restricted to just a few for a single tomb, it increased remarkably during the 1st Dynasty when huge élite tombs were built at Abydos, Saqqara, Helwan, Naqada, Tarkhan and other sites. Those tombs contained up to hundreds of vessels and bags with liquids, fruit and other products that were the result of a large-scale exploitation of natural resources and intensifying agriculture. During the 2nd Dynasty evidence changed, not so much because of varying burial patterns but because of a smaller number of (well ) excavated élite burials. Until the end of the 3rd Dynasty the majority of inscriptions are seal impressions that were attached to containers, doors and papyri, labels made of ivory, wood or bone, and pot marks that were applied pre- or post-firing, as well as inscribed stone vessels. They inform about matters directly connected with the products: provenance (institution or locality), date of production, responsible person, content and quality as is best recognised in case of 1st Dynasty labels which depict the name of year and of ruling king, the name of one or two officials, that of one or more institutions and the product, sometimes in combination with its quality. The other inscriptions seem to focus on one or two aspects of this information. The briefness of the single entries often renders it difficult, if not impossible, to determine dependencies between several units noted in an inscription. It seems likely—as is the case in documents of later periods—that higher entities are mentioned first.4 But other examples record two institutions or an institution and a location in parallel positions, be it next to each other or in separate columns so that it is hardly possible to ascertain a subjection.5 While at the beginning of the 3rd Dynasty burial customs still followed the earlier pattern, it soon after changed: the élite tombs now contained less provision. Therefore, the number of inscriptions directly associated with producing institutions decreased whereas, on the other 4   W. Helck, Altägyptische Aktenkunde des 3. und 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr. (MÄS 31; Munich, Berlin, 1974), 64. 5  For example, seal impression P. Kaplony, Die Inschriften der ägyptischen Frühzeit I–III (ÄA 8; Wiesbaden, 1963), Fig. 738 or seals idem, Inschriften III, Figs. 281, 282, 285.



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hand, the tomb owners now displayed their role in different institutions on the walls of their graves by decorating them either with biographical texts or excerpts from official records. The habit of including biographical information on funerary monuments had begun already during the first half of the 1st Dynasty when some of the persons buried in the subsidiary burials of the royal tombs at Abydos had not only their names, but also (some of ?) their titles written on the stelae marking the burial chambers.6 In addition to the inscriptional evidence, there are indirect hints to administration: building activities all over the country follow similar patterns and, therefore, indicate that there was a central authority educating architects and/or editing plans for complex edifices: During the 1st Dynasty the layout of the élite tombs is astonishingly similar at varying sites,7 as is that of the little layer pyramids dating to the 3rd Dynasty,8 and the tomb of Peribsen in the 2nd Dynasty copies the layout of (at that time probably inaccessible) royal tombs from the early 1st Dynasty.9 Even the size of the mud bricks is rather identical in different regions.10 Although the building activities all over the country—not to mention the large-scale agricultural projects that were probably undertaken now11—involved quite some organisation and hundreds, if not thousands, of people, no inscriptional documents are preserved before the reign of Netjerikhet when Aa-akhtj was jmj-r¡ k¡.t nb.t nzw as was Pehernefer at the (end of the 3rd or) ­beginning

  6   W.M.F. Petrie, The Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty I (MEEF 18; London, 1900), Pl. XXXI–XXXVI, idem, The Royal Tombs of the Earliest Dynasties II (MEEF 21; London, 1901), Pl. XXVI–XXX. The first longer sequences on private stelae are summarized in W. Helck, Untersuchungen zur Thinitenzeit (ÄA 45; Wiesbaden, 1987), 225–285.   7   W.B. Emery, Archaic Egypt (Harmondsworth, 1961), 130; E.-M. Engel, “Tombs of the 1st Dynasty at Abydos and Saqqara: Different Types or Variations of a Theme?”, in: Proceedings of the Second Central European Conference in Egyptology. Egypt 2001: Perspectives of Research. Warsaw 5–7 March 2001, J. Popielska-Grzybowska, ed. (Warsaw, 2003), 41–49.   8  G. Dreyer and W. Kaiser, “Zu den kleinen Stufenpyramiden Ober- und Mittelägyptens”, MDAIK 36 (1980), 43–59; St. J. Seidlmayer, “Town and State in the Early Old Kingdom: A View from Elephantine”, in: Aspects of Early Egypt, J. Spencer, ed. (London, 1996), 108–127, esp. 122.   9  G. Dreyer et al., “Umm el-Qaab. Nachuntersuchungen im frühzeitlichen Königsfriedhof. 16./17./18. Vorbericht”, MDAIK 62 (2006), 101. 10  A.J. Spencer, Brick Architecture in Ancient Egypt (Warminster, 1979), 147, Pl. 41. 11   The ceremonial mace-head of King Scorpion depicts the king as taking an active part in some agricultural operation: K.W. Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt. A Study in Cultural Ecology (Chicago, London, 1976), 20–21.

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of the 4th Dynasty.12 A glimpse of the administration involved in these projects are royal annals that mark an interface between agriculture and economy by recording the annual height of the inundation, an information that was necessary for planning large-scale building projects13 and agricultural production14 as well as for taxation.15 On the other hand, the nation-wide construction projects increased the demand for redistributing provision and, therefore, also for administering the necessary supply (food and raw materials). As early as the reign of Qa’a, perhaps even Den,16 the pr ḥ rj-wd̠b is in charge of allotments in form of provision.17 Another non-textual example for the existence of specialised departments is the uniformity of the containers utilised in storing the grave goods at different sites:18 They exemplify the fabrication in large units and indicate their broad scale of responsibilities that encompassed not only the production of primary goods like provision or textiles, but also that of the necessary containers and dishes.19 While most of our knowledge on Early Dynastic administration derives from cemeteries all over Egypt, the settlements at Buto and Elephantine provide evidence for state control in these distant regions. At both sites buildings were unearthed that seem to exemplify the presence of centres for the production and/or collection of local products: The building at Buto has several long corridors, generally taken to be

 Helck, Thinitenzeit, 249; H. Junker, “Phrnfr”, ZÄS 75 (1939), 70.  St. J. Seidlmayer, Historische und moderne Nilstände (ACHET A1; Berlin, 2001), 87. 14   K. Rüffing, Weinbau im römischen Ägypten (Pharos XII; St. Katharinen, 1999), 52. 15   T.A.H. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt (London, 1999), 113–114. 16   J. Kahl, Frühägyptisches Wörterbuch I (Wiesbaden, 2002), 130. 17   M. Baud, Djéser et la IIIe dynastie (Paris, 2002), 181; but see also J.C. Moreno García, Études sur l’administration, le pouvoir et l’idéologie en Égypte, de l’Ancien au Moyen Empire (Ægyptiaca Leodienensia 4; Liège, 1997), 141–144. 18   That the use of these pottery types was, of course, not restricted to the storage of grave goods, is exemplified by the vessels that were the archetype for several hieroglyphs, like W21, w2, and w15–18, see J. Kahl, Das System der ägyptischen Hieroglyphenschrift in der 0.-3. Dynastie (GOF IV/29; Wiesbaden, 1992), 801, 807–809, 816–818 and often used to note “jrp”. 19   The potters would fall into the category of “ ‘attached’ specialist producers” that were, according to P.M. Rice, Pottery Analysis. A Sourcebook (Chicago, London, 1987), 186 “associated with a particular interest group that can in some way manipulate production and demand.” 12

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magazines,20 the findings at the one at Elephantine suggest that larger amount of grain was stored and distributed in smaller rations. The building’s close connection to the local layer pyramid implies that the other pyramids dating to the 3rd Dynasty should be seen in a similar context—a combination of royal cult and economic production.21 Seal impressions were found at both sites,22 as well as in the settlements at Hierakonpolis,23 el-Tarif 24 (found at both sites in a secondary context), Naqada25 and Tell el-Farkha.26 The archaeological evidence from the settlements shows that a kind of control was also executed on a private level where seals were used to secure doors and containers.27 Institutions Both above mentioned traits of administrative units are our basic sources for reconstructing Early Dynastic administration: control and hierarchy. The use of two seals on one and the same stopper exemplifies that indeed control is intended, whereas hierarchy is expressed 20  E.g., U. Hartung et al., “Tell el-Fara’in—Buto. 9. Vorbericht”, MDAIK 63 (2007), 72–81. 21  St. J. Seidlmayer, “Die staatliche Anlage der 3. Dyn. in der Nordweststadt von Elephantine. Archäologische und historische Probleme”, in: Haus und Palast im Alten Ägypten, M. Bietak, ed. (DÖAW XIV; Wien, 1996), 195–214; idem, Aspects of Early Egypt, 108–127. 22  Buto: P. Kaplony, “Archaische Siegel und Siegelabrollungen aus dem Delta: Die Arbeit an den Siegeln von Buto”, in: The Nile Delta in Transition: 4th.-3rd. Millennium B.C., E.C.M. van den Br