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Political History

Absolutism and Reciprocity in Ancient Egypt

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Abstract

I review the idea that the ancient Egypt state arose as a result of top down, absolute control by central authority against the idea that Egyptian civilization emerged bottom up from reciprocal ties of service, dependency and patronage.

Figures (8)
Figure 8.1. The Great Sphinx of Giza. Royal art, including colossal statues like the Sphinx, lead scholars to focus on a highly centralized royal ideology, and to assume a deeply penetrating central- ized bureaucracy. But royal ideology can veil a largely self-organized, self-regulating, locally con- trolled infrastructure. Photo by Mark Lehner.
Figure 8.1. The Great Sphinx of Giza. Royal art, including colossal statues like the Sphinx, lead scholars to focus on a highly centralized royal ideology, and to assume a deeply penetrating central- ized bureaucracy. But royal ideology can veil a largely self-organized, self-regulating, locally con- trolled infrastructure. Photo by Mark Lehner.
Figure 8,3. The ka statue of King Auibre Hor, of Dynasty 13, ca. 1750 B.c. Cairo Museum. The upraised arms of the ka symbolize and embrace the transfer of the “life force.” Ka was communal and communicative. The king was “the ka of the living,” that is, Pharaoh contained or embodied the life force of all his subjects. Photo by Mark Lehner.
Figure 8,3. The ka statue of King Auibre Hor, of Dynasty 13, ca. 1750 B.c. Cairo Museum. The upraised arms of the ka symbolize and embrace the transfer of the “life force.” Ka was communal and communicative. The king was “the ka of the living,” that is, Pharaoh contained or embodied the life force of all his subjects. Photo by Mark Lehner.
Figure 8.5. The three pyramids and immense southern boundary wall at Giza. Egyptian history is characterized by bursts of highly centralized authority like the Fourth Dynasty period of gigantic pyramids. Central authority was, however, parasitic on the self-organized system that it sought to control, and there were inexorable lapses to fragmented authority. Photo by Mark Lehner.
Figure 8.5. The three pyramids and immense southern boundary wall at Giza. Egyptian history is characterized by bursts of highly centralized authority like the Fourth Dynasty period of gigantic pyramids. Central authority was, however, parasitic on the self-organized system that it sought to control, and there were inexorable lapses to fragmented authority. Photo by Mark Lehner.

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