238
IX BUREAUCRACY
It is not intended in this section to list all the titles attested throughout the millennia of Egyptian bureaucracy. Not only had this been mostly done elsewhere, but the overall number of these titles is so large that it would be impracticable in a work such as this. Neither is it proposed at this stage, to discuss specifically the functions applicable to any individual title. This aspect is covered in the relevant chapters, each referring to a different section of administration. The endeavour in this part will be to describe, as far as possible, the way in which offices were acquired, promotions, the method of transfer, and remuneration.
It was already stated categorically in the chapters on law and its administration, that the Egyptians, during the entire pharaonic period did not consider legal administration, as a separate element in government and therefore no judges or even specifically legal officials and no courts of law as such existed.1299 Justice, mAat assured through laws, hpw, passed down from the gods through the King and was an integral part of government and everyday life. Every Egyptian employed by the state in an executive position had an inherent privilege to act as presiding magistrate over a qnbt, which gave its verdicts or to participate in it. As the presiding magistrate, the official could pronounce a sentence or decision except in cases where this was the king’s prerogative. In this, as in other functions involving executive decisions, the official could never act alone, but always surrounded by a panel of advisers, the qnbt/DADAt.
In view of the ways in which offices were acquired it is not surprising that certain officials claimed a variety of titles placing them in different branches of administration. In our present day experience we would assume that like ministers in a modern government, they moved from department to department, usually knowing little or nothing about any one of them. This simple explanation cannot however be applied to ancient Egypt where offices constituted to a large extent, private property of the holders and could be bequeathed, sold or placed as guarantee for loans. How this variety of obligations was discharged by the persons involved is not made clear by our sources, but the corporate system in use probably compensated for lack of knowledge or experience. It is further possible that each official, with the probable exception of the most senior ones like the Vizier, worked in rotation (BM. 344, 6-8) and when so employed was fed by the state. This method is well attested in temples and as temples were no more than departments of state, there is no reason to believe that other departments followed a different procedure. Another possibility is that official duties were carried out by deputies, or that titles were not necessarily descriptive of jobs, but rather placed a man in the hierarchy of power and rank in relation to other members of bureaucracy and also endowed him with wealth which accompanied the offices held.1300 It is not likely, however that such interpretation of official titles as in effect, purely honorific, can be sustained. Although specific job descriptions in relation to equally specific titles are thin on the ground, as will be seen
1299 cf. Kemp AESH (1983), 83 1300 Kemp, Op. cit., 80.cf. P. Andrassy, Zur Struktur des Verwaltung des Alten Reiches = ZAS 118 (1991), 1 ff. 239 throughout this work, they certainly did exist. What does suggest itself is that individual members of bureaucracy were assigned from time to time by the king to perform specific but varying jobs. These carried titles, which the official subsequently retained.1301 The view of the author is that all departments were directed by the committees (DADAt/qnbt), already described in detail above and not by individuals, except in special circumstances. Although it may sound initially surprising, but to a modern man in the western world this system is fully recognisable as a parallel to the boards of directors, individual members of which may or may not possess specialised knowledge.
A very good illustration of what has just been said comes from the inscriptions of Intef, the Mayor of This under Thutmosis III1302. Apart from this, apparently main title of his, Intef also lists as his :tC fb t ! offices 9 !.j]1]+6e - “Governor of the Entire Oasis”; [1| 7t - “Senior (lit. Great) t\M ! W Recorder of the King”; [1( M11! - “Senior Recorder of the arryt”; !4 4 - “High W ! Steward”; S! - “Overseer of the Granary”. (purely honorific titles are here omitted). Here we have an official who apart from being the mayor of an important city was also governor of a large territory, which may have at that time formed an integral part of the administration of This. In addition to this, apparently full time job, he also claims the administrative functions of wHmw, both in respect of the central government (I suggest the second listed title to be an abbreviation for wHmw aA n pr-nswt) and of the arryt, which associates him with receiving petitioners from outside the government enclosure and the administration of legal documents. Finally, he also claims the top offices of land tenure and taxation. An extremely varied range of functions, which one wonders how he could possibly have performed simultaneously if indeed he did so. Looking at the text contained in this man’s inscriptions, the functions, which he actually claimed to have fulfilled are even more varied. The text, or rather a list of claims, runs as follows: -
7t ! MB 5 1. d 4 7 L1 # 8,h - “One who pleases the King in administering his army”. This function is not reflected in any of this man’s titles, (but see below).
t # .t ! 2.e $ n F! !6h11 ,6 - “One who manages the staff of the Soldiers”. The same applies as to number “1”.
\Mp f! t 3. e 7 n s5 8!p6 - “One who advances the problems of the common people”. Here, we are probably dealing with the functions of the wHmw-tpy n arryt, which also relates to number 4. ! t ! 4. 1301 Rekhmire’ in his biography describes specific jobs performed on behalf of the king in the temple of Amun. These carried with them specific titles (see below). 1302 URK IV, 963 - 975. 1303 Frequent spelling for arryt. 240 9 ! 5. ex 4 o}17t!jbe - “One who ensures that procedures are followed in the king’s government”. Almost certainly referring to the office of wHmw-aA n (pr)-nswt. M : 4 ! 5 # ? tt ! 6. ]1t Y11 !pM1t= ! }6e5 7tL - “One who informs the Egyptian people as to the amount of taxes they owed to the King”. Now we have moved to the function of the High Steward. M t5d 9M $ 5 + 7. ] dM ] 8. =<} 4 X1MK!p6 - “Benevolent in examining the petitioners”. P B M/ t 9. #<"! 44 !#e5 - “One who adjudicates between two men to their (mutual) satisfaction”. Again a judicial function or one of arbitration. \N t\N ! 10. e+ cK! +! - “One who absolves the innocent”. +>t ! 11. r8)-5 ! ! 7t!jbe - “One who undertakes all the works of the King’s government”. This statement is most important for our understanding as it seems clear that, at least here, but probably in general xrp-kAt was not a title, but a job description and refers to special assignments. ` # +? b G ! b Q 12. 1+=5 4 rK! 6 \K5 nnn''' 4 :0Q - “One who counts the taxes of the executives, mayors (of cities) and mayors of settlements of Upper and Lower Egypt”. This must refer to the titles of High Steward and Overseer of the Granary. In the inscription of Rekhmire’,1304 however, the vizier tells us that these taxes were counted for the office of the vizier and that he supervised their receipt. The two sources do not conflict, but simply tell us that the vizier was, in this respect at any rate, Intef’s superior. Intef now goes into even deeper details of his work: - !+ ! 13. L 5!#K17t!jbe - “My offices were (exercised) in the King’s administration”. 1304 URK IV, 1119, 17 – 1128, 11 241 Bb Y 14. t!_}!#K10!jbe - “My duties were within the King’s secretariat”1305 ! 15. e1}!#K1SM11! - “I was attached to the arryt”. ~ < G .t ! 9 ! 16. \n!M !4h1 1,61#7,5 - “I proceeded (?) in front of the infantry as one foremost of the army”. # Q j> T n ^ M 17. 1+!c5nKJ>K6 ! 4 ! 1V}r qa63651 #`6 - “I catalogued the tribute of princes who are in all foreign lands consisting of silver, gold ...(?)... incense (and) wine”. An astonishing range of activities from which we may clearly discount any association with the army (nos. 1, 2, 16 and even 17). It is clear that this official, irrespective of his normal duties, accompanied the King on his military campaigns. From the other claims, however, several important details emerge: - a) Number 12 makes it plain that state officials paid taxes whose collection, one can probably reasonably assume, came within the duties of the High Steward. b) Apart from this man’s responsibility for taxes paid by officials, he was also responsible for assessing taxes to be paid by the population at large (nr. 6). Again presumably in virtue of being a High Steward. c) His association with the royal administration (pr-nswt) and the petitions and disputes brought by those outside the government enclosure to the arryt, in virtue of his position as senior Registrar/Recorder for both these institutions, is reflected by numbers 3, where he is said to process these petitions at the latter, and 5 where he is said to ensure that rules and regulations are followed in the former. d) Numbers 13 to 15 give us an idea as to how ancient Egyptians saw their employment. It is only regrettable that our lack of precise understanding of the language prevents us from translating these three statements more than approximately. Number 13, is perhaps the easiest to interpret: pr - nswt, from the considerable evidence that we possess stood for the King’s government or even the King’s domain. In the New Kingdom, moreover, it also denoted the walled enclosure containing the royal residence and all central administrative offices. What Intef tells us here is simply that he was an official of the state and a central official at that. In number 14, he appears to narrow down his responsibilities in a most interesting fashion. He tells us that he performed his duties in the stp-sA, which, according to some, admittedly ambiguous evidence, appears to have been the area within the pr-nswt given over to the King’s secretariat. At the same time, however, he was assigned to the arryt, which was the gate leading into the government enclosure, where the qnbt-sDmyw met to + 1305 ! Bb The two words L 5 and t!_} are interesting here as they may support the view that officials worked in rotation. Thus jAt being the office held and wnwt, the duty roster. 242 adjudicate in disputes and deal with citizens’ (rxyt) problems, which he communicated higher up in the hierarchy (number 3) and where he dealt with all other incoming matters (number 4). e) With Intef we have a good example of an official obviously closely associated with court cases and the imposition of laws (numbers 7 to 10) and yet none of his titles could conceivably be described as judicial. Even wHmw, a title fully discussed elsewhere, admittedly possessed his own office and dealt with legal documents but could on no attested grounds be described as judge Intef’s judicial functions which are covered by numbers 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, were performed, as in the case of other officials, in virtue of each and every office that he held,1306 being an integral part of the duties of that office. f) One other point of significance in connection with the career of Intef remains to be mentioned. He claims to have been a Mayor of This and Governor of the Oasis and yet, as seen above, he also claims to have been very much a central official and in fact was buried at Dra’Abu el-Naga which would support his residing in Thebes up to the end of his life. This would mean one of two things: either he was a provincial official to start with and was brought to the capital and promoted to Registrar, High Steward and Overseer of the Granary showing the now comparatively low status of provincial mayors and in fact all provincial officials, or the second alternative, that he was given the provincial offices at the end of his career and exercised these duties from the capital. Although, I consider the first alternative more likely, nevertheless one serious and not readily explicable fact remains with both alternatives. There is no evidence that Egyptians ever had to give up any office on being promoted to another office in another branch of administration, as this would imply the surrender of property and perquisites. For this no evidence exists. Who therefore run This and the Oasis when Intef was in the capital? My own opinion, albeit tenuous, is that in case no natural successor, such as a son, was available, a new official was in fact appointed, in the manner of a “staff of old age” with all the perquisites of the office under his care, while the previous one, in this case Intef, retained both the title and the estates until his death when the new one formally inherited. Or, as would happen in the majority of cases, he would pass these offices to his son and heir acting perhaps as “staff of old age”. This will be more fully discussed later. A widely studied instance of this custom of assigning offices to eventual successors in cases of transfer and promotion is shown by the biographies of Shemay and Idy, father and son, during the First Intermediate Period (VIIIth dyn. [?])1307 Idy receives from the King, Neferkauhor, appointment to a long list of titles covering the administration of the first seven nomes of Upper Egypt which he takes over in succession to his father Shemay and this is specifically underlined by ! the King who tells Idy that he takes over 1[1h!? - “in succession to your father”. The 1306 One of his claims seems inexplicable, namely (number 11) referring to “all the works of the pr- nswt”. Here again we may have a reference to special assignments unconnected with existing offices held .cf. the case of a man who was appointed by the King as Overseer of the Granary apparently in order to supervise works at Karnak. (URK IV, 40, 7 - 9). 1307 URK I, 299, 3 - 11; Hayes, JEA XXXII, 16 (o); Goedicke, Koenigl. Dok. 178 - 183. 243 notable fact is that Idy did not inherit the office of Vizier. Hayes, who translates this text, explains (Op. cit., p. 21) “It is important to note that although both Shemay and Idy retained in their titulary every title which they had ever borne (cf. Weil, Veziere des Pharaonenreiches, 4 - 33, passim) the offices themselves were held successively and not concurrently. For example it is certain that when Shemay became Vizier he had long since ceded his post as Nomarch of Coptos to his son and had even turned over to the younger man most of the local administrative duties of Governor of Upper Egypt. In short he was not as Sethe believed (GGA [1912], 718), Nomarch of Coptos and Vizier of Egypt at one and the same time”. Needless to say, I agree with everything that Hayes says. This brings us to the next stage, which is the appointment of officials1308. (a) APPOINTMENT OF OFFICIALS Appointment to offices as also promotions came directly from the King, although reference has already been made to some temple officials appointed by the Vizier and likewise by the great nomarchs of the Middle Kingdom. This principle appears to have extended quite far down the scale of Egyptian hierarchy although exactly how far down the cursus honorum it went cannot be ascertained1309. The appointment and installation of a Vizier by the King, as also his expected duties, are fully covered in great detail by Faulkner and van den Boorn respectively and will be discussed in this work later. One other such appointment, and particularly interesting, because it goes back in time to the Old Kingdom, specifically the VIth dynasty, is that of the Vizier Kagemni1310. What constitutes this particular importance, in this instance, is that Kagemni tells us q that he had held the provincial office of 1u! under Unis, prior to his arrival in the capital (Xnw) in the reign of Teti, where he was ultimately promoted to Vizier together with all the ancillary offices covering his varied responsibilities such as Overseer of the Treasury, Overseer of the Granary etc., all listed by Weil. One fact springs to our attention, however, in view of what was q said above. Kagemni’s son Tetiankh is shown bearing the title 1u! , suggesting that when Kagemni moved to the capital from whichever provincial administrative unit he was previously attached to, his son took over his office there. Another appointment to an office involving a degree of surprise, we find in the case of an Old Kingdom official, not, however a vizier, but the nomarch Dhau,1311 who in his inscription displays a supreme filial piety, to the extent of including his father of the same name in his tomb. It would seem that he inherited the office of nomarch of two nomes from his grandfather Ibi. There is a strong implication here that his father was somehow disgraced and thus deprived of his tomb which was within the King’s gift, and of his right to inherit the office of Nomarch. Dhau petitions the 1308 K. Baer, Rank and Title in the Old Kingdom, 37 - 38. 1309 Papyrus Boulaq 8 which is a letter dated to the VIth dynasty and which refers to the appointment of a scribe of a phyle of workmen, seemingly a lowly position, unfortunately does not tell us who was to make the appointment. (Cairo, 5843, col., 11 - 12; Mariette, Les Pap. egypt. du Musee de Boulaq, I, Pl., XXXIX; Baer, ZAS XCIII (1966), 1 - 9; Goedicke, MDIAK XXII (1967), 1 - 8 & ZAS CXV (1988), 136ff). 1310 URK I, 194 - 6; Weil, Veziere, 17, paragr. 25; Edel, MIO I (1953), Pl., II. 1311 URK I, 147, 12 - 17; Fischer, Dendera, 69 - 71. 244 G King to reinstate his dead father: “I asked from His Majesty the granting of the office (title) of \ - HAty-a to this Dhau, (the father) and His Majesty caused to be issued a decree appointing (lit placing) him to be a HAty-a by way of a Htp-dj-nswt”. Fischer1312 quotes this passage as proof of the honorific nature of the title HAty-a at this time. This passage, to me, has a very important legal connotation and the status of the title itself as largely irrelevant. By being deprived of a tomb and his titles, Dhau senior was possibly debaptised or the equivalent, which also barred him from afterlife-a punishment more serious than death to an Egyptian. It has to be admitted however, that in cases of debaptism one would expect to see the whole family disfranchised, which obviously is not the case here. When Dhau junior appealed to the King it was too late for a tomb to be built, but := the appointment to the office of Nomarch, albeit without an assignment to a specific nome as 9 , for which it was equally too late, reinstated him as a person of rank in the afterlife. Interesting here is also the use of Htp-dj-nswt as the means by which this appointment is effected. This expression was generally used to describe the endowments made by Egyptian Kings on various gods from which subsequently the Ka of the deceased could draw subsistence on request (prt-xrw). Interesting likewise is the career of Dhau’s grandfather Ibi1313 who was progressively promoted to the office of nomarch of the 12th Upper Egyptian nome (el Alawla) followed by a further promotion to Overseer of Upper Egypt and subsequently to nomarch of the 8th Upper Egyptian nome (Abydos, Thinis). Two points emerge: as the two nomes did not border on each other, it is reasonable to assume that Ibi held the two posts consecutively. What is more important still that in the meantime, he was appointed to be overseer of Upper Egypt, a very high office which seems to have performed in the south many, if not all the functions of the vizier, who was, of course, at this time centred in Memphis. This text may perhaps imply that not all nomes were held as being equally important and Abydos was the centre of administration in that area of Egypt, at that period (VIth dynasty), as we already know from other sources. Much later examples of appointments of Viziers by Kings come to us from the times of Sethos I and Ramesses II1314: both referring to the famous and well attested Paser. This worthy came from an exalted family of temple officials, his father being a High Priest of Amun and virtually all members of his family associated with the temple. Paser’s promotion apparently took place in two stages: first he was brought within the closest entourage of the King, presumably for observation and only subsequently was he appointed Vizier. The text runs as follows: “My Lord (King) ordered to elevate this humble servant to (be) First Companion of the Private Residence (aH). Then he promoted him to be Overseer-of-Those-Who-Are-Within-the-Enclosure (jmj-r jmyw-xnrt) (?) 1315 and First Prophet of ‘Great-One-of-Magic’. Then he (the King) repeated the promotion by placing him to be Overseer of the Province/City (nwt) and Vizier. He was instructed to receive the tribute of the countries of South and North for the Treasury of the King”. The emphasis may imply that these 1312 Op. cit. 1313 URK I, 142, 6 - 17 1314 KRI I, 299, 10 - 11.cf. KRI III, 9, 5 - 7. 1315 The title is obscure; the Enclosure may refer only to the King’s private residence, but possibly covers bureaucrats within the pr – nswt, or even corveé 245 functions were outside the province of the vizier. Two main factors arise from this inscription which was repeated verbatim twice seemingly once for Sethos I as the appointer and once for Ramesses II. It may suggest therefore, what is in any case likely, that a position such as that of Vizier not only had to be acquired through a royal appointment but also reconfirmed by a new King ascending the throne. The second point of interest is the assignation of foreign tribute to the Treasury of the King and not as consistently under the XVIIIth dynasty that of Amun. My own inclination is not to read anything sinister into this fact, but rather to assume that the two Treasuries were in fact one and the same. According to Harari1316, an official on his appointment is endowed with power or authority-sxm, and is handed the two symbols of this authority, namely a sceptre and the seal of office. This is represented in the XVIIIth dynasty tomb of the Viceroy of Kush, Huy, shown being appointed to the office by Tutankhamun1317. Appointments and promotions in the period of the XVIIIth dynasty were very thoroughly studied by Eichler1318. She refers to the ceremonies attending such events and distinguishes between the pre-Amarna period and the Amarna period itself. In particular, she emphasizes the different qualifications claimed by the fortunate appointees in those two periods. Progressive advancement within the bureaucracy is well attested. A good example of this is the case of Simontu under Sesostris I and Ammenemes II1319 who, quite possibly, started from the bottom and went through the school for scribes. His first appointment was zX n xnrt n sDm –“ Scribe of the Work-Camp (?) (Assigned) to Interrogation”; this was followed by the office of zX n TmA, an important clerical office in the provinces concerned with agriculture. From here onwards, he seems to move to the capital and claims to be (zX) Hsb jt m Sma/mHw - “(Scribe) who assesses the corn of Upper and Lower Egypt”. As the title “scribe” is missing, this may, of course, be a job description of the previous title. The next office is definitely central and most likely high within the scribal hierarchy: zX n xnrt-aA - “Scribe of the Great Enclosure” which at that time referred to the centre of government and was therefore equivalent to Hwt-wrt-(6) in the Old Kingdom and pr-nswt/pr-aA in the New Kingdom. Finally, he is promoted to zX a n-nswt - “Royal Secretary” and jmj-r kAt m tA r- Dr=f - “Overseer of Works Throughout the Land”. The last two titles were most certainly royal appointments. This man reached near the top of the ladder seemingly through ability. References to promotions, apparent promotions and changing assignments, are frequent in our < \!1 ! sources. For example, the case of Shepset Ihysonb1320 who was ([K )M 4 tM[!oh!!7 in Y d ! T ! year 29 of Ammenemes III and [K+ 4 tr!)oh!!7 in year 44. There is likelihood that the sDAw/xtmtyw were quite menial officials who were assigned to serve and protect persons of high 1316 ASAE LVI (1959), 149. 1317 Gardiner & Nina de Garis Davies, The Tomb of Huy, Pl., VI, also pp. 10 - 11. 1318 S. Eichler, Amtseinsetzung und Befoerderung von Beamten in der 18 Dynastie = SAK 25 (1998), 47 - 69 1319 Stela BM., 828; Hierogl. Texts in the BM., II, 21; Quirke, Rd’E XXXIX (1988), 101. 1320 P. Kah., Pl., XIII, 12. 246 status and in this case it seems that no promotion was involved but only reassignment from one to another official. Reference to a formal appointment by Amenophis II is found in the tomb of Kenamun1321: “So said His Majesty to the grandees of the Residence (aH) assembled together with the royals who were with him: ‘I have ordered that Kenamun should be appointed to be Steward in the funerary estate (?)’.” Even royal princes were receiving formal appointments from the King as for instance Amenemhet, the eldest son of Thutmosis III1322: “Thus, My Majesty ordered that the eldest Prince Amenemhet be appointed to (the rank of) Overseer of Cattle for the Dairy Cows”. By our standards a rather humiliating office for the future king, but providing one more piece of evidence how well princes were trained for their future duties or how little they were thought of prior to their “election” to the position of heir to the throne. Sometimes the person who appoints an official is not mentioned1323 and at other times, successive appointments came with the accession of successive kings.1324. Another eventful career is found in the temple of Thutmosis III at Deir el Bahri1325, where Amenemone, the son of a High Priest of Amun under Ramesses II, started his official life when appointed by the boy King to be Smsw n Hm.f or a personal messenger and bodyguard of the King, which in this case may have meant simply a young boy for the equally young king to play with. When both boys grew up, however, Amenemone was promoted by the King, now referred to as “Lord”, to be first a “Charioteer in charge of horses” and then a “Senior Officer of Bowmen of his (the King’s) army”. At this stage, Ramesses sent his apparent confidant Amenemone to “all foreign countries” on a mission, which strongly suggests espionage. Whereupon, and possibly as a result of this mission, Amenemone seemed to change his profession and joined the building trade as jmj-r kAt. At the end of the inscription, however, he reverts to being a “Senior Officer of Bowmen in the Army”. This man’s activities are further complicated by the fact that on other monuments he is referred to as wr n mDAyw - “Chief of the Medjaj”. These people at this period were as described by Faulkner1326, “semi military desert police”, and it is even more significant that this last title, which is not included in his formal career, is normally found in his inscriptions associated with the Overseer of Works. It does seem very much as if Amenemone never actually left the army but simply supervised the King’s works on behalf of that body, as a means of guaranteeing safety. As can be expected, the most clearly set out “cursus honorum” comes from the army, even the guards units of the Middle Kingdom. Most of this is covered by Faulkner and merely as an example we can take the case of an official, Sebek-khu1327. This man tells us that on the accession of 1321 Davies, Tomb of Kenamun, Pl., VIII; Helck, URK 18 Dyn. 1386, 19. 1322 Helck, URK 18 Dyn. 1262, 1. 1323 Helck, URK 18 Dyn. 1379, 15. 1324 URK IV, 40 - 41; ibid., 150, 11 - 151, 5. 1325 Lipinska, ASAE LIX (1966), Pl., I, p. 67; Etudes et Travaux, III (1969), 41 - 49; ZAS XCVI (1969), 28 - 30.KRI III, 274, 14 - 275, 7. 1326 CDME 123. 1327 Faulkner, JNES VI, 39. 247 Sesostris III, he was appointed Warrior of the Bodyguard (aHA-m-xt) with a squad of seven men of the Residence. Following this, he was promoted to the rank of Smsu n HqA with command over sixty men. He followed the King on a campaign in Nubia with six other Smsw like himself and on return was further promoted to sHD-Smsw1328 with command over a hundred men. In the New Kingdom, when the army became much more sophisticated and probably largely professional, we come across a list of officers most probably in order of seniority1329: - 1 ! M,5 - “The General” R! ! * 4 5 - “Captain of Troops” ? tMG S4!88!!7 !4:6 - “The skt - officer who is in front of them” k M7 O!11`e 4 11s8! - “The Standard Bearer” X + t:b ! - “The Lieutenant Commander” -! - “Scribe (of the Army ?)” =444 +44 - “Commander of the ‘50’ “ The translations adopted by Caminos are arbitrary and inserted here purely as indication. Finally, one must take a look at a career which although entirely clerical as opposed to secular in nature shows us two aspects of interest1330. In the first place, this man, Bakenkhons, who lived and became High Priest of Amun under Ramesses II, makes no mention of his father. This may indicate that he came up through the ranks and this is supported by his full career. In the second place, here we have the whole hierarchy of the priesthood set out through which Bakenkhons passed throughout his working life. The periods of tenure for each stage in the career are not the same but vary, and therefore the assumption is that promotion was not automatic but secured only when a vacancy occurred. The official’s text is as follows: “All the offices which I filled since I was born: I R ! spent 4 years as a worthy child. I spent 11 years as a youth when I was 1 1328 The word sHD is usually translated as “instructor”. In this case, however, it must stand for a middle rank officer. 1329 P. Lansing, 9, 5 ff = LEM 107, 17 - 108 = Caminos, LEM 404 - 405 who translates the titles. 1330 KRI III, 298, 3 - 7. 248 therefore, as in any case seems reasonable, subject to direct royal appointment. Bakenkhons became High Priest of Amun at the age of 58 years and although this was a considerable age for an Egyptian of that period, he exercised the duties of that office for a further 27 years and died at 85. Also significant is the fact that at the tender age of 4 he became royal stud master. As it seems inconceivable that he was appointed to that office, however low in rank it may have been, one must assume that this was an office, which he inherited from his father. Since he does not include this title in his dj-Htp-nswt invocation, he might have disposed of it early in life, or considered it too menial to mention. By coincidence, we find an almost identical career of a High Priest of Amun under Meneptah1331; the sole difference being that this man Roma-Roy by name included administrative functions among the priestly ones but does not tell us the period of tenure for each. The titles in order are as s G . . 5t . 44t . t . ! t . follows: t ! 1 t , ~3K1 t , 3j b 1 t , 3jb 1 t , W" 1 t , WS!6 1 t , t > t . W3jjj 333:5 and finally 3j( 1 t . To what extent the first two titles can be equated with the equivalent in the titulary of Bakenkhons, I cannot say. The more interesting aspect of these temple careers, however, is the obvious question: if, as we know, offices became to all intents and purposes private property of the holders, to what extent did this apply to temple and especially priestly offices? To answer this question as fully as our evidence permits would require a separate study. The case of Roma-Roy, however, probably suggests to us this answer on its own. From the inscriptions we find that this man’s son occupied the office of Second Prophet and his grandsons claimed junior priestly titles.1332. It seems therefore that what was suggested above holds good here also. A man on being promoted handed down his existing office to his eldest son and so in progression. How this nepotism affected Egyptian government can only be surmised. The King appointed officials, or confirmed them in their offices, but likewise he could remove them from office and reduce them to the status of non-persons. We have seen the probability of this having occurred to Dhau the father from Dendera, who was posthumously rehabilitated. Another instance of this comes from the Coptos decree of Intef V1333. An offending member of the temple staff is punished by the removal of his office appointment “from son to son, from heir to heir” including the perks, here restricted to victuals. The office with these perks is then awarded by the King to another man already holding an office in the temple, again “from son to son, from heir to i h heir”. Particularly notable in this case is the mention of the word M+ - Drf, which is removed together with the perks of food and then awarded with these same perks to the new holder of the office. The word Drf is generally translated as “writing”1334. Lacau1335, referring to this word says: c t ! “Ce mot placé entre le mot Jn5 ‘pains’ et le mot stK:6 est assez surprenant. Comme il s’agit de fonctions exercées dans le temple, il est très possible que le terme désigné des roulaux de 1331 KRI IV, 131, 1 - 2. 1332 Op. cit., 130, 6 - 8. 1333 Petrie, Coptos, Pl., VIII, 1, 5 = Les., 98, 11. 1334 Faulkner, CDME 324. 1335 Une Stele juridique, 13. 249 papyrus contenant les rituels a réciter qui auraient été attachés à la fonction et transmis avec elle”. This is possible but not likely as we find further down in the text (l. 15): “Let his documents (zXw) be removed from the temple of Min, from the Treasury and likewise from any (other) document (lit. papyrus roll)”. I would rather suggest that Drf in this case was something like a letter of appointment, which went with the office, and here was removed from one and given to another. Although another set of examples also relating to a temple functionary may support the theory that this document was also a job description, giving details of the functions to be performed by the priest concerned.1336. The passages referring to this document, albeit under a different name run, tB B # v t ! with certain variations one from another, as follows: Both Valloggia1338 and Helck1339 seem to agree that under the VIth dynasty rank and position vis à vis the monarch was more important than the function attached to a title. Valloggia continues: C’est porquoi il est fréquent de voir certains titres recouvrant de hautes charges attribués a des gens qui n’en assumaient plus les fonctions, mais qui en conservaient les privilèges”.1340 Assuming that I fully understand what these two scholars mean, I am afraid I do not agree. I do not believe that any office could be left entirely unattended in spite of the fact that most administrative decisions were taken by committee and not individuals. As seen above, offices, which could not be administered through promotions and consequent changes of venue of their holders, were passed on to eventual heirs, while in the case of Viziers, the many titles usually incorporated in their titulary represented the extent of their outside responsibilities or were inherited. All were important as they brought wealth in the form of estates and income. Positioning officials in Ancient Egypt according to rank is a matter for separate study. Some of it has already been done by Baer in his “Rank and Title in the Old Kingdom” at least for that specific period. It is hardly conceivable that apart, perhaps from the Vizier and perhaps the High Steward and the High Treasurer, all other titles implied the same status, the same size of official estates and the same amounts of subsistence (aqw) etc. This equality may indeed have been operating when the officials were assembled in a committee (DADAt / qnbt). In one of the contracts of Hepdjefai1341 where the document is drawn up not with one individual but with the qnbt of the temple headed by 1336 URK I, 186, 14; ibid., 187, 14; ibid., 190, 17. 1337 Sauneron, The Priests of Ancient Egypt, 45 has this to say: “When the ‘laws’ of heredity did not suffice to satisfy a given cult’s staffing needs, another procedure ‘cooption’ was put into practice: the priests in office met as a committee and agreed among themselves on the name of the lucky choice who would join their saintly ranks. This practice must have been employed most often when it was a matter of filling vacant posts. It is even likely that every new priest, even before belonging to the family of temple officiants, had to be accepted by the sacred council and consecrated by the issuing of a certificate”. Regrettably, Sauneron does not provide any evidence for this statement. 1338 Recherche Sur Les “Messagers”, 30. 1339 Beamtentitel, 15 - 16. 1340 Helck, Op. cit., 141 - 2; Valloggia, BIFAO LXXIV (1974), 123 - 134. 1341 Griffith, Inscr. of Siut and Deir Rifeh, Pl., VII. 250 the Overseer of Priests (jmj-r Hmw-nTr) who is clearly the senior official in the temple acting as presiding magistrate. He is followed by nine assorted officials. What strikes us here is that the presiding magistrate receives exactly twice the amount of every item contributing to the payment than every other one of the nine officials, all of whom receive the same. While it would seem almost grotesque to assume that all nine officials were of the same status, the fact that, while participating in a qnbt they were all treated on par shows the wisdom of the Egyptian approach to the practicality of government. As we saw in the chapter on qnbts, these bodies always spoke as one; although individual members could ask questions of the litigating parties or the accused, in the end it was always “the qnbt said” so and so. It would clearly be unworkable if senior officials sitting side by side with very junior members, as frequently happened, could impose their will. One must assume that some form of voting or balloting of members was in operation. Here again we find a parallel with the modern board of directors. The existence of seniority in bureaucracy is well attested in the Inscriptions of Rekhmirea. In one passage1342 the instruction is: “Let all ranks of officials (jAt) enter the hall of the Vizier from the senior rank to the junior in order to consult with each other”. In another place1343, the passage runs: “...one has to be heard after the other without allowing the low (ranking official) to be heard before the high (ranking official)”. This very formal document is quite explicit. Under these circumstances, one must treat seriously the list of officials found in the Ramesside period, led by the Vizier and every official bearing his own name, as follows1344: - 1 Q ! _ 1. M!4 O 4 ! \:S8! 1 + 2. M_:! I!U: 8! 1 1 3. M!4 \11!! + 1 S 4. M\! I!= h 8. M!6 eM! 1 m + 9. MS4!6 \ 1~~ 1 ! >Bh 10. M ~81h4 t ! 1 \t! 11. M\b:7!!jbe ~~~~ 1 I> 12. M!4Q ~~ ~~~ 1342 URK IV, 1113, 1. 1343 Op. cit., 1104, 14 - 16. 1344 O. Moscow, 4478 + O. Berlin, P9026; KRI III, 146 - 147; Bogoslavskij, VDI 123/1 (1973), 96 - 103, 104 n. 19. 251 1 m + ! 13. M444 444 \ 1>Q! 14. Too damaged to be of any value. If these titles are listed in order of precedence than we are in for some surprises. For instance, why is the High Treasurer missing and why is the Overseer of Crafts so highly placed as to come in this list immediately following the Vizier? Were the ancient Egyptians such art lovers? To this there can be only one possible answer and one which is here advanced, namely that there were two sets of ranks in Ancient Egypt namely the one within the bureaucracy and a social rank which to us seems inaccessible through available sources but it was this second rank which if it had existed at all, may have provided the real table of precedence in the hierarchy. It is even possible that this system grew out of the principles of succession exposing an apparently low status of the royal family, as broached in the chapter on Kingship. The second surprise is the seemingly low ranking at this period of the jmj-r aXnwty, who was certainly in earlier times the King’s representative and must have commanded some reasonable status in the hierarchy. To this, however, there is occasion to refer in another place. Apart from these points, the list does not present us with any serious queries. There is, and indeed can be, no doubt that ranks existed in the army during the New Kingdom and this is fully covered by Faulkner1345. However, another explanation exists which disposes of the surprises, namely that the list represented the Vizier’s Qnbt in which all ranks except the Presiding Magistrate were equal. (b) INHERITANCE OF OFFICES The hereditary nature of the Egyptian “office”, as indeed its ability to be transferred by sale or assignment which stem from the principle of ownership as far as that principle existed in Ancient Egypt, have already been referred to on a number of occasions. The traditional and formalized wish in all its variants: “may you bequeath your offices to your children, may your children remain established in your positions, in your offices forever” comes to us loud and clear from the entire span of Pharaonic history.1346 and indeed, is even incorporated in the Pyramid Texts1347 where we are referred to “A boon of the king that your son should be in your place” (dj-Htp-nswt sA=k Hr nst=k). The cases of the son inheriting the office of the father are so frequent that this must be accepted as the rule and not the exception.1348 In certain instances we find the same office handed down from father to son for three generations.1349 Under Sesostris I, we come across a scribe of fields by the name of Intefoker1350 who claims four generations of this title in his family, since the time of Intef I, and from the Ramesside period we have again no less than four generations of High Priests of Osiris with other close members of the family holding titles of Second Prophet of Osiris 1345 JNES VI. 1346 BM., 175 (101); Cairo, 20093; 20119; 20530; 20538; 20540; 20775; Munich, I, 4; URK IV, 48, 5; ibid., 1032, 9; Helck, URK 18 Dyn. 1445, 9 etc. 1347 Pyr. 223a (225) 1348 ASAE III, 261; BM., 177(522); ibid., 209(584); ibid., 255(380) & 193(566); Cairo, 20168; 20331; 20437; 20455; 20549; 20555; 20558; 20594; 20658; 20720; Florence, 1544; Louvre, C.173; Rec., XIII, 16; ibid., 155; ibid., 166; ibid., XXXII, 146 ff (Pl., I, no. 3). 1349 Cairo, 20581; Leyden, II, 9. 1350 Leyden, V, 3; Breastead, A.R., I, 254 –5, paragr. 529 252 and “wab - priest of Osiris”1351. In cases such as those of the Royal Inspectors (jmjw-r aXnwty) or scribes, the direct inheritance is not always visible because, while these were titles in themselves, their holders were assigned to various departments or functions. Thus, we have, for example, the son of a Royal Inspector of the Office of the Vizier inheriting the office but being assigned to and thus bearing the title Royal Inspector of the Office of the Treasurer.1352 In another but parallel instance, we find sons and grandsons of a scribe who are themselves all scribes assigned to departments different from each other and also from both their father and their grandfather.1353 Here we must be careful: the profession of scribe was strictly speaking not an office but a qualification. This particular instance itself tends to show that not inheritance but education is shown in this family although both are probably implied. Records showing sons following their fathers’ appointments in bureaucracy come to us from all sides1354 as also the tendency for families to retain offices over generations and stay in the same branch of administration. A good example is a family in which three out of four sons bear the title of the father, the fourth son boasts of another, but his son in turn reverts to the title of his uncles and grandfather.1355 Yet in another instance, none of a man’s sons bear his title, although each one of them has a high office of his own; the father’s title, however, is held by the son of his daughter.1356 Whether each of the sons received his respective office by appointment from the King or whether all these offices were held as assets of the family and apportioned one to each of the sons, of course we do not know. It is possible, however, that the daughter married beneath her station and her husband had nothing to leave to their son, whereupon the lady’s father stepped in as often happens even nowadays, settling his own office on his grandson. There is among some scholars the opinion that Ahmosis tried, at least partly, to suppress the custom of bequeathing offices1357 .I find this, however difficult to substantiate Another phenomenon appears in the bureaucratic relationship between successive generations, which in my original thesis1358 I classified as “inheritance plus promotion”. As on further research, my assignment of various titles to corresponding departments of administration changed to some degree, the problem requires reassessment. These cases are by no means as common as direct inheritance from generation to generation, but the frequency is such as to be significant.1359 In one case, we find this process spread over three generations: each successive son being apparently promoted to a higher office within the same department than was his father’s before him.1360. Two cases seem to be especially interesting. In one, we find four generations of officials, the father and the grandfather bearing the title Great One of the Southern Tens, while the son and grandson are 1351 KRI III, 449 - 450; 461. 1352 Munich, III, 1 = Mel. d’Archeol. egypt. et assyr., II, 217; cf. Louvre, C.5. 1353 Cairo, 20056 & 20240. 1354 JEA XXV, Pl., XX, no. 2; cf. Munich, I, 3. 1355 BM 279(1348). 1356 Louvre, C.13; cf. BM 279(1348). 1357 G.P.F. van den Boorn, Duties, 349; cf.von Beckerath, UGZZ 199; Schmitz, Amenophis I, 164. 1358 Balanda, The Administration of Egypt in the Period of the Middle Kingdom, 4. 1359 Cairo, 20143; 20394; 20544; 20560; 20742. 1360 Cairo, 20039 & 20309. 253 entitled wHmw. - “Registrar”.1361 The only possible connection between the two offices could be that they were both central, although in the case of the latter, this is by no means certain. In the other case 1362, while both the father and son are Great Ones of the Southern Tens, the grandson assumes the title smsw-hyt. This switch or apparent promotion from generation to generation between these two offices is very well attested.1363 From the information, which we possess, it would seem that both these offices were connected with the arryt and the qnbt-sDmyw and both within the central administration. Whether these cases can be considered as promotions on inheritance is possible, but one wonders what happened to the previously held title by the family and why should such promotion apply to a man who just enters his career without previous experience. It seems more logical to assume that these cases depict men who inherited their fathers’ offices but then were promoted during their lifetime, or as is probably more likely, they were appointed to the new offices while their fathers’ went elsewhere, as we have already seen to happen. Lifetime promotions have already been discussed1364, even cases where men were apparently promoted no less than five or six times during their lifespan1365. It was shown that offices were considered to be disposable property and more will be said on this subject later. Even as low down in the administrative scale as a foreman at Deir el Medina, this principle seems to have applied and Černý understates this legal right and tradition when he says, referring to the practices of this community:1366 “Of the twenty-eight foremen, twelve are known to have been sons of foremen. The office of chief workman, therefore, without being hereditary, shows a strong tendency to pass from father to son. It is a tendency manifest throughout the history of Pharaonic Egypt that the son should occupy the ‘seat’, that is the post of his father”. According to all available evidence, this was not a “tendency”, but a legal right. In consequence of this “right” a man could not be retired and his office passed to another, as is the practice in the modern world, but at the point when he could no longer fulfil his duties because of illness or in particular, old age, he himself, appointed his successor to step in and act until his death, as “staff of old age”. “I handed over my official functions to my son while I was yet alive”, says one man1367. Even more explicitly comes a statement from one of the Kahun documents1368 where a man bequeaths his office of Controller of a Phyle of Priests to his son, in which office, he is to be “established at once” as his father’s “staff of old age”. 1361 Cairo, 20733. 1362 Cairo, 20311. 1363 ASAE XXII, 115; ZAS LXXII, Pl., V, 1 = Hannover, 2931 (14); Cairo, 20230; De Morgan, Cat., I, 16, 76. 1364 cf. ASAE XXIX, 76; Louvre, C. 13. On the former, a statuette set up by the man’s wife, he bears the title of Senior Scribe of the Vizier, on the latter, set up by his daughter, he is represented as Great One of the Southern Tens; Rec., IX, 36; cf. Sharpe’s Inscr. II, 94 .In cases where the title scribe is involved, care must be exercised to be sure that this is not just another way to express a job description. In other words, here can we be sure that Senior Scribe of the Vizier was not another way of depicting a Great One of the Southern Tens? The latter, as we know from Rekhmirea, was part of the Vizier’s court. 1365 BM 145(828); El Araba, IV & V = Peet, The Stela of Sebek-Khu. 1366 Černý, Community, 126. 1367 Leyden, II, 11. 1368 P. Kah., XI, 18. 254 The term “staff of old age” is a well-known expression. This position was, of course, usually held by the son who thus automatically inherited the office on his father’s death. He was by law of contract bound to look after his father while he was still alive. As we have already observed, not in all cases was a man blessed with a male heir or such heir was in some way disqualified from running his father’s office by virtue perhaps of having his own office elsewhere. Under such circumstances, one could choose another man of his liking and designate him as his “staff of old age”. It is important to note that in these cases the chosen man became not only heir in respect of the office in question, but was legally adopted and received the privileges of the “favourite son”. The well-known XVIIIth dynasty official Amenhotpe son of Hapu, whose duties roughly corresponded to those of the Roman censor, tells us: “I caused each staff of old age to be established as favourite son”.1369 What Amenhotpe appears to claim in this passage is that he ensured that those who were nominated as “staff of old age” were not deprived of their rightful inheritance when the time came. This may be emphasized in an earlier document from Kahun1370 by the passage “The staff of old age (ought to take) what belongs to him according to the law of Upper Egypt”. The text is, however, partially destroyed and therefore the translation is not fully reliable. The traditional custom of appointing successors to commence working in the office before the time for succeeding came about was, as already stated, very firmly entrenched in Ancient Egypt. We find this from the highest level, namely kings, who appointed co-regents to ensure and facilitate transition from one ruler to the next. More significant are cases of viziers for whom staffs of old age were appointed. Here, the transition could not be made automatically, as the holder of this office was and had to be individually appointed by the King, although we find, especially in the New Kingdom, cases of sons succeeding fathers as Vizier. The case in point is that of Ptahhotpe, who incidentally is said to have passed away at the ripe old age of one hundred and ten years. When he comes to the conclusion that the work-load is getting too much for him, he does not, as any lesser official could and would have done, appoint his own staff of old age, but petitions the King to do so1371: “Let a staff of old age be granted to the humble servant, and let me tell him the utterances of the Elders, the counsel of those who were foretime, (even) those whom the gods did hear”. Needless to say, the request is granted1372. The conception of “office” as the holder’s property manifests itself in his right not only to bequeath it, but also to sell it or use it as payment for debt. We possess two excellent examples of such transactions. The first of these documents runs as follows1373: “Says his son: ‘My father made a will (property assignment) bequeathing (transferring) the office of wab in charge of the phyles of Sopdu, 1369 Br., Thes., 1296 = Mar., Karn., XXXVII, 30 = Cairo, Statue, Cat., 583. 1370 P. Kah., XXII, 3. 1371 P. Prisse, V,2; cf. Rec., XXVIII, 172; cf. Helck, URK 18 Dyn. 1380 ff. 1372 Op. cit., V, 4.This is a highly interesting text as it upholds the importance of advice provided by the advisory panels (DADAwt/qnbt) which by implication was recorded for posterity. It also implies that these records went back to the times when gods were kings. 1373 P. Kah., XIII, 20 ff. 255 Lord of the East, which belongs to him, in favour of the Scribe-In-Charge-of-the-Seal-of-the- Arabian Nome, Iymi’atib, and he said to my father: “I will give to thee capital with interest and all the profits due to thee”. So he said’.” The document then continues to describe the procedure whereby the transaction was legalised. Some important points emerge from this document. The fact that Iymi’atib undertakes to provide the original holder of the office with a proportion of the capital with interest and of the profits “due” to him (the father), must refer to an agreement on the price for which the office is being “sold”. The “capital” must represent the official value increased by some margin of profit. Also included is a proportion of the profit accruing from the estate of the office but curiously enough the period over which this profit is to be paid is not mentioned. The only alternative explanation of this convoluted transaction, which frankly defies simple understanding is to assume that Iymi’atib has contracted to be the “father’s” staff of old age on the basis of some agreed method of sharing the revenues for the duration of the father’s life or maintaining him over that period. Let us now turn to the second document mentioned above. This is a stela from Karnak, dated to the Second Intermediate Period.1374 The relevant part of the document runs as follows: “Testament ! t (assignment of property) which the o K n, - ATw n Tt-HqA Kebsi made in favour of a relative ! N 4 of his 7F4 K[ W ! - zA-nswt sDAwty (xtmty)--bjtj jmj-r gs-pr Sebeknakht: ‘So long as this my office of Mayor of Enkhab ...shall exist, it shall belong to this relative of mine...Sebeknakht, from son to son, from heir to heir. Shall be given to him its daily food subsidies (aqw), its beer, its meat (namely) its subsistence, (also) its funerary priests, its personnel (namely) its estate. It shall not be permitted that anybody should oppose it since he has given me its price, sixty deben gold consisting of various objects”. Further down in the text we learn that the transaction portrayed above was not a straightforward sale of the office, including its estates and perquisites for 60 deben of gold, but payment of a debt, which clearly Kebsi could not discharge, and paid by transferring the office which was in his possession. These two texts present us with a concise and accurate representation of the nature of the Egyptian “office”. In both of them it was necessary to legalise the sale by means of an jmyt-pr, a document usually translated as will or testament, but in fact constituting a document of conveyance of property which was filed in state archives and constituted proof of possession. This function of the jmyt-pr will be discussed elsewhere, also with reference to these documents. Both of them stress beyond any doubt the strength of the principle of hereditary tenure of offices. Finally, the second document brings us to the crucial point of remuneration and perquisites. 1374 Lacau, Une Stele juridique de Karnak = Cairo, J. 52453. 256 (c) REMUNERATION AND PERQUISITES OF OFFICE In the above mentioned Karnak Stela, Kebsi, in the act of transferring the office of the Mayor of Enkhab to Sebeknakht, also transfers “its daily food subsidies (aqw) its beer, its meat, (namely) its subsistence (also) its funerary priests (and) its personnel (Tzt), (namely) its estate”. In other words, the two elements, which constituted the official’s remuneration: The annona, or food subsidy and the official estate. In addition to that every member of the bureaucracy possessed what can only be described, albeit not entirely accurately, as the “private” estate or pr-Dt. This estate which contrary to the official estate could be sold, mortgaged, or subdivided at will, was a part of the king’s bounty, primarily intended for the establishment of a funerary endowment, nevertheless as it could also be added to form a nucleus of landed wealth. Menu1375 commenting on the pr-Dt, describes it as follows: “Ce dernier (pr-Dt) que l’on peut traduire litteralement par ‘domaine du corps’ ressemble très fort sur le plan institutionnel au BENEFICIUM du haut Moyen Age occidental”. So far I have no quarrel with Menu, however, she then proceeds to say: “Le bénéficier n’en à pas la proprieté, il peut en juir a son gré sa vie durant, a son mort le domaine retourne au roi mais des revenus sont affectés a perpétuité a l’entretien de sa tombe”. For this somewhat astonishing aspect of land tenure, Menu regrettably offers no evidence and I have none myself although the connection of the pr-Dt with funerary endowments is well documented. The annona of an Egyptian official consisted of two distinct subsidies: the daily fixed subsidy (aqw), which every state employee, of whatever rank, received in order to satisfy his, and presumably his dependants’, daily needs and secondly, the fqAw or bonuses (see chapter on taxation). Whether the aqw were fixed and the same for every office in accordance with seniority or varied in accordance with an individual’s reputation as to efficiency is not quite clear although the latter seems most unlikely and certainly annona at Deir el-Medina was apportioned by rank. One would normally opt for the former as being more likely, however, a very successful official in the reign of Ramesses II, Setau who arrived at the pr-nswt as a young man and through promotions reached the rank of Viceroy of Kush1376, reminiscing about his early career, says: “...I was not silent when allocating instructions (and) I was rewarded with (lit. assessed for) good food subsidies (aqw) as a scribe...”This may imply a higher salary through favour or Setau’s exceptional efficiency. The second kind of remuneration was not given to officials because they held a particular office, but because at the time they performed a particular service to the state. This subsidy was therefore quite irregular and varied both in the amounts of the articles awarded and also in their nature. It will be seen that a man could receive fqAw on being sent on a state mission, for prowess on the battlefield, etc. In this way, the “gold of valour” given to a soldier constituted fqAw as also did the prisoners of war given to the officer Khu-Sebek for bravery in battle to swell his “Tst” at home. Thus, while the aqw were like modern salaries an integral part of the office in question and inseparable from it, the fqAw, roughly corresponded to a combination of the modern expense account and bonus and were independent of the office held. 1375 B. Menu, Recherches, II, 127 1376 KRI III, 92, 9 257 The second form of remuneration, and one that must have been of far greater importance than the annona, was the official estate. These estates, which together with the pr-Dt are more fully discussed in the chapter on land tenure, will be shown to have constituted an integral part of the office in question, inalienable from it either in part or in whole. In other words, this kind of estate could not have been sold, mortgaged, bequeathed or assigned in any other way but with the office itself. We shall see how careful the XIIth dynasty Nomarch of Siut, Hepdjefai was to underline this principle in his contracts and we can understand why when Kebsy transfers his office of Mayor of Enkhab to Sebeknakht also transfers all its perquisites. The award of various perquisites to officials is well attested and, although I reject this interpretation, it might almost appear as if these payments were given as a reward like the fqAw rather than as an established “salary”. A high administrative official in the temple of Amun in the early part of the XVIIIth dynasty, Ineni1377 tells us: His Majesty equipped me with workers (mrt) and every day with my food subsidies (aqw) from the Granary of the royal administration (pr- nswt)”. Here again, although he claims to have controlled the works, the Treasury, and the Granary in the temple of Amun at Karnak, he was nevertheless paid by, and was therefore an employee of the central civil administration. He also tells us, what in any case we know well, that apart from the pr-Dt, or “private” estate, the king also gave his supporters, workers to run the estates and as will be seen, also farm animals. However, it does seem that for the construction of tombs, the owners, in the Old Kingdom, frequently contracted labour, presumably from local villages at agreed wages.1378 Before we leave Jneni, however, one point has to be clarified. Eyre,1379 commenting on Jneni’s inscription, quotes it as a particularly significant combination of temple and secular functions. He represents Jneni as a Mayor of Thebes and at the same time performing various supervisory functions in the temple of Karnak. In fact Jneni was not a mayor of Thebes and not one single statement in his long inscription indicates any functions outside the temple. The title HAty-a, which incidentally is only ever combined with nwt, or Thebes in the form HAty-a m nwt, meaning simply “foremost citizen of Thebes”, otherwise it precedes the title Overseer of the Granary of Amun where it is almost certainly an abbreviation for the honorific jrj-pat HAty-a as in his extended titulary.1380 HAtyw-a, generally translated as mayors of cities are puzzling. They are not known to have possessed any kind of office premises, nor any staff of officials; not even a scribe to assist them. Indeed, in lists of members of qnbts judging suspected tomb robbers in the XXth dynasty, the HAty-a tends to be the last in line and therefore by implication the junior member. They appear to have been low in seniority albeit members of the bureaucracy as the above mentioned sale of the mayorship of Enkhab indicates. 1377 URK IV, 53 - 73. 1378 eg. URK I, 50, 1 – 10; Davies, Deir el-Gebrawi, I, Pl., XIII; cf. XXV. 1379 Work and Organisation of Work in the New Kingdom, 191 1380 URK. IV, 72, 7 – 8 and 14. 258 Already in the very early days of Egyptian history, in the IVth dynasty, we come across a damaged text in the tomb of Debehen1381 where he describes how the King, Mykerinos gave him land in the Necropolis, near his pyramid, craftsmen and workers together with all equipment presumably supplied by two mentioned officials entitled 3\!! , who, as we shall see in the chapter on Royal Monopolies, were responsible for obtaining items for this purpose from mines and quarries. These two individuals seem to have performed their duties so well that apparently they were rewarded for their trouble with “Gold of Praise”. What this consisted of in that early dynastic period, we know not, for as we shall see, a lot of different articles were usually listed under this title and not only gold. This form of compensating successful officials, especially perhaps army officers distinguished for bravery became fairly frequent in the New Kingdom. Starting with the officers in the army fighting the Hyksos, the Kings began to reward officials with precious metals from the Treasury, described as “gold of valour”, or “gold of praise”, although it has to be said that this “gold” also included prisoners of war and land.1382 This benefice extended also to civil officials, as Sennefer under Amenophis II tells us: “(I was one) who entered in glory the place where the King is and the Lord of the Two Lands gave me (lit. him) a commendation (lit. thoughts of praise) of the King, consisting of silver and gold”.1383 This allocation of the King’s bounty in the palace grounds seems to have also extended to groups or regiments of soldiers, again emphasizing the close contact of the King, from whom all good emanated, with his subjects and bringing to mind the extent to which this was brought under the Amarna Period1384: “Introducing professional and conscript soldiers into the palace (pr-aA) l.p.h. in order to give them food consisting of bread, beer, wine, every type of cakes (?) and all good things for pleasure in front of the Good God (Amenophis II) by...” It is interesting to speculate to what degree the apparent dissipation of precious metals, which until then were strictly controlled in the royal treasuries as the King’s monopoly and used only for the adornment of royal and temple artefacts, produced the exchange mechanism based on precious metals, and even the introduction of the SAyt tax, which I consider to have been a tax payable in precious metals or equivalent1385. This kind of reward, described as praises of the King, is also found to have been given in the form of land. In one Ramesside inscription1386, a man informs us that His Majesty ordered 16 arurae of fields to be given as reward (lit. praises) in the country areas of the town (dmj) of ...(?)...to the Shield-bearer N”. Reverting back to earlier times, we find as far back as the reign of Mykerinos of the IVth dynasty, a record of an official who boasts that the Overseer of all the Works of the King was instructed to make for him a tomb of a certain stipulated size1387, the clear implication being that the tomb itself, as indeed its contents, formed part of the gift of the king or effectively a part of the official’s 1381 S. Hassan, Giza 1932-33, 159ff. fig. 118, Pl. XLVIII, 7. 1382 URK IV, 2, 2; 3, 15; 38, 14 - 39, 3892, 4 & 12; 893, 10; 904, 17 1383 Helck, URK 18 Dyn. 1432, 6. 1384 Helck, URK 18 Dyn. 1459, 19 - 1460, 3. 1385 All taxes and the remuneration derived from them will be fully discussed in the chapter on taxation. 1386 KRI V, 395, 5 - 6. 1387 URK I, 21, 10 - 13. 259 remuneration. This is even more firmly emphasized by two Elephantine nomarchs: Hekaib under Phiops II of the VIth dynasty and Sarenput I, in the reign of Sesostris I of the XIIth dynasty1388. The King is said to give the Nomarch a tomb fully equipped with offering tables and bread offerings, a pine sarcophagus, a necklace of gold, clothing and ointment and two ships selected by an jmj-r aXnwty, who was in charge of it all. So we must accept that not only the entire, fully equipped tomb but also even the cost of the funeral were defrayed by the King directly or indirectly (Licht, Fouilles de, 85, fig. 102). In his article on the work organisation in the Old Kingdom1389, Eyre assembles a huge amount of evidence from officials’ tombs referring to the degree of royal patronage in this field. From this evidence, one may surmise that this patronage could be divided under two headings: the title of jmAxw, generally translated as “the revered one”, but here more likely meaning “provided for” or “endowed” and referring to the tomb itself and the extent to which the king supplied its location, its construction and permanent fixtures including the pr-Dt- estate itself. An example illustrating this comes from the inscription of an official of the IVth dynasty1390 who says: “As for the villages (nwt) of the (pr)-Dt which the king gave to me as endowment (r jmA x) and which are selected for the invocation offerings (prt-xr w)”. The second heading under which funerary endowments were given by the king to his officials was the Htp-dj-nswt (in the New Kingdom frequently rendered as dj-Htp-nswt) and this referred to articles of daily use on which the kA of the deceased was to survive for eternity. This was assured in two ways: in the first place the king made this offering in kind to selected gods, who were then bound to share the offerings from their altars with the deceased by magic on verbal demand (see “Logos”), or prt-(r)-xrw.1391 Here again, we find a good example, but this time dating to the Ramesside period1392: “Giving offerings to the gods and (thereby) invocation offerings (prt-xrw) to the spirits (of the dead)”. The offerings to the gods in kind were then shared by the gods with the deceased.1393 It is emphasized that these offerings, as indeed they were derived for the gods 1388 Habachi, The Sanctuary of Hekaieb, Pl. XXV, 15 - 20; cf. Gardiner, ZAS XLV (1908), Pl., VI, 9 - 10. 1389 C.J. Eyre, Work and the Organisation of Work in the Old Kingdom (1987), 22 ff = M.A. Powell, (Ed.) “Labor in the Ancient Near East (Ancient Oriental Studies) 1390 URK I, 14,15; cf. ibid., 50, 1 - 10 1391 KRI III, 10, 13. Inscription of the Ramesside vizier, Paser: “… May they (the gods) give (from) all that goes on to their altars as offerings each day, to the kA of (Paser)”. cf. URK IV, 404, 5 – 11;Helck, Urk. 18 Dyn. 1501, 11 ff. Anotherclear description of this procedure comes to us from late XVIIIth dynasty period (T.G.H. James, Brooklyn I, Pl. LXVII, 257): “Royal Offering (dj-Htp- nswt) (to) Hathor, Lady of Dendera. May she give all that goes on to her altarsat sunrise of each day and which comes and goes to her temple, which she receives for placing on her altar, to the KA of N” and this procedure is attested from the Pyramid Texts (905a (468)): “Hail to this ‘P’ I am Thoth (var. Horus) the royal boon (dj-Htp-nswt) which I am giving to you is your bread, your beer…”; cf BIFAO 34 (1934), 148 (XXVth dyn.): “Htp-dj-nswt of thousand loaves of breas and jugs of beer after the god had been satisfied.” 1392 KRI I, 359, 12 1393 By what precise means the deceased’s share of the offerings was to be passed over is not quite clear: one would assume that this would be done by magic automatically, it is curious therefore that the gods apparently had to be reminded of their obligation under the Htp-dj- nsw t. Thus, we come across statements in tombs to the effect that: “if you enter into this tomb… you are to pray (dwA-nTr) for prt- xrw for …N” (H. Brunner, TGHS 42, III, 1 – Heracleopolitan Period); cf. URK I, 218, 2 - 4 260 temples, from granaries and the treasuries of the royal residence/capital (Xnw),1394 which was on occasions replaced by pr-nswt1395 presumably indicating that the two terms were at that period, namely the Vth–VIth dynasties, synonymous, but even more likely that one, namely the latter was situated within the former The assortment of goods to be invoked is wide and includes not only food and drink, but also clothes and even jewellery. The departments of the central administration !>t b from which all these offerings were derived were referred to corporately as !!! ! ! \! “All offices (lit. places) of the Residence”.1396 This offers little surprise as in life officials had the privilege of consuming the offerings made on the altars of gods, which clearly the gods themselves did not consume in reality. These offerings were apportioned to officials according to seniority. After death, these same officials simply saw themselves as continuing the same procedure “for all eternity”. However, the generosity of the gods to share their offerings with the deceased, albeit required to do so by the terms of the Htp-dj-nswt, was not apparently viewed with sufficient confidence and therefore another and more tangible source had to be established. This was the pr-Dt (see above) out of which endowments were set up to provide the deceased with a supply of necessary comestibles and these were contracted either to members of the family or outsiders acting as soul-priests (Hmw-kA). The working of this system was like that of the Xnw/pr-nswt: produce of the estate constituting the endowment was offered to the deceased exactly as the articles derived from the various treasuries and granaries of the state were offered to the god. As the deceased did not consume the articles offered any more than did the god, the articles were then apportioned according to the established practice or contract among the soul-priests in the case of the “deceased” and priests and officials in the case of the god.1397 In Ramesside times we discover that even Necropolis workers were given plots of land on which they could, in their spare time, construct tombs for themselves1398. The extent or the method of providing the king’s bounty in respect of funerary endowments seems to have varied somewhat as we see from the huge number of records left to us by various officials. The use of the pr-Dt, being held in what we can only describe as “private” tenure was therefore unrestricted and we have every reason to believe that both in respect of the royal endowment (jmAxw) and more obviously, the Htp- dj-nswt the gifts of the king became a part of the pr-Dt and therefore in every way at the disposal of the receiver. Thus, we find a case of a tomb, which originally without doubt was awarded by the king to a high official, actually being purchased1399: “I bought this (tomb) in the necropolis”. There is also a case attested of a vizier, User-Amun1400, who granted one of his scribes a tomb. This could 1394 URK I, 177, 8 – 10; ibid., 178, 5 – 6; ibid., 177, 14 – 16;ibid., 184, 3; Hassan-Iskander, Hemet-Re’, fig., 37b; 1395 URK I, 163, 11 – 14; ibid., 175, 10 – 14; cf. URK I, 189, 15 1396 URK I, 184, 3. For “st” meaning “office” cf. Meten, URK I, 2, 11 1397 C.J. Eyre, Work and the Organisation of Work in the Old Kingdom (1987), 23, 3.1; URK I, 12,2, 5, 8; ibid., 13, 7, 12; ibid., 14, 3; ibid., 162, 16 – 18 cf. Harari, ASAE 54, 317 ff. ibid., 42, 39 ff. 1398 Ostr. BM., 5625, vo., 3 - 5; Blackman, JEA XII (1926), Pl., XXXVI, 4 - 7. 1399 Eyre, Op. cit., 25, 3.2; Petrie, Gizeh and Rifeh (1907), Pl. VII A 1400 Davies/Gardiner, Amenemhet, 70 ff. 261 only have come out of his pr-Dt or acquisition through purchase. It may be, therefore that not in every case was a Htp-dj-nswt or jmAxw granted to officials. Indeed that seems fairly obvious from such evidence about lower officials which we possess. These people had to rely on the patronage of their superiors or the depth of their own purse.