The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire (66 page)

Some 3,500 years ago the priests at state, district, and local temples began to unite into an integrated network. One high priest of the god Amun (“The Hidden One”), stationed at Luxor in the Great Bend of the Nile, became a grand vizier to the Dynasty 18 ruler Amenhotep III. Another high priest became Amenhotep’s royal treasurer. As if this were not enough power, the priests of Amun acquired control of the gold mines of Nubia. Priests now held political power and wealth second only to the king, creating a level of power-sharing that no previous ruler had been forced to endure.

Sometime around 1380
B.C.,
Amenhotep III was succeeded by his son Amenhotep IV. What happened next has been analyzed by many scholars and interpreted in different ways. The interpretation we follow here is that of anthropologist Leslie White, whose views lend themselves to an explanation based on changing social logic.

Re, the Sun, had long ago been a hesp-level deity. By Dynasty 5 he had become a state-level deity, and by Dynasty 12 his supremacy was unquestioned. Many hesps wanted to share in Re’s power, so they added his name to that of their district’s patron deity. For example, the crocodile god Sobek became Sobek-Re. The god Amun, supreme deity at Amenhotep’s capital city of Luxor, became Amun-Re.

Amenhotep IV and his supporters hit upon a plan to reduce the growing power of the priests. He changed his name from Amenhotep to Akhnaten (“Beloved in Life Is Aten”) and officially embraced the worship of Aten, the Sun Disk, an updated version of Re. He moved his court from Luxor and created a new capital downstream at Akhetaten, known today as the archaeological site of Tell el-Amarna.

Under Akhnaten, Egypt became briefly monotheistic. Only the worship of the Sun Disk was appropriate. Akhnaten disenfranchised the priests of Amun, closed their temples and those of other deities, confiscated their temple lands and gold mines, and directed their resources to himself as the head of the cult of Aten.

It was once common to hear scholars praise Akhnaten as a “visionary” who “created monotheism.” In White’s analysis he was just a shrewd politician who, by tweaking the premises of Egyptian society, prevented the priestly establishment from continuing to encroach upon the divine ruler’s power. Akhnaten’s strategy anticipated the actions of later kings such as Henry VIII, who defied the Vatican, bypassed powerful priests and bishops, and made himself head of a new Church of England.

The analogy of Henry VIII is particularly apt, because Henry’s actions created an angry backlash. His daughter Mary I reinstituted Catholicism with ferocity, burning and beheading Protestants until she had earned the nickname “Bloody Mary.” Something analogous but less bloody happened in Egypt.

When Akhnaten died, his son Tutankhaten was only nine years old. The boy king was unable to stand up to the angry priests of Amun. Forced to change his name to Tutankhamun (“Beloved in Life Is Amun”), he allowed the cult of Amun to be restored, along with some of the priests’ former wealth.

Unfortunately for Tutankhamun, he lived for only 18 years. A later ruler named Horemheb returned the capital to Luxor, ordered that his own name replace Akhnaten’s on the latter’s monuments, and rewrote history so that he would appear to be the direct successor to Amenhotep III.

Ethnic Stereotyping in King Tut’s Tomb

Because Tutankhamun died at 18, he was denied the opportunity to do more than capitulate to the priests of Amun. He is remembered mainly as the occupant of “King Tut’s tomb” in the Valley of the Kings. The treasures of his largely unlooted tomb are a matter of record. Less often mentioned is the fact that his burial offerings provide evidence for ethnic stereotyping during Egypt’s Dynasty 18.

We have already seen that in the Zulu kingdom created by Shaka, citizens of non-Zulu appearance were referred to as “menials” or “people with strange hairstyles.” New Kingdom Egyptians seem to have had similar stereotypes about people from Nubia and the Levant.

When Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened in 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter at first thought he had stumbled upon a royal storehouse. The antechamber was stacked high with beds, disassembled chariots, a golden throne, alabaster vases, mummified ducks and sides of beef, and wooden chests filled with clothes and jewelry. Beyond the antechamber was the burial chamber, where Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus was guarded by two life-size statues. Wall paintings in this chamber depicted Tut’s funeral procession, the transport of his sarcophagus by sledge, and Tut’s ritual reanimation by his successor.

Beyond the burial chamber were two more rooms, the treasury and the annex. In the treasury were 113 statuettes of the servants who would work for Tutankhamun in the afterlife. Also stored in the treasury were the internal organs removed from the boy king prior to his mummification, as well as a carefully preserved lock of hair. The hair turned out to belong to Tut’s grandmother, the wife of Amenhotep III, whose mummy was fortunately available for DNA comparison.

Figure 60
shows how Egyptian artists depicted Tutankhamun, the people of Nubia, and the people of the Levant. The image of Tutankhamun, taken from the backrest of his gold-plated throne, gives him the handsome and serene profile considered appropriate for a young pharaoh. The figure of a Nubian, carved on a ceremonial baton, is done in ebony to make his skin black; he is given an iron earring and a gold armband. The figure of a man from the Levant, done in ivory, is given pale skin and a jet-black beard. These same stereotypes were used to depict prisoners of war on the sides of Tutankhamun’s chariot.

Gender Inequality in the Egyptian State

Scholars have identified thousands of words in Egypt’s hieroglyphic texts. “Queen” is not among them. Egyptian kingship, like its patron deities Re and Horus, was male. The phrases “king’s wife” and “god’s wife” are all we can find. Perhaps four out of an estimated 300 Egyptian rulers, however, are believed to have been women.

In 1492
B.C.
Thutmose I, a king of Dynasty 18, gave up the ghost. Thutmose II, his heir, married and had a son named Thutmose III. He later married his royal half sister, a woman named Hatshepsut. When Thutmose II died, his son, Thutmose III, was still too young to rule.

Thutmose III was both a stepson and a nephew to Hatshepsut. The usual practice would have been for her to act as regent until the youth was older. Hatshepsut, however, usurped the throne, made Thutmose III her junior regent, and ruled Egypt for 20 to 22 years. She backdated her reign to the death of her half brother, Thutmose II.

FIGURE 60.
   Eighteenth-Dynasty Egyptians engaged in ethnic stereotyping. Above we see Tutankhamun and his wife, Ankhesenamun, shown as serene and handsome examples of Egyptian aristocracy. On one carved baton, lower left, we see a man from the Levant carved in ivory, with white skin and a black beard. On a second baton, lower right, is a Nubian carved in ebony, with black skin and an iron earring.

Usurpers often go to great lengths to legitimize their reigns. Hatshepsut was no exception, commissioning 200 statues in her image. On many of her monuments, as noted by Gay Robins and Lana Troy, she was shown in a male ruler’s attire, including a
nemes
head cloth, a
chenjyt,
or kilt, and a false beard. When shown naked to the waist, she had herself depicted as flat-chested. Her hieroglyphic texts refer to her as “he.”

Hatshepsut rewrote history to claim that her father, Thutmose I, had crowned her king before his death. In preparing her future funerary temple at a place called Deir el-Bahri, she had herself portrayed either as the offspring of Amun or the cow goddess Hathor.

Hatshepsut retained her father’s trusted steward Senenmut, solidifying his loyalty by promoting him to governor of her palace. She sent Senenmut to the granite quarries of the First Cataract to procure stone for two huge obelisks. These obelisks were set up at the Temple of Karnak in the Great Bend of the Nile; one was inscribed “The King himself [
sic
] erected two large obelisks for his [
sic
] father Amun-Re.” On another monument, Hatshepsut had herself portrayed as a sphinx, trampling the bodies of Nubian enemies.

Hatshepsut bore a daughter named Neferure. She prepared her daughter to succeed her by having her portrayed on her monuments as a boy, right down to the single braid worn by male children. She did this even while referring to Neferure as
hmt ntr,
“the god’s wife.”

Unfortunately, things did not work out for Neferure, who died young. Hatshepsut was succeeded instead by her stepson/nephew, Thutmose III. The new king ordered that Hatshepsut’s name be obliterated from her monuments and replaced with his. Egyptologists such as Donald Redford do not believe that this defacement was done out of resentment toward his stepmother; rather, Thutmose III was trying to legitimize his own reign by linking himself to earlier male rulers.

We know a lot about Hatshepsut because her funerary temple has survived. However, an official list of Egyptian kings, prepared more than 150 years later by the ruler Seti I, did not even mention her. Hatshepsut was, after all, a woman.

INEQUALITY IN THE EGYPTIAN STATE

The fact that its rulers were considered gods gave Egypt one of the highest levels of inequality of any first-generation state. Pharaohs were immortal and required food even after burial. By contracting with priests to have those meals delivered, Egyptian kings so added to the wealth of the priestly establishment that the latter came to be seen as political rivals. Akhnaten was strong enough to curtail priestly power. The priests were strong enough to make Tutankhamun restore it.

Egyptian rulership was lopsidedly male. Strong women occasionally served as regents in both the Egyptian and Maya states, but with this notable difference: royal women continued to be glorified on Maya monuments long after their death, while Hatshepsut’s name was obliterated from her monuments and ignored by later king lists.

Like so many kingdoms, Egypt eventually discovered that a skilled commoner makes a better official than a corrupt or an incompetent noble. During periods when the central government was strong, called Kingdoms, the new king was usually one of the old king’s sons. During times when the central government was weak, called Intermediate Periods, it was more likely that a noble usurper could maneuver his way to the throne.

An Unanswered Question

We consider Egyptologists to be among the luckiest of archaeologists. The body of data available to them is so enormous that they have the potential to answer almost any question. We would like, therefore, to ask them a question that may not have occurred to them.

In our discussion of the way kingdoms form, we asked whether there might be continuity in the sources of power between a first-generation monarchy and the chiefly societies out of which it was created. Given its history of divine kingship, Egypt should have data relevant to this question.

Were the chiefs of Naqada and Hierakonpolis already seen as divine, or did they simply possess Irving Goldman’s combination of sacred life force, expertise, and military prowess? If the latter, then exactly when did divine kingship first appear? Was it created anew to justify the title—nesw, or king—given to the man who now ruled a group of formerly independent regions? Or did the Egyptians create divine monarchy in two stages—first (1) claiming that kings metamorphosed into gods after death, and later (2) claiming that they had been born divine to begin with?

It would not surprise us to learn that divine kingship represented a deliberate change in social logic, designed to justify one man’s rule over what had once been a group of independent rank societies. But no one is sure, and Egypt would be the perfect test case. We know that Egyptologists have a lot on their plates already, but it would be great if they could put this question on their “to do” list.

TWENTY

Black Ox Hides and Golden Stools

The first kingdom on the African continent was that of Egypt. More would follow. Some, like Aksum on the upper Nile, borrowed strategies from their Egyptian neighbors. Others, like the Zulu kingdom, were created by the ironworking, cattle-herding descendants of the Bantu migration. Still others arose among the matrilineal, horticultural societies of central and western Africa. Some African kingdoms, prevented by tsetse flies from relying on cattle, found that their wealth could be based on ivory, gold, or slaves.

Once the first kingdom has appeared in a region, it provides a model for later generations of kingdoms. Archaeologists can date those later-generation kingdoms but often have only mythical accounts of their origins. In Africa, however, a great many new kingdoms formed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a time when European eyewitnesses could write down what happened. In such cases we have both the indigenous and Western versions of events.

In this chapter we look at two African kingdoms for which both native and European accounts are available. One was part of a chain reaction that included the Zulu. The other was created by an ambitious noble whose people had become tired of paying tribute to more powerful neighbors.