Lord of the Two Lands -Useful Facts About Ancient Egypt
Divine Ma’at Ruled Egyptian Society: Ma’at was the goddess of truth and justice, but the word could also be translated as “divine order”, balance, rightness. Egyptians believed that the way their society was set up thousands of years ago represented divine perfection, and that they should endeavor to keep Egypt as unchanged as possible throughout the centuries. Living exactly as your ancestors did 2,000 years ago wasn’t lack of progress, it was the highest thing you could aspire to, it was Ma’at. It made ancient Egypt one of the most conservative societies ever. Priests of Ma’at were part of the justice system.
Resurrection is only assured if you’re buried in Egypt: Egyptian religion said that if a mummy was properly prepared, and placed in a suitable tomb, with spells and suitable funerary goods, then the deceased would be able to live again for all eternity. The catch was that this was only certain to work inside Egypt (and perhaps inside Nubia, which Egyptians came to consider as part of their own lands). Egyptians did not often live outside Egypt for extended periods, or occupy their foreign vassal states with troops and administrators, in part because no one wanted to risk dying outside Egypt.
Funerary Goods were made in special isolated villages: The workers who dug the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and made all the precious objects that would accompany Pharaoh into the afterlife (gold coffins, statues, amulets, etc.) lived in special villages on the west bank of the Nile in Thebes. These villages were guarded by military troops, as was the entire perimeter of the Valley of the Kings, and none of the villagers was allowed to leave the village except in rare circumstances in order to protect the wealth and secrets of the royal tombs.
Upper Egypt is south, and Lower Egypt is North: Ancient Egyptians viewed the kingdom as two different lands, Upper and Lower Egypt, despite the fact that the two kingdoms had been unified for many centuries. Upper Egypt is in the south, and Lower Egypt is in the north, which seems counterintuitive, but the terms come from the direction of the Nile’s flow. The Nile’s current runs south to north, so southern Egypt near Sudan was the “Upper” part of the Nile.
War is glorious, peace is undesirable: Ancient Egyptians did not long for peace the way most modern cultures do, instead they believed that Egypt should constantly be at war with someone in order to increase Egypt’s prosperity and favor with the gods. Pharaoh’s chief duty was to lead his troops into battle, lay low Egypt’s enemies, and acquire tribute from conquered lands. The most common way to see Pharaoh depicted in art is smiting foreign enemies overhand with his mace, this is in fact the pose that means “I am Pharaoh” in Egyptian art.
Facts on Pharaohs
Pharaoh’s principal wife was named “Great Royal Wife”: The rise of the empire during the 18th Dynasty meant that Pharaoh married a great many wives, as conquered vassal kingdoms sent royal women to marry Pharaoh to cement alliances. The “Great Royal Wife” was always Egyptian, and almost always was a daughter or sister of a Pharaoh. If the Great Royal Wife died, Pharaoh would designate a new Great Royal Wife by either declaring his own mother Great Royal Wife, or marrying one of his own daughters by the woman who had been the Great Royal Wife, or (less desirably) marrying one of his daughters by another wife.
Pharaohs succeed to the throne by marrying the right woman: In most cultures the son of the previous king is expected to succeed him, but in Egypt it’s the man who marries the deceased Pharaoh’s Great Royal Wife. Of course, usually only Egyptian princes had the opportunity to marry the Great Royal Wife. A prince who was the son of the Pharaoh and his Great Royal Wife, who married one of his full sisters would have the most legitimate claim on the throne. His sister would then become Great Royal Wife. If no Great Royal Wife was available at the time, marrying a daughter of the previous Pharaoh by a woman other than the Great Royal Wife could also grant legitimacy.
Egyptian princesses never married non-Egyptians: Egyptian royalty considered themselves above the royalty of all other lands, and it was not fitting for a daughter of the royal house of Egypt to lower herself by marrying a foreigner. Also, the fact that succession to the throne of Egypt was determined by marrying a daughter of the Pharaoh meant that it would be unwise to let any foreigner have an Egyptian princess as his wife.
Egypt sometimes had two Pharaohs co-ruling at the same time: Sometimes when a Pharaoh reached old age he would declare one of his sons co-Pharaoh. When this happened, the old Pharaoh continued to rule southern (Upper) Egypt, while his son ruled northern (Lower) Egypt. This was intended to strengthen the claim to the throne for Pharaoh’s chosen successor, and give the younger man experience ruling while his father was still alive to advise him. The older Pharaoh remained dominant, and the younger had to obey him.
The next Pharaoh was not always a prince of Egypt: If a pharaoh had no surviving sons when he died, then someone outside the royal family might take the throne. A pharaoh without sons generally appointed someone to be his heir before he died, and this choice was often respected. Frequently the throne would be awarded to the grand vizier, or the vizier of Upper or Lower Egypt, or a high-ranking general in the army. On one occasion, a Pharaoh’s daughter, Hatshepsut, ruled as Pharaoh with the help of the priesthood of Amun. The high priest of Amun became grand vizier during Hatshepsut’s reign, and proclaimed that Hatshepsut was the direct divine offspring of the god Amun himself. Shortly after the 18th Dynasty, a high priest of Amun declared himself Pharaoh and ruled Egypt for several years when the previous Pharaoh died without an heir.
Pre 18th Dynasty
Before the 18th Dynasty, there were many temples to many different gods in ancient Egypt, and each of these priesthoods were roughly equal in power. Gods were embodied by statues kept in temples—the statue was the god. Every city or region in Egypt at the time had a patron Triad - usually a male, female and child god. The priesthood of Ra always had a strong following in the north, around the cities of Memphis and Heliopolis.
Lord of the Two Lands is set in Thebes, where Amun (or Amun-Ra), his consort Mut and their son Khonsu were worshipped. At the start of the 18th Dynasty, Thebes became the capital city, and the warrior pharaohs who set out to conquer all the lands near Egypt called upon Amun to grant them success. When victory followed victory, the pharaohs attributed all their success to Amun. In gratitude, pharaohs donated vast and previously unheard of wealth to the temple of Amun.
As the decades passed, the Temple of Amun accumulated vast estates and numbers of slaves. The Temple of Amun became far more powerful than any of the other gods in Egypt, and the high priest of Amun was declared to be the senior priest over all priests in Egypt, not just priests of Amun. The Temple of Amun became sort of like the Vatican. Amun-Ra grew so important spiritually and politically during the New Kingdom that Egyptian religion approached monotheism. The other gods became mere symbols of his power, or manifestations of Amun-Ra.
Egyptian temples were primarily the house of the god cared for by the priesthood and the position of priest was hereditary, though many of the priests had another profession. A doctor could be a priest of Sekhmet, goddess of disease and epidemic, and a lawyer could be a priest of Ma'at, goddess of truth and justice. Once trained these priests would return annually to the temple where they performed religious duties as well as teaching and debating in the universities attached to the temple. These educational institutions were known as the Houses of Life. Doctors, scientists, lawyers, mathematicians and scribes learned their professions alongside each other in the House of Life and religion was interwoven in all these subjects.
The Rise of the Aten
Amenhotep IV came to power in 1351 after the death of his father Amenhotep III, and reigned until 1334 BC. When he ascended the throne, he proclaimed that the sun-disk aspect of the god Ra, known as the Aten, as the supreme object of his worship. He composed many hymns to the Aten, devoted all his time to worshipping the Aten, and let government affairs languish. Over the rest of his reign, internal affairs in Egypt grew chaotic, and the empire slipped away as vassals rebelled or were invaded. The military received little funding, was not sent to war, and had to suppress unrest within Egypt.
In year 5 of his reign, he changed his name to Akhenaten (Effective spirit of Aten) and declared that he would construct a new capital city in a desolate spot along the Nile north of Thebes. The site looked east to where the sun rose between a notch in hills and formed a replica of the hieroglyph for “Aten”. The city was built with lightening speed, and was named Akhetaten (Horizon of Aten). (In modern times the city is often called Amarna, and Akhenaten’s reign the Amarna Period.) While previous pharaohs had all spent much time traveling throughout Egypt in order to rule effectively, Akhenaten carved boundary monuments around his new city vowing that he would never leave its confines.
At first Akhenaten presented the Aten as an aspect of Amun-Ra, and other gods’ temples were allowed to continue worship. In year 9 of his reign he declared that the Aten was not only the supreme god, but the only god, that the sun-disk was just an abstract symbol for God, and that he and his Great Wife Nefertiti and their six daughters were the only ones who could perform the worship ceremonies for the Aten. Many Egyptians came to Akhenaten’s new city and joined him in what to most others seemed fanatical devotion to their “one true God.” Akhenaten’s worship ceremonies sometimes lasted over 6 hours, and involved standing outside in the blistering full heat of the sun. Temples to other gods were closed, temples of Amun were defaced, and worship of all idols was banned.
The shock of Akhenaten’s rule on Egyptians cannot be overstated—divine Ma’at was completely uprooted, and a society that attempted to avoid all change saw nearly every aspect of life changed. When a great plague raced through Egypt and spread out into the rest of the world, killing Akhenaten, Egyptians were relieved to have his fourteen year old son Smenkhkare take the throne. Smenkhkare was Akhenaten’s oldest son by his secondary wife Kiya, but ruled less than a year before he too passed away.
Tutankhamun’s Reign
Tutankhaten (Living Image of the Aten ) was the younger son of Akhenaten and his secondary wife Kiya, and took the throne at 9 years old when his older brother died. He was crowned Pharaoh in 1334 BC under a regency council made up of the kingdom’s viziers and top generals. He married his half sister Ankhesenamun, the only surviving daughter of Akhenaten and his Great Wife Nefertiti. The couple was disappointed in their wish for children, with Ankhesenamun bearing only two stillborn daughters.
During Tutankhamun's reign, Akhenaten's revolution began to be reversed. In year 3 of Tutankhamun's reign (1331 BC), when he was still a boy of about 11 and under the influence of older advisors (notably Akhenaten's vizier Ay), the ban on the old pantheon of gods and their temples was lifted, the traditional privileges restored to their priesthoods, and the capital moved back to Thebes. The young pharaoh also adopted the name Tutankhamun, changing it from his birth name Tutankhaten. The military was once more sent into the field to battle Egypt’s enemies, and Egypt began to regain some of its control over its erstwhile empire.
The worship of the Aten was not at first forbidden after the return to Thebes. Worship of the Aten was finally clamped down when a group of dissidents toppled a newly carved statue of the god Amun from its place in the courtyard of the great Temple of Amun at Ipet-Esut. No one saw it happen and no one knew who had perpetrated such blasphemy, but in the earth beside the fallen god the sign of the Aten was crudely scratched — the sun’s disc with the long rays of the sun ending in hands holding the ankh, the sign for eternal life. By the end of Tutankhamun’s reign, no one dared openly defy Pharaoh’s command to cease worship of the Aten. At the time of game, the Amarna Period is only 10 years ago, and the country is still somewhat divided along religious lines.
Ten years into Tutankhamun’s reign, when the young King was 19, he fell during a chariot race with other nobles, badly injuring his left knee and foot. His doctors worried that the injuries might prevent him from walking normally, but did not appear life-threatening. The Pharaoh fell ill a few days later, however, and died shortly after, leaving no heir.
The Priesthood
Note - below mostly really applies to "orthodox" priests - any god that is not Aten.
Every priest, from the grandest to the most rustic craftsman-attendant of a minor tomb, was merely a deputy of the chief priest, the Pharaoh. The were the keepers of ritual, they knew the formulae appropriate to their own rank and department, but they did not partake of the pharaoh's unique and indivisible power. The Egyptian term for the priesthood was the "pure ones". There were two major divisions, with a superior group known as Prophets and an inferior group of Ordinary priests. Reflecting the structure of the court, there was a distinct hierarchy within the temple, with many gradations between the neophyte and the chief prophet. Whilst the priest was of course aware of and respectful to the entire pantheon of gods, he was nevertheless especially a priest of the god to whom his temple was dedicated and served his rite in particular. As the year passed, each major and local deity had its own time of festival.
During game, a festivial dedicated to Amun will be celebrated.
The status of priests varied according to the prestige of their god, their proximity to the court, their birth and their ability. Many of the priests in mortuary temples were part-timers, who were also craftsmen who kept the site in good repair. These men would provide the regular offerings but would command few of the secrets relating to the afterlife which were the source of the priesthood's vast prestige.
But the priesthood, in charge of education and of the magic art of reading and writing, had great power and influence over the secular life of Egypt, although it was a country where the religious and the secular are unusually hard to separate. Doctors, jurists, administrators, architects could achieve their professional status only through the priesthood. Priests could marry. They had many social privileges, including exemption from the forced labour that was inflicted on most adult males during Inundation.
Priestesses
The priesthood was largely male, with the role of the female priest confined chiefly to ceremonial dance and the provision of music. Many temples with a fertility connection also had sacred prostitutes.
The Adoratrice of Amun
This position first came about in the 15th Dynasty, during Libyan rule. Then it was common for the rulers to place their own candidates in the position of High Priest of Amun in Thebes, effectively creating a Viceroy in Upper Egypt. The tendency of these appointees to create their own power base was a problem that the kings sought to resolve be appointing a female chief priestess instead. These functionaries were known as the Adoritrices, or divine worshippers, of Amun.
This title of Divine Adoratrice was often hereditary, and often held by those of royal blood. By the 18th Dynasty it was sometimes held by women of high status at court, like the mother of the queen, or by the wife of the high priest in the Amun cult.
This position was of course outlawed during the time of the Heretic. The appointment of the current Adoratrice, Anippe, was somewhat unusual, as she did not inherit the title, though she comes from a noble family.
The title "God's Wife of Amun" is sometimes confused with this position. For game purposes, they are separate things. Only one of the Royal line can be named "God's Wife". The most recent in the 18th Dynasty with that title was Hapshepsut.