EGYPTOLOGY: All hail the king!

When you think of an Egyptian Pharao you probably have a certain picture in your mind: the blue-golden-stripes of the King’s headdress, the crossed arms position, and the straight looking full of confidence – a King’s behaviour, simply said.
The term ‘Pharao’ is deeply connected with kingship in Ancient Egypt, but did you know what it really meant? It was written in hieroglyphs like this: 𓉐 𓉼 = transliterated = pr ꜤꜢ = spoken [per-aA] = means ‘the great house’! So the king was the exclusive authority to provide a house or home for his people! By leading the people of the ‘two lands’ (Upper and Lower Egypt) in a supportive way he was allowed to have been named the per-aA, the PHARAO.
The Egyptian Language is quite complicated, so I want to teach you a bit of reading hieroglyphs in future posts. But today I want to give you a brief insight into the pictorial expressions of the Ancient Egyptian Pharao.

Vestments of a King

The Crown

_{Image 1: The Double Crown (Pshent).}

The first you may look at in a kings vestments is the crown. But in Ancient Egypt there was not only one sort of crown used by Pharaos. The most important ones were the Red Desheret-Crown 𓋔 and the White Hedshet-Crown 𓋑 which are symbolizing the ‘both lands’, the Lower Egypt (the Delta) and the Upper Egypt (the south area). In many cases, this crowns were combined to a double crown and called the ‘Pshent’: 𓋖. This last one had often two emblems added on the forehead – the cobra and the vulture, which were also symbols of the ‘two lands’ to be unified by the king. This polarity is one of the most important principles of thinking in Ancient Egypt.

The Blue Crown

There were many other crowns used by the kings and one important example that were mostly used in times of war was the blue crown: 𓋙. We can see this in pictures of Pharao Tutankhamun as well as Akhenaten.

_{Image 2a (left): Blue Crown of Pharao Akhenaton

Image 2b (right): Ramses III. in the tomb of Amenherkhepshef, QV 55, Luxor, Queens Valley.}

The ‘Nemes’

The well known pharaonic headdress is called ‘Nemes’. It is still controversial discussed what it really meant and how it was worn. In TV documentaries you see often just a scarf with blue and yellow or golden stripes thrown over the head. But as you can see on the following picture of the famous mask of Pharao Tutankhamun, the Nemes was bound together on the backside like a braid.

_{Image 3a/b: Death Mask of Tutankhamun, front and backside, Egyptian Museum, Cairo.}

Another interesting fact might be that Egyptologists never found an archaeological evidence of a real existing crown or a nemes.

Women in high positions such as the royal wifes or daughters often wore headdresses that can not be considered as crowns but at least as a sign of the elite.

_{Image 4a (left): Bust of Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaton, Egyptian Museum Berlin / Image 4b (right): Tomb of Nefertari, wife of Ramses II., Luxor, Queens Valley.}

The Beard

There are two so-called ceremonial beards: the straight one and the bent one. When you see a picture with a Pharao that has a bent beard, it means the deceased King is depicted! These beards were generally false beards, that were fixed on the chin.

_{Image 5a (left): Funerary gold mask of King Psusennes I. / Image 5b (right): Statue of King Thutmosis III., Museum of Art History Vienna.}

The beard was so important that even female leaders like Hatshepsut put on an artificial beard to show she was the first ‘man’ of the state. But, although she was acting and looking like a man, she still considered herself as women, which is shown by using the female grammatical form in her name and elsewhere. In other words: SHE was still called a SHE and not a HE. ;)

_{Image 6: Sphinx Statue of the female Pharao Hatschepsut, Metroplitan Museum of Art New York.}

The Crook and the Flail as Scepters

Pharaos had often a so-called crook or ‘crosier’ in his hands. The name of this was ‘heqa’ and is seen by most scholars as a shepherd’s crook and meant ‘to rule’. But the hieroglyph heqa 𓋾 also was used as the word for ‘magic’. The God Osiris used the crook in the death court to judge over the deceased and decided if their Ba, the moving part of the soul, would be able to pass easily to the afterlife.
The flail 𓌅 , often crossed with the crook, is also a sign of the Pharao being the ‘shepherd’ of his people and is seen to be actually as a fly whisk.

_{Image 7a (left): Granit statue of Ramses II., British Museum EA67

Image 7b (right): Ushebti figure of Tutankhamun, Egyptian Museum Cairo.}

Like a Boss King

_{Image 8: King Djoser running with the Apis Bull}

The Pharao was the first person in the state and had several duties. He was responsible to garantee the existence of Ma’at, the principle of order in contrast to chaos. He was legitimated to rule Egypt and keep not only the ‘two lands’ unified but to protect the whole country of (foreign) intruders. So the Pharao had to be ‘fit and in shape’, as we would say today. He proved this by running like a sportsman on a certain occasion that’s called the heb-sed-run. In the Pyramid complex of Pharao Djoser in Saqqara we know two stone blocks within the surrounding walls that probably have been the turning points for the Pharao when running around in circles during the Feast of the Tail. At this special event, which was a huge festival for the renewing of the King's reign, the Pharao wore a short (sportive) dress with a tail on the back side.

The Animal’s Tail

_{Image 9: Tomb of Ramses VI, KV 9, Luxor, Kings Valley.}

Something that is rarely considered by the people is the animal tail as a sign of the pharaonic power. The tail is hanging on the back side of the King’s special ceremonial robe in the so-called ‘Feast of the Tail’, as described in the paragraph above. This tail is assumed to have been a bulls tails, but it is discussed also as a dogs tail. I do not agree with the last opinion since the Pharao often called himself a kꜢ nḫ.t (strong bull) in order to express his animalistic power.

Don’t mess with the Pharao

The Ancient Egyptian percieved their own country as the centre of the world. Everything that was not Egyptian was considered ‘outside of their peaceful environment’. When it came to conflicts with intruders from other countries such as from the north or from the south (less from the west because of the huge desert area), the Pharao had to make sure that this ‘egyptian world’ was safe. He had, of course, to defend Egypt against the foreign invasion. This is depicted in the often used motive of the ‘Beating of the Enemy‘. You can see this in many variations but always with the same message: the great Pharao (in much bigger size as his opponents) grip the enemy or enemies on their scalp(s) or and erect the other hand, holding a weapon, that is going to swing down on them.

_{Image 10a (left): Ivory plate of King Den (Early Dynastic Period) .

Image 10b (centre): Drawing of Pharao Seti I.

Image 10c (right): Ramses II., Abu Simbel.}

_{Sources and further reading:

• Budge, E. A. Wallis (Ed.): The Book of the Dead. The Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum. Longman, London 1895.

• Staehelin, Elisabeth, in: Lexikon der Ägyptologie IV, 1982, cols. 613–618, s.v. Ornat.

• Fischer, Henry G., Notes on Sticks and Staves in Ancient Egypt, Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 13 (1978), pp. 5-32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1512707

• Hilliard, Kristina / Wurtzel, Kate, Power and Gender in Ancient Egypt: The Case of Hatshepsut, Art Education, Vol. 62, No. 3 (May 2009), pp. 25-31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20694765

• Uphill, Eric, The Egyptian Sed-Festival Rites, in: Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24, 1965, No. 4, pp. 365–383.

• https://dornsife.usc.edu/what-is-a-king-to-do/historical-context/

• http://www.arabworldbooks.com/egyptomania/sameh_arab_sed_heb.htm}

_{Images:

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