"Building the Pharaonic state: Territory, elite, and power in ancient Egypt during the 3rd millennium BCE". In: J. A. Hill, Ph. H. Jones, A. J. Morales (eds.), Experiencing Power—Generating Authority : Cosmos and Politics in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, Philadelphia, 2013, p. 185-217. (original) (raw)
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An interdisciplinary analysis on the state formation and kingship in the Predynastic Egypt
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Old World: Journal of Ancient Africa and Eurasia
Situated at the crossroads between Northeast Africa, the Mediterranean, the Near East and the Indian Ocean, ancient Egypt was a strategic pathway that facilitated contacts and the circulation of peoples, products and ideas across these vast regions. Sometimes the monarchy took the initiative in these contacts, whereas in other cases, mobile populations, local leaders, itinerant merchants and independent individuals fulfilled such a role. Egyptian regions participated in these exchanges in distinctive ways. Hence, control over wealth flows, access to coveted goods, contacts with privileged trading partners and attracting royal support represented significant moves in their strategies. A constant tension between different political models (centralized, confederacies of cities and territories, regional kingdoms) reemerged through the millennia. This often led to the collapse of the central authority (as it happened around 2160 bc) and was inspired, at least in part, by the political im...
Ancient States and Pharaonic Egypt: An Agenda for Future Research
Journal of Egyptian History, 2014
Comparative history on ancient empires has seen a flourishing renewal in recent years. Many studies are devoted either to the study of a particular aspect (or aspects) in many societies of the past, or to the analysis of selected characteristics present in two ancient states, usually China and Rome. However, pre-Ptolemaic Egypt is conspicuously absent in such discussions despite the considerable wealth of Pharaonic sources and archaeological evidence. Therefore, several paths for prospective comparative research are proposed, from the organization of agriculture and productive activities in general to the ways in which ancient states promoted and “captured” flows of wealth through trade, imperialism, and taxation; from the reproduction of power and authority in the long run to the integration of different actors with their own (and often diverging) interests into a single political entity. The final aim is to contribute to a theory of ancient states where long-lived monarchies like ...
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Discussions of the early Egyptian state suffer from a weak consideration of scale. Egyptian archaeologists derive their arguments primarily from evidence of court cemeteries, elite tombs, and monuments of royal display. The material informs the analysis of kingship, early writing, and administration but it remains obscure how the core of the early Pharaonic state was embedded in the territory it claimed to administer. This paper suggests that the relationship between centre and hinterland is key for scaling the Egyptian state of the Old Kingdom (ca. 2,700-2,200 BC). Initially, central administration imagines Egypt using models at variance with provincial practice. The end of the Old Kingdom demarcates not the collapse, but the beginning of a large-scale state characterized by the coalescence of central and local models.
Rethinking the Emergence of State in Ancient Egypt 2
The author is not an academic currently. He is published in another scientific metier, but the evolution of western religions has remained a personal fascination over decades. Too impatient to be an archaeologist, he prefers to take a step back from the current 'models of understanding' in Egyptian history and reflect, because there are persisting conundrums around certain aspects and subjects in studies of the Egyptian Dynastic Period. That reflection has engendered an attempt at providing a more coherent narrative, at least an alternative one, around some pivotal periods in ancient Egyptian history, including how a Neolithic landscape came to be a statehood which persisted for thousands of years, and one that explores the North/South dynamic.
Rethinking the Emergence of State in Ancient Egypt 1
The author is not an academic currently. He is published in another scientific metier, but the evolution of western religions has remained a personal fascination over decades. Too impatient to be an archaeologist, he prefers to take a step back from the current 'models of understanding' in Egyptian history and reflect, because there are persisting conundrums around certain aspects and subjects in studies of the Egyptian Dynastic Period. That reflection has engendered an attempt at providing a more coherent narrative, at least an alternative one, around some pivotal periods in ancient Egyptian history, including how a Neolithic landscape came to be a statehood which persisted for thousands of years, and explores the North/South dynamic.
Middle Egypt provides a unique insight into the organization of power, politics, economy, and culture at the turn of the third millennium BC. The apparently easy integration of this region into the reunified monarchy of king Mentuhotep II (2055 was possible because the interests and the local lineages of potentates were preserved. Trade and access and/or control of international exchange networks were important sources of wealth and power then. And Middle Egypt appears as a crossroads of diverse populations, as a hub of political and economic power, as a crucial node of exchanges through the Nile Valley, and as a power center whose rulers provided support to the monarchy in exchange of local autonomy and considerable political influence at the Court. In the new conditions of early second millennium, potentates from Middle Egypt succeeded in occupying a unique advantageous position, not matched elsewhere in Egypt, because of the concentration of wealth, trade routes, new technologies, political power, and autonomy in the territories they ruled. arbitrarily) were immediately equated with centralization, efficient administration, prosperity, and royal absolutism. On the contrary, when works of art lacked the excellence and grandeur expected from a wealthy and refined monarchy (once more defined in quite arbitrary terms), this could only mean that the authority of kings was collapsing and plunging the country into a time of decadence, decentralization, emergence of regional powers, and usurpation of royal prerogatives, usually accompanied by political fragmentation .