Pharaoh

From New World Encyclopedia
The pharaoh is usually depicted wearing the Nemes headdress and an ornate kilt

Pharaoh is the title given in modern parlance to the ancient Egyptian kings. In antiquity it began to be used during the New Kingdom (1570–1070 B.C.E.). Meaning "Great House," it originally referred to the king's palace, but it eventually became interchangeable with the traditional Egyptian word for king, nswt. Although the rulers of Egypt were generally male, the title of pharaoh was also used on the rare occasions when a female ruled.

The pharaohs were usually depicted wearing a striped headcloth called the nemes, a double crown to symbolize the unity of Upper and Lower Egypt, decorated by a uraeus—the upright form of an Egyptian spitting cobra.

The pharaoh was Egypt's supreme ruler, governing by royal decree through his vizier over a system of 42 districts or "nomes." In spiritual affairs, the pharaohs were generally believed to be the incarnations of the god Horus during their lives and of Osiris in death. They were also seen as a mediator between between the realm of the gods and the world of human beings.

Role

As with many ancient kings, the pharaoh was seen as the preserver of the divine order known as Ma'at, manfiested in various environmental, agricultural, and social relationships. The pharaoh owned and supervised the use of a large percentage of the land of Egypt He was considered responsible for both the spiritual and economic welfare of the people. The pharaoh was also the supreme authority in legal affairs and administrator of justice, legislating by royal decree.

The pharaoh's main agent in governing the nation was the vizier, who held charge of the treasury, legal cases, taxes, and record-keeping. Under the vizier, Egypt was divided into governmental districts or "nomes." Lower Egypt, from Memphis to the Mediterranean Sea, comprised 20 nomes. Upper Egypt was divided into 22 nomes from Elephantine close to Egypt's border with Nubia downriver along the Nile valley.

Equally important as the pharaoh's governing role was his religious function. The Egyptians saw the pharaoh as the mediator between the realm of the gods and the realm of humans. In death, the pharaoh would become one with Osiris, the dead, passing on his sacred powers his son, the new pharaoh, who would then represent Osiris' son Horus.

The power of the gods was vested in the pharaoh. He was addressed as all-powerful and omniscient, the controller of both nature and fertility. The sacred snakes depicted on his crown were said to spit flames at at the pharaoh's enemies. He was depicted in monumental statues of huge proportions, and the power of the divinity enabled him to slay thousands of enemies in battle.

Etymology

pharaoh "pr-`3"

in hieroglyphs
O1
O29

The term pharaoh ("الفرعون") ultimately derived from a compound word represented as pr-`3, originally used only in larger phrases like smr pr-`3, 'Courtier of the High House', with specific reference to the buildings of the court or palace itself.[1] From the Twelfth Dynasty (twentieth century B.C.E.) onward the word appears in a wish formula or prayer "Great House, may it live, prosper, and be in health," but again only with reference to the royal or heavenly palace and not the person.

The earliest instance where pr-`3 is used specifically to address the king is in a letter to Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) in the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty (1550-1292 B.C.E.) which is addressed to "Pharaoh, all life, prosperity, and health!'."

From the Nineteenth Dynasty onwards pr-`3 on its own was used as regularly as the title hm.f ("His Majesty.") The term therefore evolved from a word specifically referring to a building to a respectful designation for the king or prince, particularly by the Twenty-Second Dynasty and Twenty-Third Dynasty (tenth through eighth centuries B.C.E.). By this time, the Late Egyptian word is reconstructed to have been pronounced *par-ʕoʔ, from which is derived the Ancient Greek φαραώ and then Late Latin pharaō. From the latter, English obtained the word "pharaoh." Over time, *par-ʕoʔ evolved into Sahidic Coptic prro ⲡⲣ̅ⲣⲟ and then rro (by mistaking p- as the definite article prefix "the" from Ancient Egyptian p3).

A similar development, with a word originally denoting an attribute of the king eventually coming to refer to the person, can be discerned in a later period with the Arabic term sultan, originally meaning "strength" or "authority."

Regalia

Mask of Tutankhamun's mummy featuring a uraeus from the eighteenth dynasty when the cobra image of Wadjet from the original uraeus had been joined by the white vulture image of Nekhbet because of the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt

The king of Egypt wore a double crown, created from the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the White Crown of Upper Egypt. In certain situations, the pharaoh wore a blue crown of a different shape. All of these crowns typically were adorned by a uraeus—the stylized, upright form of an Egyptian spitting cobra—which was doubled under the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty to symbolize the unity of Upper and Lower Egypt.

The pharaoh also wore a striped headcloth called the nemes, which may be the most familiar pharaonic headgear. The nemes was sometimes combined with the double crown, as it is on the statues of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel. The pharaoh, including female pharaohs, would often wear a false beard made of goat hair during rituals and ceremonies.

Egyptologist Bob Brier has noted that despite its widespread depiction in royal portraits, no ancient Egyptian crown ever has been discovered. Tutankhamun's tomb, discovered largely intact, did contain such regal items as his crook and flail, but not a crown. Crowns were assumed to have magical properties, and Brier's speculation is that there were items a dead pharaoh could not take with him which therefore had to be passed along to his living successor.

Titles

The official titulary of the king by the Middle Kingdom consisted of five names.[2] For some rulers, only one or two of them may be known.

During the eighteenth dynasty (sixteenth to fourteenth centuries B.C.E.) the title Pharaoh was employed as a reverential designation of the king. About the late twenty-first dynasty (tenth century B.C.E.), however, instead of being used alone as before, it began to be added to the other titles before the king's name, and from the twenty-fifth dynasty (eighth to seventh centuries B.C.E.) it was, at least in ordinary usage, the only epithet prefixed to the royal appellation. For instance, the first dated instance of the title Pharaoh being attached to a king's name occurs in Year 17 of Siamun on a fragment from the Karnak Priestly Annals. Here, an induction of an individual to the Amun priesthood is dated specifically to the reign of Pharaoh Siamun. This new practice was continued under his successor Psusennes II and the twenty-first Dynasty kings. Meanwhile the old custom of referring to the sovereign simply as Per'o continued in traditional Egyptian narratives.

Several women apparently ruled as pharoahs of Egypt. Of the three great non-consort queens of Egypt (Hatshepsut, Sobeknefru, and Twosret), Hatshepsut and possibly others took the title pharaoh in the absence of an existing word for "Queen Regnant." Also notable is Nefertiti, who was made co-regent (the pharaoh's equal) during the reign of Akhenaten. Some scholars further suspect that since her disappearance coincides with the rise of Smenkhkare to the throne after Akhenaten's death, Nefertiti was in fact yet Smenkhkare, making her another woman who became pharaoh in Egyptian history. Egypt's last pharaoh was Cleopatra VII. The royal lineage was traced through its women and a pharaoh had to be from that lineage or married to one of them if coming from without the lineage. This was the reason for all of the intermarriages in the royal families of Egypt.

Pharaohs in the Bible

The biblical use of the term reflects Egyptian usage with fair accuracy. The early kings always are mentioned under the general title Pharaoh, or Pharaoh the King of Egypt; but personal names begin to appear with the twenty-second dynasty, although the older designation is still used, especially when contemporary rulers are spoken of. The absence of proper names in the first books of the Bible is no indication of the late date of their composition and of writer's vague knowledge of Egyptian history, rather to the contrary. The same is true of the use of the title Pharaoh for kings earlier than the eighteenth dynasty, which is quite in keeping with Egyptian usage at the time of the nineteenth dynasty.

The first king of Egypt mentioned by name in the Bible is Shishaq (probably Sheshonk I), the founder of the twenty-second dynasty and contemporary of Rehoboam and Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:40; 2 Chronicles 12:2 sqq.). The title pharaoh is prefixed to his name in the Great Dakhla stela—as in Pharaoh Shoshenq—which dates to Year 5 of his reign.

2 Kings 17:4 says that Hoshea sent letters to 'So, King of Egypt', whose identification is still not certain. He has been identified with Osorkon IV, who was a minor king at Tanis who ruled over a divided Egypt, with Tefnakht of Sais and Pi'ankhy.[3]

Taharqa, who was the opponent of Sennacherib, is called King of Ethiopia (2 Kings 19:9; Isaiah 37:9), and hence is not given the title Pharaoh which he bears in Egyptian documents.

Last are two kings of the twenty-sixth dynasty: Necho II, who the Bible says defeated Josiah (2 Kings 23:29 sqq.; 2 Chronicles 35:20 sqq.), and Apries or Hophra, the contemporary of Sedicous (Jeremiah 44:30). Both are styled pharaoh in Egyptian records.

See also

  • List of Pharaohs
  • Egyptian chronology - Conventional Egyptian chronology
  • History of Egypt
  • Monarch
  • Ancient Egyptian royal titulary
  • Pharaoh of the Exodus

Notes

  1. Ancient Egyptian Grammar (3rd ed.), A. Gardiner (1957-) 71-76
  2. Ian Shaw, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press 2000, p. 477
  3. Patterson, Richard D., "The Divided Monarchy: Sources, Approaches, and Historicity," pp 196-197, in David M. Howard & Michael A. Grisanti (eds), Giving the Sense: Understanding and Using Old Testament Historical Texts, Kregel Academic & Professional, January 1 2004, ISBN 978-0825428920

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Brier, Bob. PhD. History of ancient Egypt (Audio). The First Nation in History. The Learning Company. 2001.
  • Gardiner, Alan, Sir Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, Third Edition, Revised. London: Oxford University Press, 1964. Excursus A, pp. 71-76.

Sources and external links

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

Template:Ancient Egyptians

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