The World

The Egyptian kings thought deeply about life and death and believed in their sacred role, affirmed by a network of temples and priests. Originally different gods were revered in different towns that were gradually agglomerated into a single story symbolizing the union of the two kingdoms – upper and lower Egypt – and the life of the monarch before and after death. Like so many sacred narratives, it was a story of family love, sex and hatred.^*

When they died, the kings did not really perish but instead became Osiris while their heirs became Horus. The power of the kings was absolute, demonstrated at this time by human sacrifice. The tomb of the third king of Narmer’s dynasty, Djer, was surrounded by 318 sacrificed courtiers.

Around 2650, King Djoser, also known as Netjerikhet, added a novelty to his tomb: instead of separating the tomb and enclosure, he built them on top of one another to create the step pyramid, six steps high – and it still stands. His minister, the tjati, possessed the vision of his master: his name was Imhotep, so trusted by the king that on the statue base in the entrance both of their names appear. Most probably the minister of the king was also his doctor because, later, Imhotep was worshipped as a god of medicine.

The new king Sneferu, succeeding in 2613, signalled his swagger by his Horus name, neb Maat, lord of truth, righteousness and the sacred order of the universe – and that was not all. His other name, netjer nefer, meant Perfect God. A story in a later papyrus implies Sneferu’s hedonism – he had himself rowed out on to a palace lake by twenty girls wearing just fishing nets – and his aggression, noting that he sent a 170-foot ship Praise-of-the-Two-Lands to raid Nubia where he enslaved captives and seized 200,000 cattle.

Sneferu ordered the building of the Meidum Pyramid, built like all pyramids on an east–west axis, associating the king with the daily journey of the sun. When he attempted an even bigger pyramid at Dahshur, he demanded a steep angle of inclination of 60 degrees, but disaster struck: the foundations were not strong enough and cracks suddenly appeared as the pyramid collapsed in on itself. Now Perfect God ordered a perfect pyramid and it was built fast while the Bent Pyramid was finished (and it still stands 4,000 years later). The Red Pyramid, Sneferu’s third, was completed in record time. Sneferu was surely buried there: a body was found in modern times – but lost.

His widow Hetepheres, daughter, wife and now mother of kings, smoothed the succession of her son Khufu, who built the Great Pyramid at Giza, designed to outdo even his father’s works. She gloried in titles Mother of the Dual King, Follower of Horus, Director of the Ruler, suggesting that if Khufu respected anyone it was her.

Khufu must have been obsessed with his pyramid. It is still perhaps the greatest building of world history: 2.3 million blocks. Its height of 481 feet made it the tallest building on earth until the Eiffel Tower. His workers were arranged in teams which adopted playful names such as King’s Drunkards, perhaps just 10,000 in all, living in a special workers’ village beside the site, with food and medical care provided. He added little pyramids too for his female relations.^*

When Khufu’s mother was buried, her tomb was packed with imported treasures, real and depicted. Turquoise came from Sinai, cedarwood from Lebanon, lapis from Afghanistan, ebony and carnelian from Nubia, myrrh and frankincense from Punt (Eritrea/Ethiopia/Somalia, perhaps Yemen) probably brought on ships from Sumer, where a conqueror founded the first empire: his name was Sargon.

MY FATHER I KNEW NOT: SARGON KING-SMASHER

Sargon was a boy abandoned in a basket, rescued and nurtured. ‘My mother was a priestess; my father I knew not,’ he declared in a poetical inscription that may capture his own voice. After all, they were a family of poets as well as potentates. Sargon was born in the northern steppes, ‘the highlands of Azupiranu’, speaking a Semitic language like those that became Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, instead of Sumerian from the south. ‘My mother conceived me in secret, she gave birth to me in hiding.’ He was a self-creation. ‘She set me in a basket of rushes, she sealed the lid with tar. She cast me into the river but it did not rise over me.’ His enchanted birth, mysterious paternity, obscure concealment, charmed rise – to be repeated in the myths of many world changers, Moses, Cyrus, Jesus – explained the mystical process of how exceptional leaders, throughout history, could rise to power from nowhere.