What did the pharaohs do in the ancient times?

Question

What did the pharaohs do in the ancient times?

Answer 1

The Pharoah, or King, was the supreme ruler of Egypt, and was all-powerful.  The King was considered to be the human embodiment of the god Horus, so he was both human and divine, and he passed on his divinity to the next King.

Ideally the kingship passed from father to son, and each king was usually keen to demonstate his filial links with the previous ruler.  On a practical level, the ruler could demonstate the continuity of the kingship by ensuring that his predecessor's mortuary temple and tomb were completed, and on a more political level he would do his best to demonstate that he was the chosen heir whose right to rule was ensured by his own divinity.

The king's most important role was to preserve order and prevent chaos.  The function of the king as representative of the gods was to preserve and restore the original harmony of the universe, therefore a great deal of the iconography in Egyptian temples, tombs and palaces was concerned much more with this overall aim than with the individual circumstances of the ruler of any particular point in time.  Just as it was essential to stress the king's divine birth, so the celebration and depiction of each Sed Festival (royal jubilee) was intended to ensure that the king was still capable of performing his ritual role.

With the provisional unification of Upper and Lower Egypt in 3000 BC, the first dynasties appeared.  Dynastic rulers were placed within the context of a state royal cult that equated them with the gods and with specific tasks to be conducted on behalf of the people.  The royal cult dates to the earliest dynastic period in Egypt, and from the start it supported the concept of the king as the "good god" the incarnation of Horus, the son of Re, and the intermediary between the people and all divine beings.  When the king died, he was thought to become Osiris in Tuat or the Underworld.

The kings of Egypt were normally the sons and heirs of their immediate predecessors, either by the Great Wife, the chief consort, or by a lesser-ranked wife.  Some, including, Tuthmosis III (1479-1425 BC) of the 18th dynasty, were the offspring of the pharoahs and harem women.  In the early dynasties the kings married female aristocrats to establish connections to the local nobility of Memphis, the cpaital.  In subsequent periods many married their sisters or half-sisters, if available, and some, including Akhenaten, took their own daughters as consorts.  In the New Kingdom the kings did not hesitate ot name commoners as their Chief Wife, and several married foreign princesses.

The kings of the early dynastic period (2920-2575) were monarchs who were intent upon ruling a united land, although the actual process of unification was not completed until 2649 BC.  There is evidence that these early kings were motivated by certain ideals concerning their responsibilities to the people, ideals which were institutionalised in later eras.  Like the gods, who created the universe out of chaos, the pahroah was responsible for the orderly conduct of human affairs.  Upon ascending the throne, later kings of Egypt claimed that they were restoring the spirit of Ma'at in the land, cosmic order and harmony, the divine will.

Warfare was as essential aspect of the king's role from the beginning.  The rulers of the predynastic eras, later deified as the souls of Pe and Nekhen, had fought to establish unity, and the first dynasitc rulers had to defend borders, put down rebellions, and organize the exploitation of natural resources.

Government was in place by the dynastic period, the nation being divided into provincial territories called Nomes.  Royal authority was imposed by an army of officials, who were responsible for the affairs of both Upper and Lower Egypt.  The law was the expression of the king's will, and all matters, both religious and secular, were dependent upon his assent.  The entire administration of Egypt, in fact, was but an extension of the king's power.

By the 3rd dynasty Djoser (2630-2611 BC) could command sufficient resources to construct his vast mortuary complex, a monumental symbol of the land's prosperity and centralisation.  The Step Pyramid, erected for him by Imhotep, announced the powers of Djoser and reinforced the divine status of the kings. Other Old Kingdom (2575-2134 BC) pharoahs continued to manifest their power with similar structures, culminating in the Great Pyramids at Giza.

The pharoahs of the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BC) built major constructions at Thebes (Luxor), and rather than building pyramids built themselves tombs in the Valley of the Kings.  The female Pharoah Hatshepsut built herself a magnificent mortuary temple there for instance, and Rameses II (knowns as Rameses the Great) was a particularly prolific builder, producing a multitute of monuments, most famously the magnificent temple as Aswan.  The pharoah Akenaten caused a scandal by trying to abolish polytheism and introducing the cult of the Aten (the sun) to

Answer 2

They "Lived like Kings" - literally !

Answer 3

rule egypt for a bit, create little pharoahs, amass lots of gold, then die and supposedly move onto the afterlife where they became demi-gods :P

Answer 4

They:

Had slaves

Built pyramids so people would remember them

Had many kids

Ruled Egypt

Died young