Egypt's Legacy: The Archetypes of Western Civilization: 3000 to 30 BC

261 Pages·2003·9 MB·English

by  Michael Rice

EGYPT’S LEGACY
Egypt’s Legacy explores the majesty of ancient Egyptian history from
3000–30 BC. Beginning with a chronological outline of the main events, it
goes on to explain the importance of the dissemination of Egyptian history
in the west.
The book’s unique approach is based on the Jungian idea that certain
psychological drives, known as archetypes, lie dormant in our shared
unconscious. Michael Rice argues that characteristic Egyptian institutions
such as the nation-state and an omnipotent, isolated god are powerful and
complex archetypes. They are fundamental in the unconsciousness of
western civilizations, and their influence shows itself as these civilizations
attempt to give them form.
Persuasive, imaginative and thought-provoking, Michael Rice’s work
offers stimulating insights for students, scholars and all those who are
interested in the history of Ancient Egypt.
Michael Rice is also the author of Egypt’s Making (2nd edition
Routledge 2003). He has published extensively on the history and
archaeology of ancient Egypt and the near East. He is particularly
interested in the origins of complex societies, and has established museums
throughout the Arabian peninsula states.
EGYPT’S LEGACY
The Archetypes of Western
Civilization 3000–30BC
Michael Rice
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 1997
This paperback edition published 2003
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 1997, 2003 Michael Rice
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
ISBN 0-203-48667-6 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-57017-0 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-26876-1 (pbk)
ISBN 0-415-15779-X (hbk)
The Beautiful God,
Lord of the Two Lands,
Lord of Diadems,
Neb-Kheperu-Ra,
Tutankhamun,
Given Life for Ever,
Who opened
my ears and my eyes.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vi
Preface viii
Acknowledgements xiii
The Chronology of Ancient Egypt xiv
I The Nature of Ancient Egypt 1
II The Ancient Egyptian Psyche 28
III Egypt and ‘the Gods’ 54
IV Before the Kings: Predynastic Egypt 67
V Kingship and the Archaic Kings 90
VI Egypt’s Glory: The Old Kingdom 106
VII Hiatus: The First Intermediate Period 123
VIII Restoration: The Middle Kingdom 128
IX Invasion: The Second Intermediate Period 144
X Imperial Egypt: The New Kingdom 149
XI Tutankhamun and the Reaffirmation of Amun 163
XII The Ramessides and the Decline of Egypt 171
XIII The Final Phase 178
XIV The Greeks in Egypt 187
XV The Myth of Egypt 198
Notes 214
Select Bibliography 227
Index 234
ILLUSTRATIONS
1 The stela of King Djer of the early First Dynasty, c.3000 BC. 85
Musée du Louvre. Photo credit: John Ross.
2 King Narmer, c.3150 BC, wearing the crown of Lower Egypt. 94
Detail, Narmer Palette, late predynastic period. Egyptian Museum,
Cairo. Photo credit: John Ross.
3 The Horus and Set Khasekhem enthroned, late Second Dynasty. 103
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Photo credit: John Ross.
4 King Djoser Netjerykhet of the Third Dynasty, c.2650 BC. 111
Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Photo credit: Roger Wood.
5 Hesy-Ra, a high official in the reign of King Djoser Netjerykhet. 111
Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Photo credit: John Ross.
6 Funerary boat of King Khufu (Cheops), buried beside his Great 116
Pyramid at Giza. Cheops Boat Museum, Giza. Photo credit:
Author.
7 King Djedefre, son of King Khufu. Musée du Louvre. Photo 118
credit: John Ross.
8 King Khafra’s Valley Temple at Giza: interior and exterior views. 118
Giza. Photo credit: Author.
9 King Menkaura with fellow divinities. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. 118
Photo credit: Roger Wood.
10 King Senwosret I of the Twelfth Dynasty. Egyptian Museum, 137
Cairo. Photo credit: John Ross.
11 Serenput, governor of Elephantine, Twelfth Dynasty. Aswan, 137
Elephantine. Photo credit: Author.
12 Portrait head of King Senwosret III. Luxor Museum. Photo credit: 137
John Ross.
13 The ka statue of King Awibre-Hor of the Thirteenth Dynasty. 145
Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Photo credit: Roger Wood for Arts of
Antiquity.
14 King Thutmoses III of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Luxor Museum. 156
Photo credit: John Ross.
15 King Amenhotep III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, with the crocodile- 158
headed god Sobek. Luxor Museum. Photo credit: John Ross.
16 King Amenhotep IV-Akhenaten, portrayed in the Amarna style. 159
Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Photo credit: John Ross.
vii
17 The gold mask of King Tutankhamun, as it was uncovered by 167
Howard Carter. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Photo credit: Harry
Burton. Reproduced by permission of the Griffith Institute,
Oxford.
18 Interior of Ramesses II’s great temple at Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel. 174
Photo credit: Author.
19 King Osorkon II of the Twenty-Second Dynasty, protected by two 181
goddesses. Musée du Louvre. Photo credit: Roger Wood.
20 Caesarion, Ptolemy XV, with his mother, Cleopatra VII, 196
worshipping divinities. Edfu. Photo credit: Author.
PREFACE
It may very well be asked, ‘Why another history of Ancient Egypt and why
should this author think himself competent to write it?’ Having asked the
questions myself, I will attempt to answer them and, in doing so, try to give
some justification for the book which is before you.
It was suggested to me that I should write a history of Egypt, following
the kindly reception which was given to my earlier book Egypt’s Making,
which reviewed the origins of the Egyptian state and which was published
in 1990.1 That book attempted to bring together the currently available
material on the earliest phases of Egyptian history, a period which has
always particularly interested me.
Egypt’s Making was, I think, unusual in that it attempted to interweave
some of the insights which C.G.Jung, the founder of analytical psychology,
brought to the study of Egypt in ancient times. As I wrote the book I
became more and more convinced of the validity of applying many of the
concepts which Jung developed, although they were primarily conceived in
terms of the analysis of individuals, to the study of the development of the
Egyptian state, in the time of its beginnings and its first brilliant flowering.
I am aware, of course, that Jung’s reputation in some intellectual circles
has undergone a degree of eclipse. This is perhaps inevitable for one who was
so multi-talented and who, particularly in his later years, often relied as
much on intuition and inspiration as on analysis. It is also true that many of
his most telling insights about the origin of societies came from the briefest
acquaintance with people whom he would regard as ‘primitive’— the
African tribes, the Pueblo Indians, for example—but nonetheless such
insights are powerful and, I believe, entirely valid in the study of man as a
social animal, endowed with the equivocal gift of consciousness.
Egypt’s Making drew attention to the quality, often disparaged, of early
Egyptian technology and, in particular, emphasised the importance of
stellar observations in the principal cults which emerged in the Nile Valley
around the beginning of Egyptian history. It also attempted to set Egypt
into the broader context of the ancient Near East, a consideration which
has not always carried weight amongst some Egyptologists and other
writers on the antiquity of Egypt who have preferred, not altogether
ix
unreasonably, to concentrate their analyses of the unique achievement of
Egypt within its own frontiers.
When I came to writing Egypt’s Legacy I decided that there was little
point simply in trying to write another history of Egypt. There is no
shortage of excellent, up-to-date surveys of Egypt’s history, many written
by scholars far better qualified than I to record the minutiae as much as the
great events of that rich inheritance. I decided therefore to write a history of
the Two Kingdoms which would offer the outlines of the principal events
and the main personalities involved but which would be written from a
particular standpoint which has for long interested me.
I have been fortunate in that I have been able to indulge a lifetime’s
fascination for ancient Egypt in generous measure, for I have spent much
of my professional life in Egypt and in lands peripheral to it. Viewing
Egypt therefore from both the north and east, as it were, I have been able
to meditate above all else on why Egypt has been so important a country
for so very long.
This is the issue which Egypt’s Legacy particularly explores. It is
subtitled ‘The Archetypes of Western Civilisation 3000–30 BC’ because in
considering the course of Egypt’s history it examines what I believe to be
the psychological imperatives which underlay and indeed largely
determined the principal events in that history which in turn seem to have
first given expression to the most familiar components of what we have
come generally to regard as ‘civilisation’. Egypt’s supreme legacy to the
world which came after it was the identification and naming of the
archetypes which I believe sprang from the Nile Valley peoples’ collective
unconscious.
One of C.G.Jung’s most compelling insights was the realisation that the
collective unconscious is common to all men, in all times, everywhere in the
world. The study of mythology from around the world and the great mass
of anthropological evidence drawn from complex societies as much as from
those which Jung, with no sense of political correctness, would have
classified as ‘primitive’, gives irrefutable support to this contention. The
acknowledgment of the common psychic inheritance of mankind is deeply
exciting for it allows us to begin to comprehend the motivations of the
series of mythically-based belief systems which have so bemused our
unfortunate species, blessed and cursed, in equal measure, as it sometimes
seems, with that faculty of consciousness.
If this principle be accepted, namely that it is possible to begin to
understand the psychological imperatives which have driven humankind as
a whole throughout its history, then it follows that the same principle can
with advantage be applied to the study of history, the record of human
societies and the acts of men considered collectively. Obviously historical
circumstances, environmental factors and the conditioning applied to
individuals (when they can be identified) by all societies will affect