The Role of the King in Ancient Egypt

All the kings of Egypt who followed after Narmer called them selves Horus, so the king of Egypt was not just a king but also a god and a god related to the gods in the heavens. The king had five names or titles,

1. Horus name

2. Ladies Names Nekhebet Vulture goddess upper Egypt (left). Wadjet Cobra Goddess Lower Egypt (right)

3. Golden Horus

4. Nomen

5. PreNomen (name chosen at coronation)

The king represented order or “Maat”. Maat was the driving force in the Egyptians life, they believed that you must have order in the cosmos and on earth, an example of order is the opposites, if you have Horus then you must have the opposite to Horus which is Seth, this brings a balance and an order to things. The Egyptians believed that out of Chaos you must regain order and the king represented this order or the defender of “Maat”. The icons of the king represents this order, he wore the two crowns of upper and lower Egypt representing the unity of the two lands.

To help the king the two ancient goddesses protected him. The Cobra goddess Wadjet sat on his brow and spat venom into the eyes of the kings enemies, Nekhebet the Vulture goddess was represented in the names head cloth, the design of the cloth were the vulture goddesses wings flying over the king to warn him of his enemies. The flail or the whip was the king’s authority over the people of Egypt, the king was the herdsman and the people the herd of cattle and every now and again the people needed motivating and the whip was the motivator. The crook represented rule, but also acted as the icon for the king to be the good Shepard and the people his flock of sheep, which he protected.

The term Pharaoh comes from the Greek form of ancient Egyptian per-aa, which means great house, the Egyptians did not call there leaders Pharaohs, they did not even call them kings, this is a name we describe our rulers, the Egyptians called there rulers Neb-Towi, Lord of the two or twin lands, referring to upper and lower Egypt. The closest meaning of Kingship comes from the second title of the king (nesw-bit) meaning “He of the sedge and the Bee”. The cartouche or the (shenu) around the kings fourth and fifth names represents the kings authority. He is not just lord of upper and lower Egypt, not just master of North, South, East and West, he is master over the universe or the cartouche, which is the suns path around the cosmos, this, rather than being bombastic, relates to the terrible responsibility the king had in maintaining order, to keep order in the cosmos or to appease the gods you had to build and maintain Temples to honour the gods and indeed make offerings to the gods.