priesthood or the bureaucracy, but this changed aft er the
Hyksos invasion of Egypt that ended the Middle Kingdom.
Aft er the Hyksos occupation ended, Egyptian pharaohs at-
tacked areas outside Egypt’s traditional boundaries in an
attempt to make sure that there would be no repeat foreign
invasion. Th ese foreign campaigns started to bring in vast
wealth and gradually moved to the acquisition of an empire.
Th e army was now needed not only to defend Egypt’s bor-
ders but also to maintain an empire that kept Egypt pros-
perous and strong. As a result, over time certain elements of
the military were able to threaten the power of the pharaoh,
and army offi cers such as Horemheb (r. ca. 1319–1307 b.
c.e.), and Ramses I (r. ca. 1307–1306 b.c.e.) became pha-
raohs themselves.
Priests of the great temples gained enormous power and
infl uence on the back of successful military campaigns into
Nubia and Asia Minor. Pharaohs proudly embellished the
main cult center of the god Amon at Karnak with successive
extensions. Temples employed large numbers of workers and
possessed vast estates. By the reign of Amenhotep III (r. ca.
1391–1353 b.c.e.) the priests of Amon had such power and
wealth that they may even have begun rivaling the pharaoh
himself. Th e monotheistic pharaoh Akhenaton (r. ca. 1353–
1335 b.c.e.), with his cult of the sun god Aton, attempted to
curtail the threat from the priests, even ordering the name
of Amon obliterated from temples. However, aft er Akhena-
ton’s death the cult of Amon regained its original position,
its priests a powerful political faction whom pharaohs had to
heed and respect.
Pharaohs throughout ancient Egyptian history had large
families. Ramses II (r. ca. 1290–1224 b.c.e.), for example, is
said to have had more than 50 sons. Political factions devel-
oped within these large families and strove to infl uence the
pharaoh and his succession. Some members of the royal fam-
ily were involved in the attempt to assassinate the last great
pharaoh of the New Kingdom, Ramses III (r. ca. 1194–1163
b.c.e.). Th e conspiracy was led by one his principal wives,
Queen Tey, in an attempt to change the line of succession
and place her son Pentawere on the throne. It is clear that the
coup failed, as it was Ramses IV (r. ca. 1163–1156 b.c.e.), his
father’s chosen successor, who ascended.
Aft er the New Kingdom declined, Egypt would never be
as powerful again. Th e Twenty-fi rst^ Dynasty (1070–945 b.c.e.)
saw the high priests of Amon come to rule Middle and Up-
per Egypt at the expense of the pharaoh. Th e last ruler of the
Twentieth Dynasty, Ramses XI (r. ca. 1100–1070 b.c.e.), had to
tolerate an army offi cer and self-anointed high priest named
Herihor taking the royal title and ruling beside him. Foreign-
ers—from Libya, Nubia, Assyria, Persia, and Greece—then
came to dominate the country. From 30 b.c.e. the Romans
held Egypt as a province with a Roman governor. Even then,
however, the priesthood remained a powerful faction. Foreign
rulers wanted to maintain the idea that the pharaoh had divine
sanction, and with this goal in mind temples such as those at
Luxor and Karnak were restored and even expanded.
THE MIDDLE EAST
BY FRANS VAN KOPPEN
Royal monuments are omnipresent in the archaeological her-
itage of Mesopotamia, Persia, and other ancient Near Eastern
cultures. Th e fi rst modern explorations of these monuments
reinforced the concept of the local monarchy as an unop-
posed hierarchical system where the welfare of the nation
depended on the whims of brutal kings, a notion that was
inspired by classical and Old Testament writings and was fu-
eled by 19th-century political concerns. Th e understanding
of ancient Near Eastern rulership changed considerably once
indigenous sources, in particular cuneiform records from an-
cient Mesopotamia, were taken into account. Th ese sources
shed light on the ideological underpinning of the royal offi ce
and illustrate how kings could at times apply decisive power
but oft en were limited in the exercise of their authority. Royal
power was founded on the force of tradition, but long-estab-
lished values also prescribed how this authority should be put
into eff ect. In practice kings were able, with varying success,
to impose their will on the top levels of government but had
limited direct control over lower tiers of the system. Ancient
states therefore knew more autonomy at the bottom of the
hierarchy than the rhetoric from the top would lead one to
believe.
Th e literature of the ancient Near East embodies the
views of the ruling elite, expressed in royal inscriptions and
poetic compositions that were disseminated outside the court
as part of the educational curriculum familiar to all who
had learned how to read. Th is literature celebrates the mag-
nifi cence of kingship, including the victorious confrontation
with foreign enemies, but internal opposition against the king
was here obviously out of place. Tendentious works criticiz-
ing aff airs of state are rare, and most of them cannot be dated
exactly, precluding the opportunity to confi rm whether they
circulated at the time of the events they condemn or aft er-
ward and in support of a diff erent regime. Th e search for pro-
test and dissent thus requires one to read between the lines of
the offi cial propaganda or depends on the availability of inci-
dental explicit sources. One textual genre reveals how ancient
scholars thought about the topic: Mesopotamian handbooks
of divination dealing with the signifi cance of ominous signs
include among their predictions scenarios of doom for the
king and his dynasty.
Royal ideology is culturally embedded, and no single
profi le can do justice to the long history and vast areas of the
ancient Near Eastern world. All societies, however, seem to
have agreed on one thing: Kingship was established by the
gods, originally “descended from heaven,” according to the
Sumerian King List, and was therefore an essential requisite
for the proper working of society. (Th e Sumerian King List
is an ancient text listing the kings of Sumer, including for-
eign dynasties.) Whereas the institution of kingship was thus
never questioned, the human occupant of the throne cer-
tainly was if he failed to adhere to the traditional values of his872 resistance and dissent: The Middle East