SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
In some parts of sub-Saharan Africa tribes operated without
any predetermined rulers, with decisions reached by village
elders or groups aft er discussions. Th is seems clear from lin-
guistic evidence of non-Bantu African languages that lack
many hierarchical terms used to refer to hereditary rulers.
With much of the non-Bantu society operating in small vil-
lages, the decisions would be made by consensus, and the role
of the government was probably fairly limited and largely
confi ned to issues of defense and storage of grain for times of
drought or famine.
Certainly, the major role of the government has long
been to provide their people with protection from attack.
Th is function is oft en evident in the location of villages in
ancient Africa. One ancient settlement in the Hoggar region,
some 1,000 miles south of Algiers, was excavated in 1926 and
again in 1933. Essentially, the layout of the town was such
that as many houses as possible could be protected by forti-
fi ed walls. As it was in a relatively uninhabited region, it can
be assumed that large bands of marauders were major poten-
tial threats. Similarly in Tichit-Walata, in the Sudan, people
tended to live fortifi ed cliff -top villages, with little access to
much arable land, clearly showing that protection from at-
tack was extremely important. Both of these examples show
the origins of “government” as being essentially a way of or-
ganizing people for their own protection.
Th e Bantu tribes of southern Africa appear to have
operated through hereditary chiefs, a form of monarchi-
cal government that developed during the fi rst millennium
c.e. Th e system seems to have had chiefs of tribes who ruled
with the support of “headmen” of villages, who were com-
moners. Many of these chiefs may have had large numbers
of children, and they oft en assimilated with commoners so
that their children lost their royal status. Th is process left a
core royal family living in the tribal headquarters, with other
relatives dispersed through the population but owing their
absolute loyalty, through their ancestry, to the main chief. In
some ways this is similar to how many absolute monarchies
existed, and some dynasties in China used this “dispersal” of
members of their imperial houses as a way of controlling the
empire, ensuring that the government had a level of support
throughout its territory. It also served as a system that could
put some constraints on unscrupulous governors and vice-
roys, as there were people in many villages who had direct
access to rulers in periods of gubernatorial misrule.
Another aspect of the government structure of the Bantu
tribes is that they oft en lived in large communities and that
war was common between (and even probably within) tribes.
Th is meant that there was a clear need for a hierarchical so-
ciety. Most of the evidence for the Bantu tribes during this
period comes from a relatively small amount of archaeologi-
cal evidence, detailed linguistic studies of the diff erences be-
tween the tribes, and the nature of these tribes when the fi rst
Europeans arrived in southern Africa and recorded the de-
tails of their lifestyle. Th e developments of the early Iron Age
in Africa, such as the manufacture of iron arrowheads, were
as much for protection and off ense as for hunting.
In the course of archaeological work the remains of large
structures are oft en unearthed. Th e s e a p p e a r t o h a v e b e e n s t o r -
age centers for grain or other crops in anticipation of times of
hardship, and the size of these stockpiles shows that the task
of gathering the grain or other foodstuff s was clearly a gov-
ernment responsibility rather than private hoarding. In East
Africa large numbers of sites of villages have been excavated
by archaeologists, and they tend to have larger huts, presum-
ably occupied by chiefs, and other buildings that would have
served as stores of grain, indicating at the least a community
store if not one maintained by the “government.”
None of the many surviving cave paintings in southern
Africa, in present-day Zimbabwe and South Africa, show any
kings, rulers, governors, or other type of governmental au-
thority, as is common in some imagery from elsewhere in the
ancient world. In West Africa the fi nding of large numbers
of statues at Nok has shown that a highly developed culture
fl ourished in modern-day Nigeria in the mid- to late fi rst mil-
lennium b.c.e. It was based on iron production, which was
developed from about 500 b.c.e. Th e many ornaments and
stone carvings from Nok, however, add little to the debate
about the type of government that existed in the area. Th e
legends of the Bantu tribes also show the increasing move
to a hierarchical government that more and more regulated
people’s lives. While many scholars suggest that the Bantu
people were illiterate, it is also possible that there was some
system of carving onto wood or records kept in a way that has
not survived.EGYPT
BY MARIAM F. AYAD
KINGSHIP IN EGYPT
At the top of the ancient Egyptian political, religious, and
administrative hierarchy was an absolute ruler: the king of
Upper and Lower Egypt. Th e king was the chief executive
offi cer of the state, the high priest, the chief justice, and the
commander in chief of the troops. Th ere is no Egyptian word
for king. Most oft en the king was politely referred to as “his
majesty.” From the time of the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Dynasties (1307–1070 b.c.e.) onward the phrase great house
(per-aa) referred to both the king and his residence. It is from
the Greek version of this name that the title “pharaoh” comes.
Th e king’s name, enclosed in the royal cartouche (an oval fi g-
ure designed for the purpose), was introduced by one of two
titles: “King of Upper and Lower Egypt” or “Son of Re,” refer-
ring to an Egyptian god.
As the living incarnation of Horus, the falcon god and
“ruler of the living,” the king was divine. In theory, the king’s
divinity enabled him to act as an intermediary between the
gods and humankind, whose main duties were to appeasegovernment organization: Egypt 511