The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt

by Toby Wilkinson

  I had the river mouth prepared like a strong wall, with warships, troop carriers, and merchant vessels. They were all crewed from bow to stern with brave soldiers, fully armed. The infantry comprised every Egyptian recruit. They were like lions roaring on the mountaintops.10

  In the eastern delta fortresses, the Egyptian army could only watch and wait. Their opponents were slow-moving, covering no more than ten miles a day, but what the Sea Peoples lacked in speed they more than made up for in weaponry and sheer numbers. Their proficiency in close combat fighting had already proved itself, time and again, against the chariot forces of the Near Eastern states. In little more than a generation, advances in military technology had changed the whole nature of warfare, and the great powers had failed to adapt. Egypt knew it had to do better, or go the same way. Merenptah’s victory at the Battle of Perirer had shown that it was possible to defeat the Sea Peoples’ tactics, if the Egyptians only maintained rigid discipline and used their forces to maximum effect.

  The troops did not have to wait long to put the theory into practice. As the dust cloud on the horizon grew in intensity, the enemy came into view—a sheer wall of people, hundreds deep, moving inexorably toward the Egyptian border. The moment of truth had arrived.

  The documentary sources are strangely silent on the details of the land battle, recording only the bald fact that the invasion was defeated. Perhaps the Egyptian losses were simply too heavy to acknowledge publicly; certainly, the effort involved in repelling the invaders was stupendous. By contrast, the naval battle off the Mediterranean coast seems to have gone Egypt’s way from the start, and provided a much more fitting subject for the official war record. The Sea Peoples’ armada, comprising troop carriers rather than warships, had no long-range weapons to pitch against the Egyptian archers on the shore. The pharaoh’s generals knew this was their trump card, and realized that if they could only force the enemy inshore, within range, but prevent any landings, victory might be possible. But if just a single troopship managed to break through and disembark its warriors on Egyptian soil, then the tide might turn very quickly.

  The Sea Peoples WERNER FORMAN ARCHIVE

  The great flotilla of strange craft got within sight of the shore, great sailing vessels without oars, their prows and sterns carved to resemble the heads of monstrous birds. On board, the enemy warriors looked equally fearsome with their reed helmets and round shields. The Egyptians saw, among the massed ranks of Peleset, Tjeker, Denyen, and Weshesh, a more recognizable opponent—the ubiquitous and treacherous Sherden, with their distinctive horned helmets. Although they had been protectors of Ramesses II at Kadesh, the Sherden were now fighting against the forces of another Ramesses.

  As planned, the Egyptian navy maneuvered to force the enemy inshore, right into the Nile mouth. If the invaders thought things were going their way, they were sorely mistaken. No sooner were they within a few hundred yards of the shore than the Egyptian archers opened fire, sending a hail of arrows raining down on the attackers’ heads. With the troops on board falling like flies, the commanders of the Sea Peoples’ ships may have tried to make for open water again, but they found themselves hemmed in by the Egyptian navy. A great sea battle ensued, in which the enemy craft were systematically capsized, and hundreds of Sea Peoples drowned. By the end of the day, the Egyptians had triumphed; their opponents were either dead or captured. Alone among the great powers of the Near East, Egypt had repelled the Sea Peoples and preserved its independence.

  Ramesses III had spared his country “the worst disaster in ancient history,”11 but his victory on the landing grounds of the delta would prove to be the swan song of the New Kingdom. The world was suddenly full of uncertainty; and the accustomed ways of doing things, ways that had served the Egyptians well for centuries, would be found wanting.

  OUT OF JOINT

  AFTER THE BRUISING ENCOUNTER WITH THE SEA PEOPLES, THE IMMEDIATE reaction of the Egyptian government was to bury its head in the sand and carry on as if nothing had changed. Tradition dictated that a great military victory demanded a monumental commemoration, so that is exactly what the king commissioned. Just as Ramesses II had used the Ramesseum to celebrate his (questionable) victory at Kadesh, so Ramesses III turned his own mortuary temple—closely modeled on his predecessor’s—into a war memorial. In the “Mansion of Millions of Years of King Ramesses, United with Eternity in the Estate of Amun” (known today as Medinet Habu), the entire northern wall of the temple was carved with a vast tableau depicting the land and sea battles against the Sea Peoples. So Egypt’s last great royal monument commemorated the country’s last great military victory.

  Buoyed up by the completion of so grand an edifice, in 1172, Ramesses III ordered the nationwide temple inspection that he had originally planned a decade earlier. After ten years of defending Egypt’s borders—not only against the Sea Peoples, but against two attempted Libyan invasions as well—he and his administration finally felt confident enough about national security to turn their attention to the other abiding duty of kingship, honoring the gods. Headed by the chief archivist of the royal treasury (a man with an eye for detail and an interest in historic monuments), the commission started its tour of inspection at Abu, in Egypt’s southernmost province, and worked its way northward, slowly but methodically. Every temple in the land was examined with the full panoply of ancient Egyptian bureaucracy. Granaries were audited to assess the extent of temple wealth and the balance of the national grain reserves; buildings were checked for their state of repair; rituals were examined to ensure they were being carried out correctly; and corrupt practices were systematically exposed and rooted out. By the end of the exercise, the king had at his disposal perhaps the most comprehensive survey of the country’s religious infrastructure in its long history.

  Based upon the commission’s findings, Ramesses ordered an extensive program of reorganization, reconstruction, and refurbishment. The ancient temple of Seth at Nubt was restored and a new shrine built alongside it in the deity’s honor. The barque shrine at Tod, crafted in the Eighteenth Dynasty, was restored to its former glory, and further beautifying works were carried out at nearby Luxor Temple. At Ipetsut, the country’s greatest sacred complex, the king commissioned a new way station and a temple to the god Khonsu. All in all, it was a religious revival, a renaissance of royal patronage to equal the achievements of Ramesses II’s reign. Explicitly or implicitly, Ramesses III was trying to turn back the clock and convince Egypt that the glory days of the New Kingdom were still at hand.

  As well as restoring the temples’ physical fabric, the king also enlarged their endowments of land and personnel. Determined to be recognized and remembered as a great benefactor, he ordered three expeditions to distant lands in a single year (1167), expressly to bring back exotic gifts for the temple treasuries. The first expedition was to the turquoise mines of the Sinai. The second had as its goal the copper mines of Edom. These lay at a place called Timna, about twenty miles north of Eilat, in a desert hollow surrounded by hills. The copper ores here had been exploited by Egypt since the reign of Ramesses II, but pharaonic power had waned in the intervening decades, and the Edomites had reasserted their control. So, before he could send in his miners, Ramesses III had to launch a military campaign to pacify Edom. Mission accomplished: copper extraction was restarted, and at the conclusion of the expedition, the newly smelted ingots were presented to the king at the palace balcony in Per-Ramesses. The third foreign expedition was perhaps the most ambitious of all—a two-month journey to Punt and back, to obtain myrrh and incense for use in temple rituals. It was the first major trading mission to Punt since the reign of Hatshepsut three centuries before, and it was spectacularly successful. The Egyptians returned with their precious commodities, and also with the ingredients for domestic myrrh production: fifteen cuttings from myrrh trees and one hundred seeds.

  In his first two decades on the throne, Ramesses III had repelled invasions, restored Egypt’s temples, and reestablished national pride.
The court now looked forward to the king’s thirty-year jubilee, determined to stage a celebration worthy of so glorious a monarch. There would be no stinting, no corners cut. Only the most lavish ceremonies would do.

  It was a fateful decision. Beneath the pomp and circumstance, the Egyptian state had been seriously weakened by its exertions. The military losses of 1179 were still keenly felt. Foreign trade with the Near East had never fully recovered from the Sea Peoples’ orgy of destruction. The temples’ coffers might be full of copper and myrrh, but their supplies of grain—the staple of the Egyptian economy—were gravely depleted. Against such a background, the jubilee preparations would prove a serious drain on resources.

  The cracks started to appear in 1159, two years before the jubilee. Of all the state’s employees, the most important—and usually the most favored—were the men who worked on the excavation and decoration of the royal tomb. Living with their families in the gated community of the Place of Truth, they had grown used to enjoying better than average working conditions, and better than average remuneration. So, when the payment of their monthly wages (which also included their food rations) was eight days late, then twenty days late, it was clear something was badly wrong. Their scribe and shop steward, Amennakht, went at once to the mortuary temple of Horemheb to remonstrate with local officials. Eventually, he persuaded them to hand over forty-six sacks of corn to distribute to the workers as interim rations. But that was only the start of it.

  The following year, as the apparatus of government became increasingly preoccupied with the impending jubilee, the system of paying the necropolis workers broke down altogether, prompting the earliest recorded strikes in history. The crisis erupted just three months before the jubilee was due to begin. Having waited eighteen days beyond their payday and with still no sign of their wages, the workers decided to withdraw their labor. Perhaps then the state would sit up and take notice. Shouting “We’re hungry,”12 they marched en masse from their village and temporarily invaded the sacred enclosure surrounding Ramesses III’s mortuary temple. They then set off for the mortuary temple of Thutmose III, just behind the Ramesseum, and staged a sit-in. They weren’t going anyhere until their grievances were heard. The beleaguered government officials dispatched from the Ramesseum to reason with the strikers had to listen to their litany of protests, but without the authority to remedy the situation. Only at nightfall did the workers return to their village. Their protest had lasted the whole day. The only gesture by the state was a derisory delivery of pastries. If they have no bread, let them eat cake.

  The next morning, with no resolution of the dispute and no wages in sight, the men stepped up their action, installing themselves at the southern gate of the Ramesseum, Thebes’s principal storehouse of grain. This time they refused to return to their village at dusk, instead spending the night in uproarious demonstration. At dawn, a few plucky souls broke into the temple itself, hoping to persuade the authorities to give them their dues. The crisis was getting out of hand. Panicked by the angry workers in their midst, the temple administrators called the chief of police, Montumes, who ordered the men to leave immediately. They refused. Unable or unwilling to assert his authority, Montumes was forced to withdraw, tail between his legs, to consult his boss, the mayor of Thebes. When he returned some hours later, he found the workers deep in negotiations with the priests of the Ramesseum and the local government secretary of western Thebes. The men’s demands were clear:

  “We have come here out of hunger and thirst. There is no more clothing, no more oil, no more fish, no more vegetables. Send [word] to the pharaoh, our good lord, and send [word] to the vizier, our boss!”13

  Mention of the vizier and the pharaoh clearly unsettled the Theban authorities. If the situation escalated into a national crisis, they knew their jobs—and necks—would be on the line. So, after several more hours of talking, they capitulated and gave the strikers their overdue rations from the previous month. It helped to diffuse the immediate tension, but the underlying problem had still not been addressed. It was now nearly halfway through the new month, with no sign of the next installment of wages.

  On day four of the dispute, news reached the workers that the mayor of Thebes had crossed over to the west bank with more provisions. The chief of police pleaded with them to go with their wives and children to the nearby mortuary temple of Seti I, to await the mayor’s arrival. But the strikers were not so easily fobbed off. They had heard such promises before, and had learned not to trust the weasel words of officials. Indeed, it took another four days of protests and marches—including one at night, the men’s flaming torches lighting up the sky—to secure the long-overdue rations.

  Still the state apparatus proved incapable of carrying out its basic duties. Two weeks after the first series of disputes, the necropolis workers went on strike again, this time taking their protest to the control point leading to the Valley of the Kings. The authorities were beginning to be seriously shaken by these public demonstrations of disobedience, and put pressure on the community leaders to escort the strikers back to their village. Faced with forcible removal, one of the workmen threatened to damage a royal tomb, regardless of the consequences. The mood was turning ugly.

  The showdown between workers and state authorities culminated just two months before the start of the jubilee year. Striking for a fourth time, the men marched once more from their village, dismissing the shouted pleadings of their superiors with determined obstinacy: “We won’t come back. Tell that to your bosses!”14 This time, they made it clear that their grievances were not just about overdue rations but about the broader failings of the administration:

  “We have gone [on strike], not from hunger but [because] we have a serious accusation to make: bad things have been done in this place of Pharaoh.”15

  For authorities used to a subservient populace, this was dangerous talk indeed. Yet still the ostrich mentality prevailed at the heart of government. A few weeks later, the vizier himself came to Thebes—not to placate the striking workers but to collect cult statues for the imminent jubilee celebrations. He paid only a fleeting visit to the west bank and incensed the workers with a small handout from his security chief—provoking yet more demonstrations.

  When the jubilee arrived, the authorities’ indifference was temporarily put aside in the interests of national unity. Decorum and basic self-interest demanded that the king’s big year should pass off without major incident, so the workers were paid on time and in full. But no sooner had the jubilee passed than the system broke down once more, prompting further, regular strike action. The heart of government was rotten, and the relationship between the state and its workers never fully recovered. Despite the outward show, Egypt’s economic vitality and political stability were in serious decline.

  TREASON AND PLOT

  IN THE PRIVATE ROOMS ABOVE THE GATEWAY OF HIS MORTUARY TEMPLE, delicate reliefs show Ramesses III in intimate poses with various unnamed women in his household. The king relaxes in a comfortable armchair and plays board games with his youthful companions. They offer him fruit and whisper sweet nothings in the royal ear: “Here’s to you, Ses!”16 The royal harem was a venerable Egyptian institution, providing not just a supply of concubines for the king but also residential facilities and gainful employment for all his female relatives. The harem palace had its own landholdings, its own workshops, and its own administration. It was effectively a parallel court, and such a setup was not without its dangers.

  As far back as the Old Kingdom, the harem had been a hotbed of plots. There was something about the claustrophobic atmosphere that fed the bitter jealousies and personal rivalries of the king’s many wives. With little to occupy their minds besides weaving and idle pleasures, the more ambitious concubines nurtured resentments, angry at the lowly status of their offspring and wondering how they might improve their own and their children’s fortunes. When the pharaoh was a strong and successful leader, such murmurings fell away, but when things were going badly in
the country at large, the allure of sedition was more tempting.

  In 1157, when the temporary euphoria of Ramesses III’s jubilee had died away, the gathering storm clouds were clear for all to see. The king was in failing health and Egypt was in a downward spiral. Desperate times seemed to call for desperate remedies. In the seclusion of the harem palace, one of the king’s secondary wives, the lady Tiy, decided to take matters into her own hands. She revealed her treacherous plan to the director of the harem and his scribe. Her intention was to remove the heir apparent, Prince Ramesses, and install her own son, Pentaweret, on the throne. Before long, the conspiracy had drawn in many more employees of the harem palace. Even members of the king’s inner circle joined the plotters. With the head of the treasury and the royal chamberlain involved, Ramesses III and his heir were in grave danger.

  The plan was both complex and devious. While the ringleaders pursued the main objective (the assassination of Ramesses III and the removal of his designated heir), the other harem women would actively spread sedition among their relatives beyond the palace gates, so as to “agitate the people and incite conflict, in order to foment rebellion against their lord.”17 One of the women had written to her brother, who was a commander of Nubian troops, to win his support. A mass mutiny among the ranks of the army, combined with a revolution in the countryside, would surely distract and weaken the authorities. Finally, to give their plot the best chance of success, the conspirators turned to darker means. They enlisted the help of professional magicians, made wax effigies of their opponents, and composed spells designed to paralyze the harem guards. After weeks of careful planning, everything was in place. The stage was set for regicide and revolution.