)1

i

The Study of the Ancienr Near Easrin the Twenty-First Century

The william Foxwell Albright centennial conference

edired by

Jennoro S. Coopen and GIENN M. Scswnnrz

Winona Lake, IndianaEISENBRAUNS

1996

,ffi I 7ltAR p97

Contex tualizing Egyptian Representationsof Sociefy and Ethniciry

JoHN BarNps

On Ancient Near Eastern ldeology qiil SocietyThe study of ideologyl in the Ancient Near Easr has made progress in its appli-

cation to numerous categories of source material, and it has gradually .o,.,. a b.accepted that few ancient sources are free from ideological bias and overrones.2 Theprincipal advances in this area have .o-. in the analysis of ancienc sourccs rhat weredesigned explicitly ro persuade, whether they be royal inscriptions, works of art, orletters and correspondence. Mario Liverani3 in particular has clarified remarkablyAuthot's flore: This Paper was written for a session on "Ideology, propaganda and National Conscious-ness" and is concemed with these topics in the order named. The last main section, on ethnicity andrelated questions, studies only one aspect of its general theme but in rather more detail than the oth-ers' Because of the vast scope of the subject matter, my trearmenr of each ropic is.quite limited andinevitably focused on elite, high-cultural materials.

The Albright Centenniai Conference, which broughr together specialists in various areas anddisciplines, itself exemplified important points I wish to m"ke. t am very grateful indeed to JerryCooper for the invitation to attend and to him and Glenn Schwartz fo, -riing rhe evenr ,u.h

" ,,r.-

cess' I should also like to thank Christopher Eyre, Richard Parkinson, and.Anrhony Leahy for com-nlenting on drafts and David o'Connor and Antonio Loprieno for making several rvorks available tome' This paper was written before I had access to Mario Liverani's preltige and irrerest (see n. 3),which is relevant as a whole to the topics I discuss. I have added ,orn. ..d..rr.es to this importantwork, but I have not been able ro presenr a susrained dialogue with it.

Abbreviations are generally those of rhe Lexikon der Agyptologie; refcrences are selective. Dates fol-low Rolf Krauss' Sotfrfu- und Monddaten: Studien zur astronomisclrcn ttnd teehrtischen Chronologie Alt-agyptens (HAB 20; Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 19g5).

1. I cannot present definitions for ideology rnd propaganda here; my usages are inrended to beconventional.

2. In response to a question posed during the conference, I should make clear that the archaeo-logical record is biased like the textual and artistic but ofren in differenr ways. If it were nor biased, itwould also be unrevealing for the study of ancient civilizations.

3. For example, M. Liverani, Three Amarna Essays (tranr Matthew L. Jaffe; Sources and Mono-graphs on the Ancient Near East 1/5; Malibu, Calif.: Undena,1979);..Rib_Adda, giusto sofferente,,,Altorientalisthe Forschrlngen 1 (1974) 175-205; contribudon to I canali tlella propaganda nel mondo antico(ed. Marta Sordi; Vita e Pensiero; Milan: Universiti Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 1976) 22-26; prestigeand Interest: lnternational Relations in the Near East ca. 1600-1100 o.c. (History of the Ancient NelrEast/Studies 1; Padua: Sargon, 1990).

339

t3.+0 John Baines

the correspondence and treaties betweerr rulers of different ancient Near Easternculrures, as well as conrriburingl much ro understanding the ideorogy of individualancient polities' He has shown that, despire its constituiive role in ancienr interna_tional relations, the correspondence cannot be read as presenting rhe realiry;i;;;.relations in any straightforwarcl way- He has d.-onr,."i.o"ri"r',n. ideological modesof argument and expectations of writers and readers led them to misunderstand oneanother: ideology was as much a sr.rbject of negotiati." ;;; talking past rhe otherside in the ancient Near East as in any other period or place. A co'rparably decisiveclarification has come fronr Peter Machinist,a who has explored interrelations be-tween Assyrian royal propaganda and rhe image of Assyria in the Hebrew Bible.For single curtures, rittre anarysis has cha'ged views as decirivery ;;l;.;;.r,and the reasons for this slower progress are not hard to see. Single cultures displaytheir diversiry less than competing ones. Generations of scholars rvere concernedwith reconstructing the outlines of history-dynasties, synchronisnr, "l;A;;;;regions, and so forth-and only graduaily turned to the in"tyri, o[ the soLrrces asdocunrents and as representatives of genres. An-rong the earriest Egyptological con_tributions in this area was Alfred Hermann,s study of a genre of roval inscriptionthat he termed the'royal story'(Korrigstroveile)-5 subrequJnr work,'orably by ErikHornung,r'applied corrrparabre methods to the presen,rrion of thc *r" *'u*ro"*,king perforr'ed his office, de'ronsrraring thar the ,.;;;;;;

.;;;r; ;;:ffi;subordinate to the exigencies oF a role in maintaining the .or',ror.7 A vital aspectof these studies has been, the discovery that cosmology played a cenrral part in theEgyptian enactmenr and presentadon of historical .u.rro'"ni in the configuration ofthe rnonu'rentar space wirhin which the king,s ,..,l. ;;;';"ri,r.o. Trris has beenstudied especially by David O'Connor.s

Examples such as these illustrate two approaches that have proved fruitful andhave so far yielded only a small part of their potencial: rhe integration of material

-l' ll Machinist' "Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah,',J.{os 103 (19ti3) 7rg_375. A. Hernrann, Dic iig-yptisclrc Kdni.gsnovellc (LAS 1{); Gliickstadt: Augnstin, l93ti). No satiSfac_torv Enqlish equivalent fbr his cerrn has been found.6' For exanrple' E' Hornung, ceschichte als Fcst: zuei vortriige zum cesclilclttsbiltt derfrrihen Mensch-leir (Libelli 246; l)annstadr: wissenschaftliche Buchgesert.r,"n,'rqeaj;Lortr"a in his ce,sr der pha-raonenzeit (Zurich: Arremrs, .l99g) r47-63; Engrish:,rcrea.into Intage: ir*ri;;'

^nr,ent Egyptian Thought(trans' E' Bredeck; New York: Timken, tggz) i+l-ocridem, "politisch.'pl.n,.ng und Realitit im altenAgypten," Saeculunr 22 (197'I) 4g-5g; Jan Arr-r.,r,, ..politik zwischen niru"t ,r,'a Ol;;;';;r.d;politischen- Handelns im pharaonischeir Agypten," 'saecurnm35 (19g4) g7-L14.7' Philippe Derchain.has exemplified ihis point cogently, while remarking rhat the image of rheking he described existed in its pu.est form exclusively in the tempre sanctuaries of the Greco-Romanperiod: "Le r6le du roi d'Egypte dans le maintien d-e l'ordre cosmique,', Le pouuoir er Ie saeri,by Lucde Heusch et al' (Annales du centre d'Etude des Religions l; Brussells: Univlrsit6 Libre de Bruxelles,Insriut de Sociologie, 1962) 61_73. '+eJJe!J' vr'vs

8' For example, D' o'connor, "Beloved of Maat, the Horizon of Re: The Roval palace in NewKingdom Egypr," in Ancient Egyptian Kingship (ed. David o,connor ""0 o""r#Ti;.'#;:i;;

contextualizing Egyptian Representations of society and Ethnicity 341

within a broad context, whether this is a sociery or complex of societies, or a the-oretical context, model, or comparative schema; and the intensified analysis ofsources as Sources-studies of genre and discourse. The former is holistic, bothwithin Near Eastern studies and in the broader specrrum of scholarly disciplines.The latter, which is complementary; addresses detailed evidence while drawing oncomparable methods and applying them to different rypes of source material. Bothneed to cross boundaries between disciplines, and in this conrext the ancient NearEast has a role in contributing to broader theory as well as utilizing it.

Another implication of Liverani's work is that to interpret an ideology is not rointerpret a realiry but to model a construction of realiry. Ideologies and realities areplural. The sophisticated materials that presented ancienr ideology created a distancefrom the realities to which they related. There are different ideologies, boch withina sociery and between societies. 'While those of different societies are evidenr, rhevarying ideologies of single societies tend to be masked by the elite dominance ofthe more-or-less public record, which is what is chiefly available for study.

Gctrre arrd Source

The study of genre and of the nature of source material continues to conrributecrucially to the understanding of ideology and is an akernarive to focusing directlyon ideological questions. The implications of this approach go beyond the sourcesthenlselves to the societies that created them. A basic premise is that the group forwhom the ancient documents, monuments, and works of art were produced wassmall and often not well integrated into the sociery. In many societies (not includingEgypt until quite late periods), rulers spoke a different language from the ruled. Theuses to which writing was put were specialized;e ancient written genres had theirown organization and character, which must bc comprehended. Expansion in thesubject matter and range of use of representational art and writing was gradual. Itcannot be taken for granted that any genre should appear in one culture simply be-cause it occurs in many others. Interpretations need to be modeled in the social andoral contexts in which the material originally belonged, in addition to rhe require-ments to site that material within genres. Although many ancient sources presentthemselves to us as unique, few will have been unique in antiquiry.

Leiden: Brill, 1995) 263-300; and idem, "Mirror of the Cosmos: The Palace of Merneptah," FragmentsoJ a Shattered Wsage: The Proteetlings of the International Symposirun on. Ramcsses the Crear (ed. EdwardBleiberg and Rita Freed; Monographs of the Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology 1; Memphis:Menrphis State (Jniversity, 1991 [1993]) 167-98. O'Connor is preparing a book entirled City and Cos-mos in Ancient Egypt.

9. For one aspecr, see John Baines, "An Abydos List of Gods and an old Kingdom use of'lexts," Pyramid Stutlies and Other Essays Presented to I. E. S. Edwards (ed. John Baines et al.; Occa-sional Publications 7; London: Egypt Exploration Sociery 1988) 124-33.

342 John Baines

There is an interplay berween approaches that address, on the one hand, genreand the s,",.,s of preserved sources in ancient society and, on the other hand, con_clusions that can be reached by identifyirrg irrconrirtencies and contradi.;;* i;ideology' Aspects of ideology that lie at the margins of central concerns may pointto significant anomafies and show what the ,oor.., ignore. As is onry too weilknown, things are ofren ignored by official media pr..irfly because they are at onceimportant and unwelcome. on another level, new genres sometimes incorporateforms that seem to fit rather poorly with those which existed hitherto. Indicationsof this soft may show that there was concern with a topic rhat is otherwise littleknown; such a concern may have long preceded its registration in available sources.Although quesrions of genre and of rhe record,s consistency h;;;-i;;;;..;identified, they have nor been sufiiciently exproited. Too ofren, scholars havetended to accept what the ancient sources ,"y

"l-or, at face value and to becomechampions of ancient rulen and the social order that served th.--rrth;; lil;those who claim to be reincarnations of peopre in antiquiry who were mostlykings and queens in their previous existences. For a fuller comprehension of thesocial order and of the spread of its varues, it is necessary ,, ;";ot;;.;,";;;:charitable approaches to the rulers with more charitable app.oaches to the ruledand to those whom the rulers tended to ignore and omit from the pubric record.

Modeling Ancient sources and the societies That protluced ThemA difficulry encountered in compensating for limitations of the evidence is rharof working against the grain of the sources *a g"p, among them in order to inves_tigate whether alternative ideologies

-... pr.r.rrr within single societies. It is moredifficult stiu to study the ideologies-o, .rr., gain direct i,oidence of the exist_snss-ef sectors of society that were not ,ho-o on the official *""r-.",r,'rn.

creation of which often came close to monopolizing a state,s or a peopre,s resources.Nowhere is this difficulry more acute than in Egypt, where ;.'";;;;;r;;_work, the interesrs of scholars and of the public,

"rrait. topography of the land itselfcombine to make the discovery of new materiar rare and "o.r...r,

with these ques_tions often slight' Relevant evidence is so sparse that advances are as likely to. comefrom new methods of anaryztngthe implications of the dominant ideorogy as fromthe identificacion of new sources.This is nor to deny the significance of archaeology for these questions. Excava_tion has brought fundamental discoveries, such as the presence of the palestinianMiddle Bronze Age culture in the Egyptian Delta in the late Middle Kingdom(ca. 1800-1600 n.c.E.). "Hyksos" rulers late in the period commissioned wallpaintings in a Minoan or generic east-Medirerranean style for a public building. 1010' Known principally from excavations directed by Manfred Bietak at Tell el-Dabca; see, for e-x_ample' his "Avaris and Piramesse: Archaeological Explorarions in rhe Eastern Nile Delta,,, proceedingsof the Bitish Aademy 65 (1979) 225-90; ideri, ,.tgypt and canaan during the Middre Bronze Age,,,

Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity 343

But archaeological fieldwork in itself contributes only indirectly to the interpreta-tion of ideology, into which such an advance needs to be integrated; the fact thatthe discovery occasioned surprise points to overconfidence in comprehension ofideology and of how it relates to "realiry." This episode illustrates how little isknown of ancient societies outside the administrative and cultural elite, which mayhave extended to five percent of people; for many periods even the elite is littleknown. llGaps in evidence are often as significant as, or more significant than,what is preserved. If they are not taken into account, models based on fragmentaryevidence, which may be adequate for homogeneous small-scale societies, can beseriously misleading for large and complex ones. 12 While it may prove almost im-possible to relate the accessible ideology of the elite to the broader sociery it isnecessary to bear constantly in mind that ideology may not be representative of acomplete society's views and that in some way it will have been created against thebackground of a much larger social group whose belieG are nearly inaccessible.

Even at less than five percent of the population, the ruling elite in Egypt num-bered ten thousand or more. Interpretive chariry has tended to see these people asa homogeneous group who were concerned to govern effectively and to sustainthe social order. Recruitment is said to have been through merit not birth and, inprinciple, open. This picture would flatter the most enlightened democracy. Whilethere was some meritocracy and its virtues were often claimed, the claim is notlikely to be correct in any simple sense. Rather, it is an ideological fiction. Therewere hierarchies of knowledge and access to religious and other privileges bothwithin and probably outside the elite.r3 These hierarchies may have been the mostovert and acceptable among many manifestations of competition and exclusion inthe exercise and control of power. Less restricted uses of power included the van-dalization of monuments of people's enemies or of those who fell into disfavor; thiswas common in all periods. An improved model of the group who produced thesources, incorporating these hierarchies and exclursions, emphasizes how little of

B,{SOR 281 (1991) 27-72. For the wall paintings, see, for example, M. Bietak et al., "Neue Grabtrngsergebnisse aus Tell el-Debce und'Ezbet Hilmi im ostlichen Nildeltr (1989-199 l)," Agypten undLevante 4 (1994) 9-80, with comments by Dominique Collon (pp. 81-88) and Nann6 Marinatos(89-93). See also W. V. Davies and Louise Schofield, eds-, Egypt, the Aegean, antl the Levant: Intercon-ncctions in the Second Millennium ac (London: British Museum, 1995).

11. This figure multiplies one percent, as a rough proportion of the literate (John Baines andC. J. Eyre, "Four Notes on Literacy," CM 61 [1,9831 61,-96), by a small factor for their family mem-ben. Since many literate, as subordinate scribes, hardly belonged to the ruling group, the calculationprobably overestimates the group's size, while the multiplier may allow too tnuch for the part playedby family members in political life.

12. A corollary of the marginal status of evidence for the general constitution of ancient societieshas been that it attracts those who work on the margin of the discipline and often idenrify issues thathave eluded the more conventional.

13. See John Baines, "Restricted Knowledge, Hierarchy and Decorum: Modern Perceptions andAncient Institurions,",l,4 RCE 27 (1990) l-23; Kjell Rydstr

344 John Baines

themselves they showed to the world and to us- 1a This reserve relates also to thequestion of propaganda (below, pp. 353-60). It should nor be assumed that per_suasion would occur in an open context, where evidence for it is easily found;most of it will have been oral.

'Qaps in evidence can best be identified in relation ro strucrures and models.These are devised on the basis of analogies and generalizations that may precededetailed investigation. Approaches based on theoretical construcrs have only gradu-ally gained acceprance in ancient Near Easterr, ,.rrot.rJio.- tn.r, increased cur_rency has led to major advances in understanding and will surely lead to more.Models are important in overcoming uncontrolled interpretation, especially inhistorical reconstruction. Most of what happened in ancieni Near Eastern historycan never be known or even usefully made the object of specularion (the ,"-.

"p_plies' for example, to classical Greece). The use of "

th.o..tical framework avoidsthe pitfalls of arguing from guesses abour morivarions and other such imponder_ables. Both frameworks and openness to comparative approaches alow interpreta_tions to be tested and more generally controlled.

scholars also need to exploit as much evidence as possible in relation to anyproblem. often, whole categories have been omitted, the most striking amongthese being art' Architecture and representational art were fundamental in ancientNear Eastern civilizations, perhaps most of all for Egypt. In their original contexrs,Egyptian historical inscriptions are almosr all integratei i.rro works of art, often ina subordinate position. The works of art were i' t.r.., set in an architectural con_text that has roo often been ignored in interpretation. t5

works of art and architecture obey rules of decorum that arso probably in_formed ceremonial life and the conducr of king and elite, ror*ing an overarchingframework within which individual elements acquired and presenred meaning.16Decorum, and the conventions of a bureaucratic society centered on royalry formeda background that could be taken for granted in composing much of the artisticand literary record. Apart from the subordination of histo.y"to cosmic and literaryimperatives, the context of art and decorum relativized the slgnificance of individ-ual events by setting the work, created for the gods, the king, and posteriry over

14' Compare wolfgang Helck, Zur verwaltung des Mittleren und Neuen Rekhes (pA 3; Leiden:Brill' 1958) 534-47' His later works, such es Pofitlche cegensiitze i^ ottrn igyptnr (HAB 23; Hildes-heim: Gentenberg, 1987), present these issues less well.15' For these anistic aspects' see John Baines, "on the Status and purposes of Ancient EgyptianArt," Cambndge ArchaeologiealJournal 4 (lgg4) 67_94.16. on decorum, see Baines, "Restricted Knowledge"; idem, Fecundity Figures: Egyptian per-sonifieation and the lconorogy of a cenre (warminster: Aris * lhillips,1,ggr 27j405; see also, quite in_dependent but closely congruent' Jorgen Podemann Ssrensen, "Divine Access: The so-calledDemocratization of Egyptian Funerary Lit.r",.r.. as a Socio-cultural process,,, Tlrc Religion oJ the An-cient Egyptians: Cognititte luyt:!": and popular Expression (ed. Gertie f"$""a, Borex 20; Uppsala:Almquist & Wiksell, lg1g) l}g-25

Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity 34s

vt1*."'$ *',s gr"''.F:,.\. "

f_t l

""- :]li'

!: .f\l,,.1

-

'l

Figure 1. Wall with the gifts of Thutmose III to Amon-Re and, in the base area, rhe be-ginning of his annal inscription. Rephotographed from Gusrave Jequier, Les temples mem-phites et thibains, des origines i la XVIile dynastie (LArchitecture er la Ddcoration dansI'Ancienne Egypte 1; Paris: Albert Moranc6, 1920) pl. 47. context: pM II, zded.,97 (zs2).

and above the single occasion that might have prompted its consrruction. In thisperspective, it may be surprising how many individual evenrs of the immediate pastthese works of art commemorated and to what degree they were "objective" indoing so. In comparison, 'Western artistic traditions are generally much less con-cerned with recording present achievements.

Context: New Kingdom Historical Records

An instance of the significance of decorum, illustrating both the possibilities ofinterpretation and its limits, is the inscription containing the annals of Thutmoserrr (1479-1425 n.c.n.) in the temple of Amon-Re at Karnak (fig. 1).17 The rext is

17. Text: Kurt sethe, urk. rY:3 (1907) 645-756; context: pM II (2d ed; 1.972) 97-98; additionalphotograph of context: R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Les temples de Karnak (Paris: Dervry, 1982)vol. 2, pl. 147l. pa*iaI translation: Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings(3 vols.; Berkeley: Universiry of California Press, 1973-80) 2.29-35.

346John Baines

among the most important from the New Kingdom, but it has hardly been srudiedin relation ro its inscriprionar conrext. The ;;il;il;';;o in the base area ofthe north walr by rhe barque shrine in the heait of ,i.,.-pr.. The main registersabove conrain a figure of the king presendng to the god .""'"r"r.a images of a vastrange of gifts of temple furnishings, including ir.-r"o. the ,."1. of obelisks.The base area in inner room, of tempre, of ,hr, period is mostry uninscribed-The placement of this inscription can be interpreted in t*o ways. First, if the rosrbarque shrine beside th. t.*t r.r.mbled i,, predecesror, d..orrted under Hatshepsut(ca' 1473-145g CI-c.r.), it will have had oft..irrg u."r.., i., its base area, above aniche-facade plinth pattern commonly found o., ,r"o, bases. ls This reatment com_presses a maximum meaning in a single context, so that the barque shrine and thesurroundjng room almost constitute f t.-pl. -*ithin a temple. Second, the place_ment both declares the great significance of the campaigns recorded in the annalsand relegates them to a suitably subordinate p"rirl;;'i;?;;;;." * Amon_Re andthe king's gifts to him' le The position was not an innovation. Thutmose followedHatshepsut, for whom a very long text was carved both near the sorar sanctuary ofher morruary tempre at Deir el--Bahri and in the lower regrsters on her barqueshrine, which he demorished.20 Hatshepsur,s poorry p..r.rr.l text legitimized herusurpation of power by referenc. 'ro

.r.r-.ro.r, orr.r., (or ..marvels,,) Amon-Rehad granted to her; they may have been as vital to her reign_if in a differentway-as Thutmose's text was to his. Tlthe king's rerationship to rhe sods: he d'.il:J;r.I ;lf,l.T:j,: 1:1.'",:rif he is a femare u,u,p.,, .,,ai* ,.;;r;l;;;; iil#i::,ffi_ l;JTilTl',his successful rule, in this case his ."-p"igrrr, back to the god who vouchsaGd thevictories..Moreover, the positioni.rg of the texts presents royar achievements as ailffi$:: ?: tff,r^,.

_.1;::" giving rhem additio,,"r l,"r,,. whle pracing

This last point relates to a further consideration: in the base area, the texts couldin theory be read. So .the pracemenr might h.tp ro ;;;a"; message and hencehave significance for the texts' possibre "rr"ro, ;, ;r;;;d'., a signrficance re_affirmed by their central rocatio'in the temple. n.rt to r-t"t. th. macter thus is atonce to negare it: only ofticiants in temple rituals had access to the room wh.erethe inscriptions were carved, and few peopre could. read t i.r.*rrpnr; it would havetaken hours to read rhe text on the *"tt,

".ra a potentiar spectator wourd not havehad a powerful ramp and sufticient time next ro th. t.-pi.,, barque shrine, quite

18. Pierre Lacau et il., (Jne-chapelle d,Hatshepsout i Karnak(SAE; Cairo: IFAO, 1977_79) 69_92.19' This prominence of grfts to the god -; ;. compared with rhe amount of space in the an_nals taken up with enumerarions or uo"rylrr," fi'a" t3*.*.,

"r. ;;;i;;;Egyptian craftsmanship.20' Lacau etal''chapelled'Hatshepsout,szllii.Forthedatingof rtur*or.trejectionof Hat-shepsut' which is still not resolved, ,..'P.t.. t o.ir*. The Monuments of senenmtt: probrems in His-torical Methodol,ogy (London: Kegan paul International, lggg) 46_65.

Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity 347

apart from the fact that the later sections of Thutmose's inscription could only beread from a ladder. The texts can be termed propaganda only if a different contextcan be posited in which they, or knowledge of their existence, location and con-tent, were more widely disseminated. Such contexts are possible. The existence ofduplicates in a generally poor record suggests that many royal inscriptions may havebeen set up in duplicates in numerous temples,2l and although this disseminationwould not ensure that there was ready access to them, the process of inscriptionwould have resulted in relatively widespread awareness of their existence. Thereprobably also were public proclamations of the king's deeds. Like other texts, theannals exploit rhetorical devices which imply that such displays could have occurred.Some of these devices play on restricted knowledge, as when it is said that a full ac-count of some details of the siege of Megiddo exists on a leather roll in the templearchives.22 There need not be a close connection between the form in which theking's deeds were proclaimed and the textual record inscribed in the temple, buttheir content would have to be comparable.

Two other implications of the problem of audience are relevant here. First, al-though kings appeared publicly in procession and displayed their conquests andtheir relations with the gods,23 many of these displays must have been addressedchiefly to the ruling elite. As with so many aspects of Egyptian-and other-cul-tures, a message of these displays to the rest of sociery may have been that suchevents were too important for people so low-ranking as themselves to participate inchem. It may, then, be mistaken to search too hard for a centripetal, integratingfunction for these texts and for the broader persuasion they could have exerted.

The second point, which is more important, leads back to the status of art. Theinscription and its placement on the wall form part of an artistic and religiouswhole whose legitimizing implications are to a great extent internal. The meaningof these immensely significant central products exists in relation to a continuing ar-tistic tradition.2a Wherher they were widely disseminated might have been almost

21. See examples cited by Edward Bleiberg, "Historical Texts as Political Propaganda during theNew Kingdom:' BES 7 (1985-86) 5-13, esp. 11 n. 34. I do not agree with Bleiberg's assumptionthat the outer areas of temples were accessible to those who wished to read inscriptions; in any case,many inscriptions would hardly have been decipherable from the ground.

22. The lost preceding clause probably stated that the full account was too long to accommodatein rhe inscription: IJrk. IY:662,5-6; Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian ljterature,2.33 with n. 9.

23. David O'Connor ("Beloved of Maat") has a valuable discussion of New Kingdom examples.The displays of defeated enemies recorded for Amenhotep II, in which he transported the living anddead bodies of leaders and displayed them on city walls (if there really were such things at Napata),are the other side of these celebrations. See Peter der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II(UliB Z0; Hildesheim: Gentenberg, 1987) 50, 52-53,72-73.

24. Irene W'inter's important article, "Royal Rhetoric and the Development of Historical Narra-tive in Neo-Assyrian Relie6" (Studies in Visual Communication 712 [1981] 2-38),. rather neglects thisaspect of a continuing tradition. The extent to which artistic change is an internal matter for artistscan be seen also in European Renaissance and Baroque traditions.

348John Baines

^a ?-t1.:-2 F=-';iir,;..

Figure 2. Sery I receiving tribute from Asiati,exterior wall of the Great Hypostyle Hall at

c pnnces and attacking Shasu nomads; northproduction: rpi*"oti. s ttrwetr -r"t o Ft-t,t^ n,. 'lt":fj.ph:tograph by John Baines. Lil-;;-ili5ff ;,'fiT,,'"i::?;;:l;,i!;,!:iii-iiii'^i;;'H?"[:,,[1'3'i1;;:Jlil::

complex composirions can hardly have been used in ,h.i. l;;:.;ttfJ,;. _tllT

irrelevant' In this penpective, the weaker form of dissemination I suggest, thatsome peopre courd have known the placement and content of the texts rather thanthe texts themserves, would be sufficie.rt to sustain their status.This role of works of arr can be'lusrrated from the reign of sery r (r291_r27gn'c'e') in the vast expendirure on tt. tirrg,r-tempre at abydos and his tomb in theValley of the Kings, as we' as especially i., to ,ro*t ,"u;;;;o.nring his military:ilti.?Xj:.::j:,:::.,"1i: :,.", Hypo,ryre Ha[ at Karnak (f,s. 2).2s rhese

25' Abydos: Amice M. carverley and Myrtle F. 8101e, lre,Temrte of King sethos I at Abydos (ed.Alan H' Gardiner; 4 vols.;.Londo.,, Egypi E;pil;." ,:.,_.r, , aon*,tr,*rsiry of chicago press,1e33-ss). romb: Erik Homuns, 4'rb;;;';;!raoh seii 1 (z;J;.;;._* & winkrer, 1ee1).Hyposryre Ha': Epigraph,: ,:*Jr,. rhe Baukh,i,r1,

"y y,r, i,) i," ii,t)"io,n ,or, chicago: rhe71:X,;:,:;,;::::,|]ifI "",:!:::ll.f i:F;:..,r,,..o.a,, see wlriamJ Murnane, rhe Road,o Kat".,"

1

i

t

I

'

A Histoicat rnterpretation or the Baute n iii"i iir;!::i';:;"::itlfrLn;:"H ,:;:";::f:!::h

';i';::;i':' ^i"',:::,^:":;i:i:;a;:::i;:,:^I'*r'.c,

,..

"1-^:;;;;.*.*.. -Franwon A,es,Faber & Faber, 1951) iti-+t,which is valuable o":"t'nto"onol Att of the Aneient Near r^r rr."J""tpite shortcomings in approach.

contextualizing Egyptian Representations of society and Ethnicity 349

the message of the king's achievements. The Karnak temple complex would havebeen accessible to relatively few,26 Thebes was nor the political or population cen-ter of the country, and their placemenr high on the walls would not have alloweda detailed reading (rhe dado in fig. 2 is more than z m high). The same question ofaccess, in comparison with the cultural significance of works, affects such morepublic productions as medieval ltalian fresco cycles: many of these also are too highon the wall and too dimly lit to be easily seen.

The existence of the reliefr of Sety I makes it unlikely that the dearth of majorcampaign inscriptions from his reign is due entirely ro chance. It seems rather thathe chose to use this medium, perhaps because of its cultural significance and despiteits limited direct potential for propaganda. The reliefs are imporrant as works that rec-oncile the discordant tendencies of the late 18th Dynasry as well as integrating specificevents with the generality of the king's role and his actions for the gods in a new way.

The significance of this form continued in the reign of Sery's successor Ram-esses II (1279-1213 n.c.e.), who celebrated the Battle of eadesh in elaboratecompositions inscribed in several temples (figs. 3-a). Unlike Sery Ramesses also or_dered the inscription and dissemination of extensive texts that acted as a foil for thereliefr.27 Literary copies of the later New Kingdom show that these texts were notrestricted to the temple context but reached a rather wider social group-althoughit cannot be known how far their message spread through society (as is true of ear-lier royal inscriptions that entered the literary tradition). The reliefs themselvesmark a development from those of Sery I in being more formalistic in compositionand more clearly symbolic in organization. Roland Tefnin'has shown in an impor-tant analysis that the texts and reliefi recording the battle are complementary, eachwith its own merhods and rhetorical forms.28 This complementariry is a generalcharacteristic of Egyptian relief that must be taken into account in interpretation,but the Qadesh compositions add an extra layer of discourse.2e Apart from these

26. Latge temple complexes were evidently more widely accessible than individual structures, burthe majoriry of indications of unofficial presence, such as graftiri attesting to a cuir of relie6, is post-New Kingdom; see Claude Traunecker, "ManiGstations de pi6td personelle i Karnak," BSFE 85(1979) 22-31; idem, "une pratique magique populaire dans les temples de Karnak," La magia inEgitto ai tempi ilei faraoni Atti conuegno internazionale . . . 1985 (ed. Alessandro Roccati artd AlbertoSiliotti; Milan: Rassegna Internazionale di Cinematografia Archeologica: Arre e Narura Libri, 1987)221-42. More research is needed in this area.

27. Texts: Kitchen, Ram. Ihscr. ll (1979) 2 (list of sources), 3-147; study: Thomas von der'Way,Die Text-Ilberlieferung Ramses' II. zur Qade!-Schlacht: Analyse unil Strul

350 John Baines

-t

j..||ffiH' de I'image egvptienne" lcar s+lro

Figure 3' pylon of the remple of Luxor, viewed from the north; photograph by JohnBaines' The eadesh reliefs are on the upp.. p".i;; .J;,;."""'

compositional points, coror frequently presents almost discrete meanings, and irswidespread loss restricts significantly *h"t ."r, be known about works of art.30The relie* of Sery I and Ramesses II cannor have had a simpre propaganda pur_pose, because in their finished form they were not accessible enough to rendersuch a purpose meaningful (see fig. 3 for the pracing of one ,.rrio., of the eadeshrelie{i, high on the pylon wall at Luxor; fig. +, the deta1, is ar a height of about8 m)' Their iconography and composition are, however, designed to convey amaximum of persuasive meaning, so that che question of who they might persuaderemains'3' Their immediate audiences were two: (1) the members of the elite con_

The fundame"'"I -T1,-:1 Erich winter (IJntercuchungen zu den iigyptkchen Tbnpelreliefs dergiechisch-nimisehen Zeit ID1AW 98; Graz, vienna, and cologn'e: H.r-r.rn f,Jt uo, Nachfolger, 196g])demonstrated the degree of elaboration possible in th..aesig' of seemingly ordinary compositions.30' see Patrik Reuterswerd,.studiei zur Polychymie tler plastik I: Agypten(Stockholm srudies inHistory of An 3/1; Stockholm: Almqvist a wiksell, 195g); Baines, Fecundity Figures, 1.39_42,3s7_gg.31' on this r differ from Bleiberg ("Historicar,.:o..:, d.ri;;J;;;aganda,,) and Simpson("Egyptian Sculpture and Two-Dim.rri'or"l Repr.rent"tion,,), both of *hom seem ro assume with_

,.$l]|illltr.R:T, the works would have been sufncien;r;;;;;;;;;;,. for their propaganda

Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity 351

Figure 4. Detail of the Qadesh reliefs on the pylon at Luxor; photograph by John Baines.

cerned with the creation, execution, and interpretation of works of art, that is,those who maintained the "Great Tradition" encompassing the closely integratedstrands of artistic and literary creation; and (2) the gods. In a broader sense, rhe au-dience was also posteriry for whom the possibiliry of reading the text or viervingthe reliefs might not have been considered specifically. Another interpretive srrar-egy, related to the general understanding of ritual and comparable forms of action,is to view the works as being "performative." By their existence they enact a com-munication or, in the case of ritual reliefs in temples, an action, so that they areselGsufficient.32 This is not the same as saying that they had a literal magical or re-creative function-a problematic interpretation that is widespread in the literature.

There is a temptation not to take the gods seriously as an audience for worksdedicated to them and thus to interpret the motivations for constructing the monu-ments and choosing particular forms for them as resulting solely from human ma-nipulation and being addressLd to humans. Although some inscriptions and reliefiin temples, such as the record of the selection of Hatshepsut as king by her father

32. See Philippe Derchain, "A propos de performativiti: Pensers anciens et arricles rdcents," GM110 (1989) 13-18. This is an area in which interpretations have been far too literal. See the valuablearticle of Erhart Graefe, "Die Deutung der sogenannten 'Opfergaben' der Ritualszenen igyptischerTemple als 'Schriftzeichen,"' in Ritual and Sacrifce in the Ancient Near East (ed. Jan Quaegebeur; OLA55; Leuven: Peeten, 1993) 143-56.

3s2John Baines

Thurmose r (ca' 14g3-14g3 0-c.8.)," -:r:be fabrications, and much else in tempredecoration may be equally tot..*.d with legitimations *ithin the human socialorder, the gods shourd not be dircou't.j ; ;.il;;;;,r: {f.ptrans berieved in thegods' Texts say repeatedly that sociery consists of th. godr,?. deceased, the king,and humanity,3a and,this formura,to,ra be grven d".;;;; If the creation of thetemples and their decorarion had been .*.iir., i" b;-;; and deception, rheseinstitutions would hardly have endured.

I have pursued the contextual imprications of these New Kingdom conrpositionsat length in order ro suggest how an "pp.o".r, ;r;;; :;il and through the sys_tem of artistic decorum can enhance the meaning of the whole and lead to a per_specrive that moders that of rhe actors. tn.r.

"r-. -;; il" such an approachcannot do' In particular' it gives little access ro politicar motivarions that led ro mili-tary campaigns and other historical actions or to the discussions preceding either rhepolicy or the record of the events. Least of all does it give any insight into rhe events*,'rym::'J:':,:;:il':J::"*ffi'k;;:"#i;nr,eror*.;;";

one advantage of this approach is that it takes evenrs as being culrura'y andhistorically constructed, ,o irr", the aim of interprer"riorr l.rr.s to be simpry asearch for "what happened"-an approach that may not be productive.3s Much ul-timately fruitless speculation t ",

g;; inro examining motirrations of ancient rulers.Such questions need the rypes Jr ,o.rr.. marerial availabre to the modern hisro_rian-and even when the materiars are availabre, success i, ,ro, grr"."nteed. w.heresomething that looks a littre like such a source is preserved, as with rhe retter ofAmenhotep rr (1426-1400 n.c.E.) on a srera of the *.ipi.;;;;ersaret,36 the pubricsetting of the piece distinguishes it f.o- the private ""i ,"ir"r"r materials of latereras and civilizarions that qred writing in different *"rr.-;;;r, wolfgang Herckwas correct to say that Che sources hide rh

th eir co mp e ri ri o,, C, p ower, and hence ..', :"Jil ;i:lr.n: T:;t #.jl"rffi :their inconsisrencies,3T but his implied "t- t' using this srraregy may be una*ain_

rr o'J;it3l[1.iil,']i';?'" et Bahai /r1(London:-Egypt Exproration sociery n.d.) pls. 56-64; pM?4 r-- r^- r, tdon,1972) 347_48,I, (16)_(21).34' see Jan Assmann, or rcaiu ai 1"ir"r'irriy:__!iy kosmogmphischer Begreittext zur reur4ischensonnenhymnik in thebanischen

ltyrry""r"a cruirr,riiroalK 7; chicist'iJ, a.rgrrri.,, rg70) 59.35' compare Anthonv.John spai"g.., ,a;p r)rr -"t

,n, u,tn)ir")^irii ,t the Ancient EgyptiansIJilt}.i'fl;:,,T,".'"' v"t' u"i""'irfn*"5tzr 237-41.."'.;,;;;;;;;, ,s prestrge and rnterest is

36' Wolfgang Herck, "Eine stere des Vizekcinigs. wr-itt,,,JNES 14 (1955) 22_31 .

..

37. w. Helck, "Zur Lage der egyprir.rr., C.*ir.f,or.rrr.iUu ^u,,i ^irr,r"

o* Vierten InternationalenAgyptorogenkongresses, Miinchin llesls*Ji." "* ^irru,o,*.rr." r"i*. u.rn*. o, Hamburg: HelmutBuske, 1991) 7-8, ciring the Nitocts ar*ffi;; of 656 s.c.e., where whatur progress {iom the nofth to Thebes .";";;;;;; been that, because ,h. drr

ir p*trnted as a peace-Either the dates are manipulated

1". r"-" p"rp"r. o, th.lou-ey was ar -".ltt

are too compressed'a military maneuver. rext: Ricardo a. c"*"Jf;rhe Niiocasi.;il;.;rJ#T,iTtii_l?i -

Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity 353

able- The basic goal of reconstructing a historical skeleton is vital, but attempts tocreate a modern-style political history of Egypt or of the ancient Near East are besttransmuted into cultural and socioeconomic approaches.

As with many studies of artistic material, the inrerpretation of the annals ofThutmose III presented here raises the question of how far it models an actors'persPective, or how far it partakes in general iconological strategies and addressesinherent semiotic features of the works that might not have been perceived bytheir creators and their ancient audience. This issue is significant, but it can hardlybe resolved, and interpretation could not progress if it were the principal focus ofattention. It is, however, desirable to distinguish between interpretations that claiman actors' perspective and ones that claim validly to draw out the meaning of thematerial, often in consonance with specific modern theories. In the foregoinganalysis, I have attempted to indicate which of these approaches applies to particu-lar aspects of the argument; for the most part, I have been attempting to recon-stnrct an actors' perspective.

Propaganila anil Hierarclry

I have indicated difticulties with the notion of propaganda in relation ro templereliefl and inscriptions. Since propaganda necessarily implies an audience and theidentifiable audience in temples was small, it miy have limited application to a so-cial group such as the ancient Egyptian elite.38 Whereas the temple inscriptionspose this problem most acutely, stelae, on which the majoriqv of "historical" textswere inscribed, are iconographically more self-contained and by implication couldhave stood in more public places. Such monumenrs as the Poerical Stela of Thut-mose III,3e which conrains a strophic laudatory speech of Amon-Re recounting theking's exploits to him and presenting Amon-Re's own part in them, would notmake sense if they did not have an audience beyond the king himself. Yet this ex-ample, together with the Qadesh inscriptions of Ramesses II and the historical nar-rative of Kamose, the latest pre-New Kingdom king,a0 suggests a diflerent path ofdissemination from the broadly popular. The Kamose texts passed over into literarytradition, as did those of Ramesses II. The Poetical Stela points ro the strongly lit-erary character of the speeches of gods and hymns to gods preserved especially

38. For penetrating comments, which I nevertheless think extend the range of the concept unduly,see Liverani, Prestige and Interest,26-29. Among quite useful studies rhat do not ask the question aboutaudience is Alan B. Lloyd, "Natfonalist Propaganda in Ptolemaic Egypt," Historia 31 (1982) 33-55.

39. PM II, 2d ed-, 94, 771; convenient illustration: Kun Lange and Max Hirmer, Egypt (4th ed.;London; Phaidon, 1968) pl. 145. Translation: Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature,2.35-38.

40. Labib Habachi, The Second Stela of Kamose (ADAIK 8; Gliickstadt: Augustin, 1972): H. S.Smith and Alexandrina Smith, "A Reconsideration of the Kamose Texts," ZAS 103 (1976) 48-76.

354John Baines

from the New Kingdom, but reaching back to earlier periods.+r New Kingdomroyal inscriptions with these speech.r'for- a compact lradition, showing rhat atightly defined repertory of such forms existed. az The wider conrext of these textsremained within the elite; they moved into the s,,eam of tradition but did not nec_essarily spread to large numbers of people-a3The same restriction holds for imaginative lirerarure, but with additional difti_culties. The titre of Georges posener,s important ;;, iirar"rrn er poritiEte dansl'Egypte de la XII' dynastie,aa announced that it studied *h"t

-"y be termed propa_ganda, but his focus on poritical aspects of literature was almost at che expense ofits literary aspects. while some of ,h. ,.*r, he analyzed can meaningfuily be seenas political propaganda because they relate ,o , .tor.ty ;ila political context,others that assert Egyptian values do so in a subtle and indirect way.+5 The literarycorpus and the group who produced it were too small and too closely involved withthe rulers for directly subversive literature to be produced and to enter a continuingtradition. This audience was arso highly cultured; the opinions of its members arenot likely to have been swayed by crude persuasion or moralizing. Furthermore,many of the texts thar are oft.r, .l"i-ed to have propaganda as their intent havesubsequently been dated to periods later than th. .rr.rrtr"to which they were heldto relate' These redatings do not make the interpreradon of them as propagandaimpossible, but they do prace the texts' meaning in the more general context of the41. On the speeches, see Jan Assmann, ,,Aretalogiea,, LA I Og75) 425_34:for hymns, sce nu_merous publications of Assmann; anthology: Agyptische Hymnen und cebete(Die Bibliothek der AltenWelt: Der AIte Orient; ,"*::\:Artemis, f 6iSf.-illp"ront lite,ary srudy of prayers: Gerhard Fecht, Lir_eratische Zeugnisse zur "pers\.nlichen Friimmilgkeit'; ir| agypr*, Anaryse trer Biispiete aus dett ranessiclischenschulpapyi (AHAW; Heidelberg: c".r winr.. unio,..rirdtrrr..lrg, 1965). som. te*tr, such as the steraof Amenmose with the g..at hym' to osiris 6i.r,i.irr,, anruii rgypii"i;;,rr"ture,2.B,t_86)and rhestela of Baky with its complex meditarions rar."r"a* Varille, ,.La i!i. a,,

-yr,ique Bdki,,, BIFA, 54fi"tL:?#how a marked individualiry i', .r,"i.. or -"t.;rt ".'a or.l.orl, in religious orienra-

42. Nicolas-Christophe Grimal (les ternres de Lclna-ulte dAtexandre [M6loires de rAcaddmie or, ,1,{!l^!ofJ"({,:r;:r:::{::;::f ,,:r:rd;::{:::;!rie Narionale, 19861 449-66) presenrs th. p"rr"g.r-i'larer New Kt"gd.;;;:riptions that paraller rhePoetical Stela. r rew r\rrrBuurrf lns'

43' There is a problem of the definition of literature here: rhe broad view considers to be ,.litera-ture" all well-formed monumenlal and papyrus texts thar .;;;;&;;;."-"or t..ai,ion (exemplifiedby Lichtheim' Ancient Egyptian Literatire)'; narrower definidons .".";; only imaginative fiction,rnstructions' and related genres (as in the featments of Loprien" i., ,rrir'"oi"rrre and R. B. parkinson,"Teachings' Discounes and rhres from the Middl;

lnqa'om," iiaii, i"ii"m studies[ed. Stephen"o5|:;iilf;:T;. l?*lli;ll?

tssq er_tii1Boih penpec,i,,., ",.

i"iia in different contexrs;44' Posener' Littltature et po.litique dans t'Egypte de Ia XI(. dylastie(Bibliothdque de l,Ecole des HautesEtudes 307; paris: champion, 195-0. poserr..:,

".g,r;.rrts built on e"rli.r *orl of Adriaan de Buck.45. For commenrs, see John Baines, ..tnt..pi.tiog.Sin"h.,,,/81 ;; irirrl ,r, Stephen euirke,"Review of A. Loprien o, Topos unir Mimesis: zir^-a*uoarr in der iigyptischen Literatur,,, Discussions inEgypnlogy 16 (1990) 92; parkinson, "r.".hirg., oir"orr.r., and Thles,,, 102 with n. 44.

Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity 355

use of the past.a6 If intended, propaganda must have been conveyed by hidden al-lusion, little of which can now be recovered. Since the texts survived any period inwhich they could have had propaganda significance, their literary and educationalworth, and perhaps their general i.ncorporation of centripetal values, secured theirlater retention.

In the case of the Story of Sinuhe, propaganda for the 12th Dynasty king Sen-wosret I (1918-1875 e.c.r.), which the work is often assumed to propound, oreven the possibiliry that the text was a coded announcement of a political am-nesrya7 become meaningless if it was composed after the end of his reign. A ratherlater dare of composition is likely, borh because works of literature are rarely set inthe present and because the opening lines are probably best read as referring inparallel to the two kings, Amenemhat I and Senwosret I, as deceased.as The textcould nonetheless promote the cause of the dynasry as a whole or of later kings asworthy successors to the great predecessors whom it names. Part of the appearanceof propaganda may, however, be negated by genre and context. A crucial passageoften cited here is a eulogy of Senwosret I that the fugitive Sinuhe addresses to anomadic chief who has saved his life.+e The chief counters this tactless piece ofrhetoric with the dry comment:

Egypt is indeed fortunare in the knowledge that (Senwosrer I) is flourishing.(But) you are here.You rvill be with me. What I do for you is good.5t)

Much of the eulogy's significance may be in the text's incorporation of a wide rangeof literary genres in its narrative structure; this particular inclusion is ironic and inpart perhaps is managed for genre purposes. A eulogy of a king occurs in an "auto-,biography" as early as the 5th Dynasty (ca.2450 B.c.E.).5r A close parallel forSinuhe's set piece is a cycle addressed to Senwosret II[,52 while part of the LoyalistInstruction, a generalized praise of kings and advice to ofticials, was related toAmenemhat III and inscribed on an "autobiographical" stela of a contemporaneoushigh official.53 The eulogies probably derive from a context of performance, perhaps

46. See John Baines, "Ancient Egyptian Concepts and lJses of the Past: 3rd-2nd Millenniumn.c. Evidence," Who Needs the Past? Indigenous Values and Archaeology (ed. Robert Layton;,One WorldArchaeology; London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) 131-49-

47. For example, He1'ck, Politische Cegensiitze,3T with 91 n' 55'48. Roland Koch, Die Erziihlung des Sinuhe (BAe 17; Brussels: Fondation Egyptologique Reine Elisa-

beth, 1990) 3. I owe this point to Richard Parkinson, and revise my opinion, "Interpreting Sinuhe," 38.49. Translarion: Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 1.225-26'50. Koch, Die Erziihlung des Sinuhe,40, lines 1-8.51 . Alessandro Roccari, La litttrature historique sous lAncien Empire tgyptietr (LAPO; Paris: Editions

du Ce4 1982) 97-98.52. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 1.198-201.53. Georges Posener, L'Enseignement Loyaliste, sagesse hgyptienne du Moyen Empite (Centre Hist.

Phil., EPHE, I\f section II: Hautes Etudes Orientales 5; Geneva: Droz, 7976); see his p' 15 for parallels

356John Baines

ln court life or in royal progressions throuin Sinuhe i, ";; "?,r,ii r"._t ,;;;;.jlj:":.Tffi:J,}ffi:jl:,,:i::Iil:than demonstrating any simple p."p";;;; intent.

-

The Story of the Eloquen, p."o.riiithe text *,

" p.oa,r.t or th. nrnJrorn *,;;lT Ilr.J: the literar view thatinfluenced interpretations. The rro,"r, now dated ro rhe *roo:'|:1 setting, rongThis composirion is a comprex discourse

". .;i, ;r.;, #;i:::i';i:lT:L;be seen as propaganda for

" p""r.rrf", kirrg, b,r, ,."ai.rg,

", !.o'"r"r.da have beenil:T::LtfiT'h? f.'Hl,"jlt'+-".";;"' ;#:,,s ,ha, i, is direc,ed

menrioned, r,"ir.r" thar texrs ;;; ;;r"_;ttft :ff;i:?inii:*::*f ::::likely to have been preserved i., tr"jitiorr; kings "rra

,n.o"rupporrers would nothave fa'ed ro norice their impric"ri""r.-w_rr.r. "-r.*,,, ..rrr."iof royarry as in the;:::J'*-:::;lii:T:;l:1$ "e* or n.o,l, o'*',n

" miri,ary officer,

Middle Kingdom royar inscripdons, Gw of which have been accessible forstudy' relate more clearly to the iorrruiirry of propaganar. it. mosc unusuar arethe earliest,ss the texts of S.rr*orr.t, ,ro_ Elephantinern "rra

Tod,60 the lattercontaining a highly corored description "irlr. a..", "r ri. toJa ,.*pt. and narrar_il:,:l.. i:ili?#::::,'*lt:'"Tl,J::,:::t

_!'*'.,",,..".e or vio,ence andp rorotyp e. rn comf, arisr.,,i,.

-u,

i;;;;;'il::'#;T T:.i:;t:y ;.flT,;: T # III

*"i,"i:i:,ftr.f;.Tffi ";,I:,:,;,,,:J"ji_'7,{:{,ri:",an, (oxrord: Griftich ,,,,,,,"*, ,nn,,,'",.'l; ff:-.ilL;l*f , *in;#;;: $;1] -ith rererences; idem, .. rhe Date or the56' w' K' Simpson, "rrt.,poliri."r u"ii""'""l"f the Eloquent peasanr,., cM r20 (1gg1) g5_gg.57' For references' see parkinson' "i.]Jil:,tiscourses #il;:rili 5**u,, for a reconsruc_tion of rhe narrarive, see Emma g*"".rri.;r.,"',attagyptirrt,

*rrr*"'1rrr'ed.; Munich: Diederichs,1989) l7B-79,321-22. For-rhe s.r..ril._i"r.. u",r.r, ..aonceprs rnd Ur., of rhe past..,58' The earrier srerae of the"lt* drr"*r'iheban king *ilffi;";tef are nor distinctively'ii;;r:!:^y,;::;;To;'i;:#',",#jr::i:';!*::,::' ,ii,,i.""tilot[/"),u,,,. Zeugnisse der , lMen tuhotep,n J a-.n.- r,1i,,.i_,." o.o.tl ;..#'; H::1il:,:t-70- F,"g-.n,, or Nebhepetre

. -^l? WUfgang Hetck, ,.Die Weihins.f,in" i.*"1!* 2! Antal ee-ii. :sostris' I. am Saret-Tempel von Elephantine,,,

60' wolfgang Herck' "politische.spannunge" ,1

l..g,."n des Minreren Reiches,,, Agypten, Dau,rcrund wander: svmposium....oktob.er rpsz rJJ'ra"r8;.M-ainz:;;;*_, irrry or_rr, Donard B.$it3;r#;,T,1Jl;.ilrt.n or s.nwo,,itl "li *r, ,r,i or,*1" ,,i.,*-.,, in Nubia and the,* ;iai,: iira;';; ('|xT'ilj,]nnotl38-55; c' Barbotin.'olJ'tiu*i:i-'in,..ip,ion de sdsostris

contextualizing Egyptian Representations of society and Ethnicity 357

served on the 18th Dynasry Berlin Leather Roll, which includes exrensive self-praise of the king, sits more easily with later traditions.6r

The rather later text of the Semna-Ljronarti srelae of Senwosret III (1g36-lBlBn'c'e') is strongly literary, deriving in large part from instruction genres and in-cluding a word-for-word parallel with the Insrruction of ptahhotep.;2 Although itsmessage of standing firm on the frontier and keeping the Nubian enemy i., co.r_tempt and subjection had practical significance ro, tt,. Egyptian occupying force,the text seems best suited to edifying the elite, perhaps in pa.t the local officerclass, rather than the soldiery. As christopher Eyre remarks, there is no reason tosuppose that it was read for these purposes from the stelae themselves, which maywell'not have been readily accessible; there p$bably were papyrus copies thatwould have been used for insrruction, perhaps as much in Egypt

", on the Nubian

frontier. The propaganda side of the text may thus be subsumed in the more gen-erally literary purpose of transmitting culture and values.

A similar transmission of complex values associated with attitudes to foreignersand the internal manipulation of power occurs in the Instruction for Merikare,63 aliterary text that.probably belongs to the same general period. Merikare emphasizesthe harsh responiibilities of governmenr and discusses the necessiry of reconcilingfactions; the work is far more critical, and in a sense pragmatic, than royal inscrip-tions and other literary texts.

The coherence of the stream of high-culrural written tradition emerges sronglyboth from monumental inscriprions and from literary and religiou, ,.*,I np intL-pretive approach through genre and through modeling the social group producingthe record is crucial. If the restrictions on the dissemination of written material aretaken into account-even allowing for rhe proclamation of royal exploits-the po-tential of propaganda appears limited. The hierarchical character of sociery .o-.,to the fore; spreading propaganda beyond the elite may have been of little concern.The means by which the position of the elite was legitimized in the eyes of thoseoutside it are largely unknown.

61. Translations: Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 1.115-18; R. B. parkinson, Voices JromAncient Egypt: An Anthology of Middle Kingdom Writings (London: British Museum, 1991) +O-+l;Philippe Derchain, "Les ddbuts de I'Histoire [Rouleau de cuir Berlin 3029]," RdE 43 (lgg2) 35-4:.,argues for an 18th Dynasry date. If the text is early, ir is the oldest exampl. of

".'roy"l ,rory" i.,Alfred Hermann's sense (Die Agyptische Kdnigsnovelle).62' Christopher J. Eyre, "The Semna Stelae: Quoration, Genre, and Functions of Lirerature,"

Studies in Egyptology Presented to Miriam Lichtheim (ed. Sarah Israelit-Groll; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1990)134-65, esp. p. 138.63. Translation: Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 1.97-109; Wolfgang Helck, Die LehreJr'ir

Ki)nig Metikare (KAT; .Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1977); Gun Bjcirkman, "igyptology and HistoricalMethod," otSu 73 (1964) 9-33, remains valuable. As with the Tale of the lloquerri p.rrrn,,

-..,yauthors have dared Merikare to its historical setting during the 9th/10th Dynasry.

358John Baines

rmaginative senres. rhar rater

"p;.", i;-";ff;iff #.T:ffilt::ir;:posed.6a The principar assertions or royt "rra

.tt. .o.,;r;;;"_ the ord Kingdomare morruary monuments and the reliefr o...r"r*'ri.rir, .orrr.ying an over_whelming messase of royal ,.,d, to , t.rr.1

."r;;;:;;r;.;:;r. rn rhis sense, rheyare propaganda for the state and for the coheren..-of itr."*r"" of this life and thenexr' rhe impact of which t r.rt t" ii o^rl !. -"ri"-p-p"g"rrairtic,, reliefr arethose treating foreigners (r.. ;i;,"'*,r. ,Ur,_rr), but th.y h"rre rhe same limita_rions as New Kingdom temple -r..tiJt""r, being accessrbl. to Gw and not easily

;:::'r::fTnlT*' widespread 'o"L"l fo.m (although analogies can be round in

;ft*1;"",ffi L{:ri*f;lffi H*i*i{',T'ffi #iff *the mortuary sphere. Both the .rrorr''r-'.rr* and the palermo not concerned withlimited range of ideological .o.r..-r.--^'rrr

a'o [ne Palermo Stone present only a,".JT5ff::T::',:ffi.J;1";,ff""s of persuasion, this does nor mean rhatspeech'performance,andarchiterr"...;"t;;;trrtt::::."r1y;T:;:i3;H::iattested in nonroyal biographies, and in the ensuing Finr Inre:ilT"'-.".i"1k"i j**,**l:;:fi k:..:H::i$.;,:i.i:Iperiod when the range of use,

"e *.,rr"* li: 1,_,r.0, fo, o,f,.. g';:il;:Ti*:sequendal texts' 67 The appear of these ,rit.rot, was narrowe. th-"n th"t of later imagi_native texts, and this exclusivra, *", i.rghtened by resricticcommon in any sociery, knowledge and i1 availabiliry *...;;;rr.::"ff;::rrfi.;and were subject ro religious r".,.r-a*'lorhat holders'rao.,.ir, office were amongthose who had access ro arcane mareriars. * 1i, ort",*iir"rr, ;, rerigious concextsconrrasrs with the rargely securar image oF ord *,n*oor_ no"'J"rar monumenrs, em_

'tJ ;'.'.T*ru,j:*' :--:";::tli the p ubric record,, i r i, p resen ted S in ce

This interpreradon shourd be compared with evidence from the old Kingdom,naffi":#:'TfiT".:::::::;; *.* rewer and works or riterature in

i n p re -

Ne r'v Ki nsdom tit.""ri.,'i n :;;#f.. -,ff ::ffi ::;:,ff::ill. ij:;:

L-;-'T;h;il*:r t;;i::;:;^,:,;:::! :::^-,i1 'o:"ji:,:, Das Grab a,s vorschu,e der Li,_::1tu:,ir.n.alten Agypr.n." t*n1 r)i dorii,ru,';.',"" und ldentitlt: Das Grab als vorschule de'r Lit_(ed. Aleida Astmann et al.; Munich: Fink- 1ss. ^^t'l::'::Archao_hgie

der literarisclrcn rcoo,*unii*inn(ed. Aleida As'mann ., ,r.; rur,i"i.i: ;;';"i;;.r':"o::'!' Archiiologie tler titerarischen rcoo,*unii*innerarure: Ancienr r.*t, ,nd ##:1,.,*;JTflji:ii: *. ;;#JI'"f i1o.0",", Egypcian Lit_eratu re : f.ln : *::',.,"**i::l :' ::"i' ili *"'i;,T:'::". H Ti i- r r"'o "'edge and Ora., ffuf.."ol.,

"f'.1; ?j)T,iil'ill1:? ,r;*:.::i:;:,:i!:'_;;i:;:\,rn: ';';::, B..k, v.r j: Kn.w,.

sophical Sociery j,g8g) 47_1 41the American philosoohic . ^ rol,rce book, vol. 1: Knowl-41. . al Sociery t84; Philadelphia: American philo_--!qr vvLrsLy' IY6V) +/-741,. - --t ^" r, r rruauclPlli

11, al. classic example is the inscriptions of Ankhristication ln pro-o,in'g th.irr,rb;"..-p----,

-^..,-, .tto (probably 9th Dynasry),';::';::;:;;i:3;;;;:i:,:Uij:'rii::xi':'lE!,'ffi'J?i[,lll?ffi,X];l];11

,:],";,,:':::^"i1:':;!';;?:::!t^:{;ii"#"1'il;:fi,;;'JT?l;fiffi:'#','J."1,?*.l:;il.l,;;j;z:#:Egyptian9]' l* Baines, *Abvdos Lisr of Gods.',68. See Baines, ,.Resdcted Knowledge.,,

Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity 359

numbers of the elite, whose tombs had a "secular" character, may have participatedsignificantly in religious life and hence in resrricted knowledge.

Hierarchies of knowledge are in one sense the reverse of propaganda: they assertthat only those who know matter, and ostensibly they do ,rot seek to disseminate.But the rwo are in no way incompatible. Every ,o.i.ry and social group needsmeans of persuasion, and propaganda in one group or context can go together withrestriction in another. In Egypt, as elsewhere, people also used the fact of their re-stricted knowledge as display without divulging what it was they knew. Most oldKingdom examples of this phenomenon are, probably by chance, in the nonroyalsphere- From the New Kingdom, bur most likely composed in the Middle King-dom, comes the text describing the king's role in the solar culr,6e which d.rror., i"t,central stanzas to asserting that the king "knows" numerous things about the courseof the sun and its significance (while revealing little of what he knows), showingthat he is indispensable to human and divine order. Until the late New Kingdorithe text was inscribed only in inaccessible places, so that the prestige the king,sknowledge gave him was indirect: only the privileged could know that he had thisspecial knowledge and most of them did not have access to its characterization, stillless to its content- Knowledge about knowledge was a set of Chinese boxes. Whatthe king and the small circle of people supporting him knew did not bring materialadvantage: the message was that through knowredge the king was the guarantor oforder and should be accorded due honor and service. The function of the knowl-edge was deeply serious, for it was central to maintaining the cosmos.

Much of the significance of these hierarchies of knowledge was in the pro-claimed broader integration of human sociefy with the gods through the privilegedgroup at the apex of sociery among whom the king was paramount. yer norhingdemonstrates that this "propaganda" was widely disseminated. Wider disseminationmay have occurred, or these Iegitimarions may have underpinned the elite,s ownsense of its proper position more than they exerted a wider appeal.

The role of propaganda needs to be evaluated in the contexr of improved modelsof the elite as well as improved understanding of the function and genres of the writ-ten and monumental materials through which the elite and its propaganda can bestudied. Work in the 1950s and 1960s led to the opening-up of the sourcs to morecomplex readings and initiated the strategy of questioning the superficial intent andhonesry of the record and examining its configuration in a structured fashion. Thosereadings have needed refining through social, literary, and art-historical analysis.They should also be extended to later periods, including the Greco-Roman, whichhave seldom been a focus of this kind of research.T0 Thus, propaganda has not

69. Text and analysis: Assmann, Kdnig al: Sonnenpriester; translarion: Parkinson, VoicesJrom AncientEgypt,38-10.

70. Grimal, Les termes de la propagande, is a collection of material rather than an analysis, whileGreco-Roman sources have tended to be seen from a Classical penpective (but see Lloyd, "Nationalist

360John Baines

proved to bc the mosr nowcrfi,l "-^1.,,:.

L e u ri s tic,,"r u. i, ;.:: H: *lj:"},lT: : ;:.r.fi ;,:*::r:j?il[il;: : Ithere is every reason to think that they would have recognired th. phenomenon.Both in contexts where there would have been such recognition and for rhe broader,.JT"*;:H:]* of the record's nature, the notion or-prop"g"'da wll continue

Nation and EthnicityInsofar as propaganda relates to an ideology that is propounded and transmittedby a whole curture, it has a focus at the boundar., u.r*..r, one culture

"rra ,nJnext, ber'uveen one ser of varues and others th"t might ;;";r." rhem. These areideological concerns of societal, curtural, and national self_definicion.To identifi' a range of ideorogie,

"rrj ,o.i"r rypes is nor to recover a sociar real_iry but ro nrodel images of "

,o.i.ry from a number.i;;;richer and more varied image or an ancicnt society i, lik;^;:';:'.tjllii';"lij;,$than a schematic one, but

"rry ,..o.rrrruction that may be in prospect is stiil filteredby the projections of the actors, who were mosr ofren outsrde rhe groups they por_trayed. These linritations do not make tlanv ress worthrvhle Here as ersewhere, j'ff;:l;ifil'ffr;1'J'ffiT:lthat "the truth" is often n6t the goal of research, has been llo,, ,o take roor in an_cient Near Eastern srudies.

Models can be recovered from the sources more readily than direct evidence forvarying social groups. In Egyptian ideologr, il ;;;;1,""., society resemblesthe complexiry of the ordered-cosnros, which is shot through with elemenrs of theuncreated world'71 By analogy' those who were not included rvithin the normariveimage of'the .or116q-grr"t ir, thor. who either were not ethnrc Egyptians or rvereexcluded on some other grounds-would belong with the .,.r.r.rr.a world. whilethis equation may have helped to coerce social integr"rion, ,ro, a' of society, andespecially nor rhose marginarized by the equation, w'l have subscribed ro it. It isnonerheless striking how often Egyptologists have accepted visions of this sort*fbrexample, equating rhe presence of ethnic foreigners:" il;; wirh disorder, anddecline'72 By conrrasr, william y Adams, whose work is Ir,

".r.r.rr, Nubia, em_

und Mensch nach dtn ;ounrlui,.,a"__-,,."---,.-._7, rvJrlrvrt.r rranve sources see Eberhard Ofto, Co//!::;,:;';;; i,i'*i,'lo,,ifll,|,ili,',{ff:,i;:;iy,::"!:l?:;i;^*:::,Ar:::i:Ji;,,y;r;W:;":!;winter, "Der Herrscherkuit in'a.r, egvpri,.h;{il+Fi},,.-H:1,

knriiische Asypte, (ed,.Herwig Maehler and Volker Michael Soo.t", Mninz uo., Zabern, 1976) 1,47_60.r,.,,,11;.'ff;:'":::iffi'"':,f;lTli;.f".1Ti1,."ff"i:Xy,*:)i;:::ll ,,, o,, anr! ,t,e Many

-72' A not untypical exampre is Redford, "rn. roa lnscriprion oi's..,*orr., I,.. -16; Redford'Ti#if#'r#1T:::,:?.:,:'"

texts as ",.duing ".,ur.,'il-,r,..*,, r,ro" Kingdom to ..rhe

contextualizing Egyptian Representations of society and Ethnicity 36r

phasizes the baleful effect of Egypt on surrounding populations. T3 These judgmentsare no more than a matter of perspective and personal preference.

I illustrate here approaches to filling gaps and conrradictions in models of soci-ety, exploring thc definition of identities and of ethniciry.

The Over-Defned Nation State and lts CultturcThe point of departure for a uniform Egyptian ideology r.vas the formation of a

state by conquest or by rapid assimilation of people and territory over a larger areathan any other polity of the time.Ta Before the state formed, there was no such en-tity as Egypt, but its unity was a dominant idea for later periods, including onesof political fragmentation. At the outset, the state must have encompassed peopleof varying culture, ethniciry and probably language.T5 The creation of a state andculture involves forging an ideology and an identiry that will underpin its unirycreating a collective "self" that implies a collective "other,'n u'here the other is of-ten axiomatically diverse and the self unitary. Neither of these processes need bethe same as forming a civilization or culture: many major civilizatioris and culturesare not unified and consist of numerous states or other polides. Nor are culturetraits coextensive with states or perhaps even civilizations. From Bell Beakers inprehistoric northern Europe to MacDonalds, there have been material cultureconrplexes that have spread ovr vast areas without seeminglv bringing ideologicaluniformiry or indeed any orher nrarked sameness. Whar is striking in Egypt is thestrong convergcncc of these two processes.

The establishment and elaboration of an identiry for a stare or civilization tendsto be shielded from the investigator's vicw, because the state has an overriding interestin presenting its unity as self-explanatory and unquesrionable. For archaeologicallyrecovered civilizations, furthermore, the period of formation rnay be followed byrapid expansion that almost physically obliterates whar went before.

It is dcsirable to probe this identiry and how it is formulared. [n these areas theinterest of the actors was often almost obsessive, yet the evidence lies on the mar-gin of the record and of modes of presenting ideology. whar was marginal in onesense was central in another, because it contributed to defining the center.

In Egypt, the internal and external peripheries of sociery cannot e4sily be stud-ied archaeologically. Few settlement sites of diverse character are accessible, and the

73. This is a persistent theme of his Nul'ia: Corridor to Afica (London: Allen Lane, 1977).74. For the period, see John Baines, "Origins of Egyprian Kingship," .4ncient Egyptian Kingship

(ed. David O'Connor and David P Silverman: PA 9; Leiden: Bnll, 1995; ()5-156; Barry J. Kemp.Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Ciuilizatfoa (London: Routledge and Kegan Prul, 1989) 19-63; W'ernerKaiser, "Zum verdnderten Bild von der Entstehung des gesamtdgyptischen Sraates," MDAIK 46(les(D 287-e9.

75. The absence of dialect from written texts of most periods is sympromatic of the centralizingemphasis of Egyptian culture. There were numerous dialects in the spoken language, bur they hardlyaffected rhe wrirten high-cultural tradition.

362John Baines

mortuary sphere, which has producedth e do mi na", s;".,1,, rr,. .*,._"i ffiiii*::,X iffi*Li ;iffi,T,:,rhar' excepr fot *:or:,.:1r*. t"Jt*.lo,r, A-G.o,rp

.utr.r.. disappeared ar rhe srarrof the, dynastic period,77 there is 'rit.

,r."rUy with which toture' At the norrhern exrreme of the .",r"r','.-*J.I:': compare Egyptian cul-;*T:'tjr ;f;jrt*:l*nt:"[",i:li,' i;H, d::i Hn:group living in this environment and ,;o-

*ot' periods, were a partly assimilatedcar texts.78 ir,. a., that this rrd;;::Ti:;:::fH,::iffi T1# :imrecord and nothing in archaeologr tr trrli."rive both J,rr! il*.urties of character_izing the population of Egypt t"'"ii trr aspecrs and of rhe reticence of the officia,sources' yet, despite the barrenness or inhospitabre ;;r;; oi rr, ,,r.ro,rndings andIrs ostensible hostility,ro outsiders, Egypr was open to immiil:[T::'::L',,::,:f '"ffi.":j*::J-'n*"..''l#.,fl::T j:;:::'":",::.

In anothe',.r0.., t"ror.".-;ffT'#"ffi:H"hed in studyins concep_tions of self and o,h.. u.."rr. irr-om-.i"I rdeorogy was aggressively uniformitarianand evidence for cultura, ot*t*rrl,

*"rre. These asp..r, JJ*urrre with a high leverof politicar uniry to form a p,ruii.,iltr", different ,r"- ,i. Ies tightry definedand uncenffalized' civ.llization of t;;;;"*ia, which ,.-"ir,, nonetheless currur_;i1"if"'#'##;::::' t"tu'1................; ^"'ii,,iou, o,n-...,,..',,',r,", ru.,oporamia wastrarized

o o*.. ',*.il'J;:f ; :::.:ff :JJi:,ffi::i:::.:?:il:,:l i;more rigid and comprehensive a.fi,rrtion of curture ,ir",, *i, possible in Meso_

*'J:: ;H.':ffiff :H':.': J:*'"' or t"'ti,,g i.o.',",,.,.., civlization,are in many

-"r, .i-"r, porar opposrr.r. o"t"o" features' Egypt and MesopotamiaEgyptorogsrs have t.nd.d ," ir.r.", aynastic Egypt as a singre culture berongingto a single ethnic group, speaking

" ,r.,gr. ,".*r""*r* li"nit,.* a singre ser ofshared values. The assumption of such lnifor-r.i

."-., io_ t"kirrg an eliterecord as reflecdng ".r.ierrt ro.irr.."liry fairly directly ,.rr.rr'" realiry existed, itHl1i:li1;: lnT:::::.,rj1a;J,n. .r,. Despite the skewed nature or therecord, it is also crear thar th. i^-pli."tilil;#;:H:ffi:*";:i:

76' For possible aooro4shg5' see Janet E' Richards, lIortual' vaiability and socia! Dffirentiation in,, o ol; K, :.?*"f:::, 0," _ L,",".^*l )i ill.,",r, *, ia, t ee2).77' The mosr irnportanr materiar h.,. i, s.,.;'!lt]J,:1fi1,!li?r.'*,

^_",ouo Royat Cenrctery at

,Yjff'ffi1',1llil.i#oT'To or chicago, o-ri.l,,r r",,i,",. *,oLiloliition 3: Excavarions be_1e86). - -'^- ""e Sudan Frontier; chicago: o"."i"i ffi;;. iilil .r"-.^iry of chicago,Axiat Age Civitizationjts;.;.'.i' *-;,:-"::::t:]t':'*' in Mesopotamia;' The19g6) 183-202, srr-ri

S' N' Eisenst"at, nlngh;*,on, N.y: Sute Univers:. rigins antl Diuersity of

try of New york press,

F'a

:

contextualizing Egyptian Representations of society and Ethnicity 363

elite. The most striking feature of what can be said about the non-elite of the mosthighly centralized periods is that they left few material remains distinctive of theirsocial or regional group and, indeed, left lirtle record of any kind of their own ex-istence, in contrast with their service to central and elite undertakings. They werevirtually proletarianized and, when not in their largely unrecoverable villages, livedin conditions of almost industrial uniformiry and cultural anonymity. s0

Yet this drab picture cannot adequately reflect society: the constraints of deco-rum and of preservation of sources exclude too much. The dominance of the cen-tripetal culture of unified periods can be compared with the rather greater diversityof the decentralized intermediate periods. Continuities berween the Old Kingdomand First Intermediate Period, for example, suggest that old Kingdom sociery in-cluded as wide a range of people as the intbrmediate period, but few ..foreigners,,acquired the resources to create monuments. sl The fact that some material can beidentified suPports the assumption that ethniciry and not just the presence of for-eigners, could occur in any period. Awareness of such discrepancies and variationswill contribute to more adequate models of society.

The Defnition of Dffirence: Libyans on Early Monuments

The definition of the cosmos was incorporated in an iconography in which anycomplete monument could represent a microcosm and, hence, both exempli$, thecosmos and extol its vah;es. The focuses of the cosmos were the king and the gods."Monuments" varied in scale from quite modest-sized objects, such as the crucialset of votive pieces dedicated in temples around the beginning of the dynasticperiod,82 to complete decorated buildings. The interior of any temple showed ex-clusively "native" material, but the outside depicted the king's mastery of orderagainst encroaching disorder. Palaces almost certainly had a similar symbolism. Dis-order was identified with the non-Egyptian world and from the beginning waspresented in rerms of foreign people. Internal "hisrorical" action within Egypt, inthe modern sense of central policy and the treatment of dissent, was seldom

80. See John Baines, "Literacy, Social Organization and the Archaeological Record: The Case ofEarly Egypt," State and Society: The Emergenre and Development of Social Hierarchy and politieal Centrali-zation (ed'. John Gledhill et al.; One World Archaeology; London: lJnwin Hyman, 1988) 204-9. Forspecialized production at one of the few excavated provincial sites of the period, see Marie-FrancineMoens and'W'ilma Wetterstrom, "The Agricultural Economy of an Old Kingdom Town in Egypt'sWest Delta: Insights from the Plant Remains,"-/NES 74 (1983) l5g-73.

81. Occurrences on nonroyal monuments, including one of the Early Dynastic Period, are listedby Hannes Buchberger, "Zum Ausllnder in der altigyptischen Lirerarur: Eine Kritik," WdO 20-21(1989-90) 25-26. For a useful survey of evidence for foreigners, see Edda Bresciani, "Lo straniero,"L'uomo egiziano (ed. Sergio Donadoni: Rome and Bari: Laterza, lgg}) 235-6g.

82. See John Baines, "Communication and Display: The Integration of Early Egyptian Art andWriting," Antiquity 63 (1989) 471-82. The approach of l?hitney Davts, The Canonical Tiadition inAuient Egyptian Art (Cambidge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) is problematic in many respects;see my review in Antiquity 65 (1991) 170-71.

364John Baines

Figure 5a. Libyan/Cities palerte, obverse: Cairo Museum CG14238. Drawing by Manon Cox.

side are fi gures or embrem",i.,"y;,;;;,'il;* ffi:":ifillll.li;:il37

recorded, presumably because the country, Las deemed well ordered when the

::::'i: i'1l"1# jr':;: :*i'i'ilr1d 11 s ord e; " i *' *' i ar i mp o si'ci o n o fThe earriest pictoriar monumenrs t; Jj;i,t*'#ffiT'1,;;J::r,;.

,*" .*vealing menrions of "Libyal'* *"-.r"r, to."rio.,, i;"-;;" proposed for the;:'?:; ;T;TJil: *:TT#i'#1i::y:r," ;. ;; "i"",,, wi,h assuranceor the menrions i, o.,

" ,.r'i,t fr.tt. .r illJ":;;';it-**:.t*i:I.J;,?*

11?,?; ff;l? ll."T:i':,,:::;i, ;; rrom a mlitary campaign on rhe oth""83' For implications of this attitude toward historicar rexrs, see above, p. 356. There are severarexceptions among New Kingdom ntr.a."i'r.*r,'u",

,r,.r.-ro"';;#;.5., as being achieved bv$i;piid::l:? ffi:: :* n5;ltlT ;t,o,he,h.one,..,".i,,* r"hn Baines .,ri,*l

"'"l1ortj1':T'n' pA s, Leiden: Br'r, 1ee5) ,-oil"t Egvptian Kingship r'a' o"uia "HJ;t;

,,. il;rilil"i:fftffi: a"'n.'vl.'ip,'i'*:":1"-. Nores on the Libyans o-f the ord Kingdom

i?:T*::i;?:",1_,fi i:.::;:;:,fl :,y,7;,";;:,t;;.*ltlil;i:,.1*;Lki.:T;

Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity

Figure 5b. Libyan/Cities Palette, reverse: Cairo Museum CG14238. Drawing by Marion Cox.

object is an ivory imitation cylinder seal (fig. 6) showing King Narmer, perhaps thelast king before the 1st Dynasry, in the form of the catfish hieroglyph that writes hisname. rvielding a club to smite Libyan enemies.

The palette has three registers of cattle, donkeys, and sheep, with two registersof trees beneath them and the hieroglyphic group lhnw'Llbya' at the right-handedge. This word thus appears to characterize the "landscape:' of trees rather than theanimals above, but the animals might be plundered from the landscape, or the Prod-ucts of rhe trees-which may be oil- or fruit-bearing species-could be part of theplunder. The latter point raises little difticulry but the animals are herd animals seenin the Egyptian environment, so they might belong within it rather than outside;the same could then apply to the trees. Thus, this mention of thnw does not nec-essarily refer to a place outside EgyPt, and it has often been suggested that thispalette and similar monuments document an expansion of the Egyptian state ratherthan a campaign abroad.ss Both explanations are possible, and it is probably not

85. For example, Siegfried Schort, Hferoglyphen: (Jntersuchungen zum (Jrpsrung der SehriJt (AA'WLM;.Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1.gil) 24, 19-27.The reading of Manfred Bietak ("La naissance de la notion deville dans I'Egypte ancienne: (Jn acte politique?" CRIPEL 8 [1936] 32) misinterprets the conventionsof decorum under\ing the composition.

366John Baines

s$ ?\-)

Figure 6. Ivory imiyl.-.,, o*C;l fi'ffiin #*ll'3::'_f1.,*1."y3]i, main cempteurawrng by Michdle Germon Rilev.

seal ofE.3915;deposit.

worth attempdng to. resorve the questi.on, because the palette may not record aiff:ru:f'j.ll':'n'i "" id';i;;;',,",.-..,, or domin",,ce. A*empts ro iden-of formation of rhbased

on rhe assumprion that ,h.;t;;.;elonged to the periodgenerations earlier

e Egyptian state' a process which i, ,ro- generally placed somepresence of

"

,.hnffil,,iirlr?"j|'rxn"' i' lo 'o*. ..r"p.in *o.. notabte is the

ove r a re gi o n b y dep ic tin g 1 t,

""

a tr* ;;.'i llll;l::: ffi :#,;l;:":H;mlThis lack of exoticism is, however, h; ro assess. Unlike iate, Egyprian depictionsbut like much in wsrern *r, ;;'o;;.1.,-", simpry represenr a Iocation ou,tsideEgypt in the same form in which o'n;;;:n: ,rr. .r""*ri*."rd be depicted. The;i[l,T::il Tffi.i ;'nfl o*;*;;' rb*ig"- .;;; ;;.,"*,h e ra c,,ha,The sear is similarry org".rized in reglsrers that are cur at an angre by the clubhetd bv the catfish. Berr."th rr,. ."riri'i, ,t. *-a ;;;;.'in... regisrers show,tfil,!H::i;:n- miniarure,."t.-i,,r,. -o,. o.o,i."lioi. incruded, but the1*b:,,"'."0,'".,,:i{'ri:'J':#:X.:::i::ilfr X..il;1,;;lj*}U:Xthree figures, perhaps redupricating ilr. ;.ri.., of pr,rJirr. arrrt. foreign figures

Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity

in the iconographies of many societies, these are not grotesquely distorted but arequite close in form to figures of Egyptians of the same period.86 They lack strongethnic features.

Two features of these objects may be singled our: their relatively domestic pre-sentation of Libya and Libyans; and their classificatory characrer.

The contrast between this undistorted representation of Libyan enemies and ex-treme conceptions of foreigners in other sociefies may relate more generally to a so-ciery's modes of verbal and visual representation and to its relations with the worldoutside. "Realistic" representational forms are characteristic of well-established civi-lizations, and the tendency to develop them signifies more than just technicalaccomplishment.8T Extremes of distortion are known from small-scale and self-contained societies. A classic example of verbal conceptions in ethnographic litera-ture is the Lugbara of Uganda, who conceive of symbolic reversals of the normalhuman form as one moves away from their world, so that those who reside a coupleof days' journey away walk upside-down.88 Like the Egyptians, the Lugbara mainrainordinary relations with those whom they encounter from outside and can thus sepa-rate ideological conceptions from everyday experiences.

on these objects the Libyans appear as people defined as not being Egyptian bybeing shown in subjection, almost more than they seem ro be foreigners. Someeiements in Libyan iconography, such as the penis sheath,8e have parallels amongEgyptians of rhe period, so their costume alone cannot prove that they are foreign.They are also shown in well-ordered forms in which Egyptians also might beshown-as if they were incorporared among Egyptians as defeated but accepted,rather than as enemies. An enduring analogy for such a status is the treatment ofnative Egyptian 'subjects' (rfujt), people who are presented neither as enemies noras foreigners.eO on the Scorpion Macehead, roughly conremporary with the Lib-yan Palette, the 'subject5' x1e 5hown as lapwings suspended by the neck from the

86. The late 18th Dynasty Memphite tomb of Haremhab presenrs markedly contrasted rypes ofEgyptians and foreigners: the Egyptians are suave and almost dandified, while the foreignen havestrongly cast, wrinkled features. Even here, however, there is little distorcion in depicrion. See Geoff-rey Thorndike Martin, The Memphite Tomb of Horemheb, Commander-in-Chief of Ti.rtcankhamiln I: TheReliefs, Insuiptions, anil Commentary (MEES 55; London: Egypt Exploration Sociery 19d9) pls. 78-117.

87. Compare the argument from Egyptian representational art: John Baines, "Theories and Uni-venals of Representation: Heinrich Schdfer and Egyptian Art," Art History 8 (1985) 1-25.

88. John A. Middleton, "Some Social Aspects of Lugbara Myth," reprinted tn Myth and Cosmos:Readings in Mythology and Symbolism (ed. John A. Middleton; Garden Ciry N.Y: Natural HistoryPress, 1967) 47-61.

89. See John Baines, " lAnkh-sign, Belt and Penis Sheath," &{K 3 (1975) 7-24. To the Egyptianexamples cited there should be added numerous ivories and other objects from the beginning of thedynastic period.

90. For example, Christine Favard-Meeks, "Le Delta igyprien jusqu'i la fondarion d'Alexandrie,"S/K 16 (1959) 62-63. Her view of rhe rftjt as marginal inhabitants of the Egyprian cosmos is prob-lematic, but this could be part of the meaning of the term.

368John Baines

Figure 7. Macehead of King Scorpion, Oxford, Ashmolean MuseurrMarion Cox. e ---'rtv't' varurur nsnmolean Museum E.3632; drarving by

i":T'":':::;T:',,1: Y#::::,'i:i::: ,"j.]T, s1,ds (ng 7) e, La,ers,a,ues,il:j" i' ;::.-:1, j1. -t'.f Pr'. "*,a . ".t* : ; ;;?'T- ffi , :l

,*;;*: :ly",,ni"..o '" lJ;i"* l,;ili":,,"?:;; Hj*:":'::ic on o grap hi. s.h. m.. L, . o

-p,.i ;;;' ;;' ;# i: il:T-JHI" 1""'.Tt ::^'." . i :king'" ^."r-

c,,L:^^.- -r Y .rot"*,,::l

::l-'ects, tfe Libyans

";;;;; mirdty.ance over the

*::.li'"':::i:1., incrusion ., ."rool";;;; ."._ies is nrsrlr.::X:::.::i:.n"...,,.".*.]lJffi #.ff ::'n::ir:#:L,";,'|:*Tfi :,IJlfi::::i:,TilK::r:*::.q:'ffi *Til:ffiTjll:ii'ff,1,::of standards is preserved). The Nine;"*r;;;.t;: t;dir*;,U:n:flit '#;::::.i:ililt:#:::iii,:tiilil*il::.,1t:ffi;:I,il,,::,*:..-:ltl:r Er_".Ede, .ZuNAI,L//- to.r- , . ^- ,1NAWG 1'e63:1: ros-ri For a new ot,.*J""'""ffH"il;:i'r*r::.;i.:x*,xxtmacehead, see patrick Gauthier *a neriJ"'n4rJ.rrrR.yn.r, ..La t6te de marchlo^-Nij 5 (1995) g7-127. ----tt-rteynes, "La t6te de massue du roi Scoqpion,,;rr{{;.llil'ililTifii*,t

,}i'?'J]' rhe step Pvrumi,t (SAE, Excavations at saqqara; cairo: rm-93. Eric Uphill, ..The Nine Bows,,,J EOL Ig (1965_66) 393_420.

Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity 369

A full listing of their names is not known before the reign of Amenhotpe III(ca. 1360 n.c.e.), but their iconography occurs on rhe statue of Djoser just cited,where they are placed under the king's feet, in an image repeated endlessly in laterperiods. There is no reason for thinking that the list of the "bows" changed radicallybetween early times and the New Kingdom. The full list includes Upper and LowerEgypt, as do some lists of regions either dominated by or bringing offerings to rheking, who is thus shown with even his own country in crude subjection. This pe-remptory assertion of the king's dominance is most prominent in iconography, whilethe image projected in texts is generally less fierce; this discrepancy lies partly in thecharacters of the different media. The violent aspect was probably advantageous assomething from which he could graciously depart. It was also in harmony with thevision that order and disorder pervaded and threatened the ordered cosmos. Egyp-tians and foreigners were surely aware that it was schematic and not realistic.e+

The Libyan features on the palette are probably cosmographic insofar as they areplaced in the lower part, where marginal elements were norrnally shown. The treat-ment is at the same time strongly classificatory, with the listing of booty' on the pal-ette, while the inclusive composition of the seal is so closely comparable with 5thDynasry and later temple reliefs of Libyan captives (fig. 8) ot that the latter may usethe same basic schema, which survived as late as the end of the dynastic period,when it featured in the western quadrant of schematic circular representations of thecosmos.e6 The temple reliefs include animal boory depicted and enumerated, as wellas totals of numbers of captives, and thus fuse the content of the palette and the seal.The "family" of the chief trampled by the king have Egyptian-seeming names, andthe Libyan group has the Egyptian name h3tjw-'.

Among representations of enemies brought in subjection by the gods to theking,"7 the set piece of the Libyans is the most powerful definition of where theEgyptians sited the boundaries of their world: at. an almost arbitrary point close tothemselves, where they could know and inventory what they subjected and/or re-jected, even if it was similar in character to themselves. As with the annals of Thut-mose III, a reading of the Libyan relie{b that integrates them into a classificatorycontext and into decorum does not lead to the comprehension of a particularevent: the same statistics and names of captives were inscribed whenever the relief

94. Variations in the presentation of foreigners in different sources and contexts are taken intoaccount throughout Liverani, Prestige and Interest.

95. This point has often been commented on. See, for exampie, Jean Leclant, "La'famille libyenne'au Temple Haut de P6pi ler," IFAO: Liure du Centenaire 1880-1980 (ed. Jean Vercoutter; = MIFAO104 U980]) 49-54. The most informative version is that of Sahure: Ludwig Borchardt et al., Das Grab-denkmal iles Kiinigs SaShu-Re' II: Die Wandbiller (Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft inAbusir 1902-1908 7; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1913) pls. 1-3. For the 25th Dynasty scene of Taharqa, seen. 141 here.

96. J.l.Cldre, "Fragments d'une nouvelle repr6sentation 6gyptienne du monde," MDAIK 16(1es8) 30-46.

97. Borchardr, Das Crabilenkmal des Kdnigs Sa3f;u-Re'Il,pls. 5-7, again preserves the best example