Egypt During the Old Kingdom
From a series of wars among city-states, Egypt eventually became organized into Upper and Lower (Delta) Egypt. Sometime after 3000 B.C. the kings of Upper Egypt extended their control over Lower Egypt until the king Menes (Narmer), the first Egyptian king for which there are written records, united the two kingdoms under his rule in 2900 B.C. Ruling from the city of Memphis, the first two dynasties of united Egypt established the basic institutions of Egyptian civilization which lasted with few profound changes for almost 3,000 years.
The initial historical event that the Egyptians recorded was the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. Historically, the idea of two kingdoms never died away, which is evidenced by the Egyptians continued use of the phrase, “the two lands,” in their historical, geographical, and religious records. The kings traditionally wore the two crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, were officially titled King of Upper and Lower Egypt, maintained two sets of many government departments, and duplicated rituals of coronation and burial. Geographically, the differences between the Mediterranean oriented Delta and the interior valley persisted. Perhaps most significantly, the religious nature of the kingship came directly from the unification of the two lands.
In their mythopoeic view, a basic principle of the cosmos was that totality resulted from equilibrium of opposites. Thus the Egyptians viewed the struggle between Upper and Lower Egypt as a struggle between two gods, Horus (Upper) and Seth (Lower). Out of their struggles a higher total harmony was achieved and embodied in the person of the king. Egyptians regarded their king as a god. Kingship was not a human institution, it was a divine institution established at the moment of the creation of the world. Egyptian theology linked the whole order of creation with the establishment by Menes of the unified land of Egypt.
The Memphite theology elevated Ptah, originally only the local god of Memphis, to the creator-god. All other gods, including the sun god Re, or Ra, were manifestations or emanations of Ptah. According to legend, Ptah created the universe because he first had a conception of it in his mind (or heart, as the Egyptians designated it because they believed thought emanated from the heart), and it came into existence when Ptah spoke with his tongue. Religious texts record that when Ptah had created all things, he was satisfied and he rested.
Ptah was linked with two important deities – Horus, the great falcon sky god, and his father, Osiris, god of the dead who had been slain by his brother but resurrected by his sister/wife Isis so that they could produce Horus. The living king was designated as the god Horus; at death the king became Osiris. In this context, the myth of succession was re-enacted. Horus and Osiris symbolized the royal succession from dead king to living successor. (For a full exposition on the importance of these myths, see the section on Egyptian Religion and Monotheism, below).
In mythopoeic societies, names possess a magical significance, and a being does not need to have a single name because he does not have a single identity. Thus the king had several other names, the most important being Son of Re, the sun god, who later came to be regarded as the creator and first king of Egypt. By the third dynasty the king began being referred to as Pharaoh, which means Great House (Egyptian: per-o), although this was not his official title until the 15th century B.C.
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