Scaling the State: Egypt in the Third Millennium BC

Abstract

Discussions of the early Egyptian state suffer from a weak consideration of scale. Egyptian archaeologists derive their arguments primarily from evidence of court cemeteries, elite tombs, and monuments of royal display. The material informs the analysis of kingship, early writing, and administration but it remains obscure how the core of the early Pharaonic state was embedded in the territory it claimed to administer. This paper suggests that the relationship between centre and hinterland is key for scaling the Egyptian state of the Old Kingdom (ca. 2,700-2,200 BC). Initially, central administration imagines Egypt using models at variance with provincial practice. The end of the Old Kingdom demarcates not the collapse, but the beginning of a large-scale state characterized by the coalescence of central and local models.

Size Matters - Understanding Monumentality Across Ancient Civilizations

“…Along similar lines, Mirsolav Bárta (2013) has seen the Giza pyramids as symbolizing the transition to a fully-f ledged administration in Egypt. I have argued elsewhere that the gigantic pyramids might ref lect the beginning of the territorial integration of the country and that the planned arrangement on the cemetery foregrounds the royal family as the core of court society, thus emphasizing dynastic inheritance patterns (Bussmann 2014;. Whatever the most adequate interpretation, historical context matters for explaining why and how gigantism at Giza happened in this particular period.…”

Ceramic Perspectives on Ancient Egyptian Society

“…Some provincial archaeological data do mitigate the disparity, pointing to local identities and local power. Provincial temples of the Old Kingdom existed with little connection to the king or central architectural styles, dedicated to local deities (Bussmann, 2014;Kemp, 2006: 116-35), suggesting localized spheres of activity. Art suggests the provincial elite played with centralized ideals and local ideologies, identities, and priorities (Vischak, 2015).…”

“…Egyptian economy in the third millennium BC did not act as two spheres (royal versus provincial). Rather, there were many local spheres that interacted with, but do not appear to have been well-integrated with, the royal administration (see also Bussmann, 2014).…”

Embodied labors during the state formation of Egypt and Nubia (ca. 4800–1750 BCE): Elucidating transformations in behavioral patterns with entheseal changes

“…However, the processes of state development during the Old Kingdom (ca. 2700–2150 BCE) were needed to achieve greater assimilation of the ideology of the elites into the bulk of society (Bussmann, 2014).…”