The King as a Historical Figure
Another explanation for at least some of the images may be found in an increased interest in the past in the New Kingdom (Redford 1986: 171). This can be seen at state level in the Eighteenth Dynasty at monuments such as that of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri, which was inspired by the nearby temple of Nebepetre-Mentuhotep.
Depictions in personal tombs showed a desire by the owners to emulate the past as well as to visit commemorative sites; the tomb of Rekhmire from Thebes (TT100 dating from the reigns of Thutmose III-Amenhotep II) includes scenes of hunting in the desert and of the transportation of a sarcophagus that may have been taken from the older tomb of Antefoker25 (Einaudi 2008: 59), a tomb that is known to have been visited by Egyptian people in the New Kingdom, possibly because of a depiction of Senwosret I within it (Fischer-Elfert 2003: 132). Private sculpture from the early New Kingdom, such as the statues of Amenhotep, son of Hapu (whose career dates to the reign of Amenhotep III26), at Karnak, also show an emulation of Middle Kingdom statuary (Baines 1989: 142). The emphasis, therefore, in the early part of the Eighteenth Dynasty was on emulating the art of the past and not simply in the history of specific individuals.The halting of archaism during the Amarna Period may, however, have led to a slightly different emphasis on the past in the period which followed it - the Ramesside interest in the past was more cultural and conceptual, elevating it to ‘the status of an ideal to be lived up to' (Assmann 2003: 273), unlike in the earlier part of the New Kingdom where the interest was focused more strongly on the emulation of artistic styles. This can be seen in the popular copying of ‘instruction’ texts in the Ramesside Period, such as the Teaching of Amenemhat I for his son Senwosret. Another example of this is the restoration of ancient monuments by Ramesside kings, which included the pyramids of Sahure, Userkaf and Djoser under Khaemwase in the reign of Ramesses II (Snape 2011: 470).
Many of these became objects of pilgrimage in the New Kingdom, such as the burial site of the pharaoh Djoser at Saqqara, and those at Giza. Graffiti from the sites testify to this; one example from the North Chapel at Saqqara reads ‘there came the scribe... to see the temple of Djoser’ (Navratilova 2007: 76).This shows that the scribe deliberately came to the area to visit the mortuary buildings of specific past kings. Morrissey (2001: 159) emphasizes the importance of the tomb in remembrance, not just as a site for private pilgrimage, but also in state and official ideology.27 This can be seen in the orientation of Ramesses Il's West Hall at Memphis which looked towards the Old Kingdom monuments found at the Memphite necropolis, possibly to emphasize his association with the kings of the past (Snape 2011: 466-7). By emphasizing royal mortuary sites, the state was ensuring that they retained a place in the cultural landscape of the country and was making them a part of the present. Private visits to these sites suggest that this was successful, and that these sites became lieux de memoire for groups of people in the Ramesside Period. Wildung (1969: 69-72) has suggested that visitors to ancient sites were going not out of historical interest, but to profit from the mortuary cults of the deceased, who they saw as mediums between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Yet even if this was the reason for the visits, they still helped to expound the people's knowledge of past individuals both royal and non-royal, which could then form a basis for the cultural memory of the people.But interest in the past was not just based in the emulation of art and culture and the visiting of ancient monuments; there was a focus by the Ramesside kings on genealogy. This is emphasized by Boureau (2001: 187) as a key part in the creation of a national cultural memory. The interest in genealogy can be seen at a state level in monuments such as the temple of Seti I at Abydos which includes a king list naming 76 kings from the First Dynasty onwards (David 1973: 196-8).
Depictions in the Ramesseum of the Min Festival show 14 royal ancestors (Lepsius 1849-58: 162-3) and the 400-year stela of Ramesses II claims to trace back the line of kings for 400 years (Kitchen 1996: 117). It is highly likely that the state used its links with the past to create a sense of legitimacy, especially in times when it felt threatened, or to stabilize a new dynasty, a situation that can be postulated for the early Ramesside kings who came to the throne after a period of uncertainty and without a blood link to the former rulers (Redford 1986: 191). In unifying the country at the beginning of the New Kingdom, Ahmose repeated, in many ways, the actions of Nebhepetre-Mentuhotep several centuries before. Therefore it was natural for the early Eighteenth Dynasty to create links with, and emulate, the kings of the Middle Kingdom, to create a sense of legitimacy and erase the memory of the Intermediate Period. Morrissey (2001: 151) emphasizes the importance of specific kings in cultural memory as representatives of a break with the past and the beginning of a new era. After the upheavals of the Amarna Period and its immediate aftermath there was a desire by the state to link itself with a period of calm and security, and it chose the early Eighteenth Dynasty, with kings such as Amenhotep I (as arguably the first king of a new, unified kingdom) becoming of great importance, especially at Thebes. King lists created genealogies reaching back to the First Dynasty (David 1973: 196) but public cultic activity tended to focus on the more recent past, that of the Eighteenth Dynasty; festivals such as the Beautiful Feast of the Valley primarily visited sites linked with New Kingdom pharaohs, a notable exception perhaps being that of Nebhepetre-Mentuhotep, the ‘ancestor’ of the early Eighteenth Dynasty kings. This focus can be seen in private tomb depictions, of which a vast majority include kings of the New Kingdom.28There is evidence for an interest in genealogy and ancestry among the elite, but can this same interest be assumed for the lower levels of society? Evidence from Deir el-Medina definitely suggests at least an awareness of personal ancestors in the period, with ancestor busts and akh iqr n Re playing a role in the spiritual lives of the inhabitants (Friedman 1985: 83-5; Fitzenreiter 2008: 94ff), and images of the deceased offering to his or her parents in tomb depictions being found (e.g.
Pillet 1930: figs 99, 103). A scene from the tomb of Neferhotep29 shows a line of ancestors (Hari 1985: pl. l), and a scene from TT51, of Userhat dating from the reign of Seti I, shows another scene in which ancestors of the deceased worship Monthu (Davies 1927: pl. xv). Both of these scenes show an interest in personal ancestors in the period. Possibly, therefore, scenes of royal ancestors could be seen as an extension of this interest in the past - royal figures played a role in the lives of the people and so were treated in a similar way to private ancestors. However, this does not explain how people gained their knowledge of past kings. Images of kings in private tombs in this period include the accurate cartouches of kings, suggesting that the people had reliable sources of knowledge of royal ancestry. One is, therefore, left with the sense that these images of kings were the result of more than simply a general interest in the past, which manifested itself in an interest in both private and royal ancestors.Again, it is arguable that knowledge of royal ancestors, which led to the creation of private king lists,30 was gleaned from a variety of sources in the lives of the people. One example is found at Saqqara from the tomb of Tjuneroy which contains a list of kings from the First Dynasty to Ramesses II (Martin 1991: 123). Two key points arise from this king list. The first is its very existence, which may be attributed to Tjuneroy's position as the chief lector priest of deified rulers.31 In contrast, no such list has been found connected with the tomb of his brother, Paser, who was the Overseer of Builders of the Lord of the Two Lands (Sharpe 1837: 2). It is possible that the inclusion of the king list in the tomb of Tjuneroy was due to court demands linked with his position, but it does show that the active role of rulers in life could translate into a place for these rulers in the tomb - Tjuneroy had a close connection with the deceased rulers through his position as lector priest of deified rulers and chose to commemorate this in his tomb.
It is also interesting that certain kings are not included in the list. This was probably due to limited space, but the choice of which rulers to ignore is telling. Parts of the Sixth and Eighth dynasties were excluded, a fact that Redford (1986: 23) has attributed to the lack of functioning mortuary cults relating to these kings in the area in the time of Tjuneroy. Therefore, only kings whose cult played a part in Tjuneroy's life, and the lives of those he interacted with, were deemed worthy of a place in his tomb - those who had no place in the cultural memory of the group32 were ignored. Possibly the choice of kings depicted could also be attributed to a lack of knowledge of kings whose mortuary cults he had no involvement in. The kings who played an active role in his life were well known to him and so he was able to commemorate them in his tomb. Those who had a less active role or no cult in the area were not known to him, and so he was unable to record them in his tomb. At Thebes, 10 out of 13 kings included in private king lists in tombs in the period had functioning mortuary cults in the area. Again, this correlation may suggest that active cults both encouraged an interest in, and knowledge of, royal ancestors. The temples, and the cultic activity related to them ensured that the king remained a part of the lives of the people.Graffiti found at Thebes demonstrates, again, an awareness of past kings. Royal names included in graffiti in the area include Nebhepetre-Mentuhotep, Amenhotep III, Horemheb and the early Ramesside kings.33 Each individual example did not usually include more than two or three names, but they show both knowledge of past kings, and that they were considered important enough by the people to be written down. Perhaps graffiti can be seen as a more spontaneous representation of the ideas that were important to the community at the time, as they were less likely to be the result of careful planning or court instruction than tomb depictions were.
Another interesting list at Saqqara is a fragment from a Nineteenth Dynasty tomb.34 The depiction on it consists of three registers; the top register shows a row of seated kings; the second includes five viziers and eight Memphite high priests of Re such as the Old Kingdom viziers Imhotep and Kaires; the bottom register shows five minor priests and eight chief embalmers, which again includes names from the past such as the lector priest Kha-kheper-Re-seneb (Simpson 2003: pl. 6). This shows an interest not only in kings of the past but in private individuals. Of course, it has been suggested that this tomb may have belonged to the son of Ramesses II, Khaemwase, but this is unconfirmed (Fischer-Elfert 2003: 130-1). Regardless, it remains an interesting insight into an interest in the old sages and it implies that Ramesside interest in past kings may have been linked to a more general interest in the past that included other, non-royal individuals.The increase in royal images in private tombs in the Ramesside Period could also be attributed to an increased interest recording popular culture. The spread of popular culture can be examined by looking at the literature of the period. While texts in the pre-Amarna Period tended to be written in the language of Middle Kingdom Egypt, many of those written in the post-Amarna Period, the Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties (c. 1295-1069 bce), were recorded in a form of Late Egyptian that was closely related to the language that would have been spoken at the time (Fischer-Elfert 2003: 119; Assmann 2003: 273). This suggests a wider, more popular appeal. The New Kingdom copying of older texts also served a purpose in the development of cultural memory. The Teaching of Amenemhat I for his son Senwosret, and the Instruction of Ptahhotep, for example, helped to encourage a knowledge of figures of the past within popular culture - people became familiar with past kings, and private individuals as well, not through an interest in the history of the country, but through reading popular texts, and through scholarly study of the ‘instructions' and ‘tales' that were reproduced. This gave students more access to popular written history than previously.35 It also suggests a greater desire for access to this form of culture, as without a greater demand there would have been little need for an increased supply. Love songs may be seen as another example of this; the only written evidence of this form of popular culture comes from the Ramesside Period (Foster 1974: xvi), which supports the idea that Ramesside Egyptians had a previously unseen desire to record their popular culture, perhaps as a way of creating their own individual identity after a period of unrest. Or perhaps, the decrease in archaism during the Amarna Period, and the subsequent ‘cultural gap' led to an increased desire to record current popular culture which might fill the gap. Of course, this perceived increase in literary activity may be, at least in part, due to the better preservation of records from sites such as Deir el-Medina in this period, but it is to be assumed that this is not the only explanation for the high numbers of evidence for literary activity in the period. Perhaps then, the increase in images of deceased kings in private tombs in the Ramesside Period can be attributed simply to a stronger desire by the people to record popular culture. This included creating depictions of festivals and images that played a part in their lives. They witnessed statues of the kings at processions as well as within shrines and temples - many of the members of the community acted as priests for some of the time and so would have had access to parts of the temple complexes even if common people did not.36 Therefore, the depictions of these statues were no more than a representation of the popular culture of the people of Ramesside Egypt; they were autobiographical, in the way that images of living kings in the earlier part of the New Kingdom were - this may have turned them into a part of the communicative memory of the group, but does not support the suggestion that they were a part of the cultural memory. However, even if the images themselves were autobiographical, the statues of kings that played a part in the lives of the people, and the festivals connected with them, were more than that. These images of kings spanning generations had evidently become a part of the cultural memory of the group, a lieu de memoire.