The Sphere of Influence

As the Egyptian state settled into the course it was to traverse for the third millennium bce, Pharaoh began to give conscious expression to the vital interests he was becoming increasingly aware of in the country's immediate environs.

There came into being, then, the notion of loyalty and compliance born of one's obligations towards a god on earth. A compliant headman of a town in Canaan could be said to be ‘on the water of Pharaoh',1⁷ a term drawn from the cooperation required in the smooth running of the irrigation system in Egypt. If he acquiesced in handing over what Pharaoh required of him, he would be rewarded. He might even be invited to Egypt, ‘to behold the beauty of Pharaoh’.^[675] It is important to note that the Egyptian government in the Old Kingdom had no permanent infrastructure, no resident governors, to ensure the dispatch of the items required.^[676] If, however, for whatever reason, the foreign headmen proved dilatory and truculent, Egypt had cost-effective and efficient ways of enforcing its will. A contingent of troops would be dis­patched to the town of the reluctant mayor to collect the commodities demanded, and possibly to demolish the settlement as an object lesson to others.^[677] The Egyptians brooked no opposition.

On issues considered of vital importance to the state, Egyptians were in the habit of conjuring up, and countering, a worst-case scenario. If a chief within Egypt’s sphere of influence persisted in his recalcitrance, and if immediate punishment could not for some reason be resorted to, the state had recourse to the power of magic. On red bowls or terracotta figurines were written the names of chiefs, their territories, wives, families, armies and herds, followed by a precatory subjunctive, willing the annihilation of the aforesaid. Bowls or figurines were then ritually smashed. Although one might have expected a species of tokenism in this pejorative exercise, the attention to comprehen­sive detail of an onomastic and geographic nature makes the ‘Execration Texts’ of prime historical importance.^[680]

One item in our putative list of requisitions forced on loyal chiefs, which we often overlook, is manpower, a strange desideratum in the light of the size of the native Egyptian population. And yet the acquisition of foreign labour dominated their thinking to an inordinate degree. Expeditions we might consider designed to promote peaceful trade, clearly turn out to be slave raids, uprooting native settlements, especially in Nubia, and transporting thousands to Egypt. Resistance brought lethal, fanatical reprisals: fields and grain stocks were fired, and captives sometimes impaled. Such violent methods for a time cowed the natives into voluntarily surrendering to their new Egyptian owners, although as time wore on the obvious advantage of working for good rations in Egypt far outweighed the prospect of dying of hunger in the desert as a ‘free man'. Vilified and demonised by the Egyptians in their own native habitat, foreigners forcibly transplanted to Egypt and acclimated to Egyptian ways were accepted and interwoven into Egyptian society.^[681] Those who came to terms - such as Nhsyw htpw, ‘treaty Nubians' - were settled in towns with tasks to perform, both civil and military.^[682] The practice, commonplace in New Kingdom times, of assigning resident foreign­ers work in the fields or on construction sites had begun already in the Old Kingdom.